With A Little M-10: The History of MAC

It’s interesting how the concept of the machine pistol has two seperate divergent concepts. When I say “machine pistol” as a term, your mind will automatically cycle to one of two form factors for that phrase. Either it’s:

1: A pistol with full auto capability, akin to the Stechkin APS, the Glock 18 or a variety of 1900’s era designs like the M712 Schnellfeuer. Loud, abrasive and firing too fast to be used for anything practical, speaking generally. But there is also option two.

2: A submachine gun in the size bracket of a pistol, usually a large one. This fits a wider niche of designs, including the Interdynamic MP9/Intratec TEC-9, Steyr TMP/B&T MP9, the Vz. 61 Skorpion is one as is every design from the PP-91 Kedr to the constant vaporware FMG-9. Despite most people agreeing that the submachine gun is “outdated” with shorter barreled rifles and PDW’s, the small form factor of these machine pistols keeps them alive as close quarters weapons for VIP protection, operations within small environments and as vehicle crew weapons.

Now, both of these concepts are accurate, and both draw their history from a variety of sources. For the machine pistols of Type 1, it’s generally either niche requirements or trying to make the best of both a pistol and a submachine gun like the APS. A noble concept but one that doesn’t hold up under any real scrutiny. But the latter one is more interesting. Close quarters protection firearms have existed for decades prior to the current day, the TMP and the earlier UC-9 concepts prove that. However, when you look at the details such as production start dates and so on, tracing the lines and lineages back, you find one design in common.

The Military Arms Corporation Model-10. Commonly just called the MAC-10.

A bold assumption to make that all modern machine pistols that aren’t just full auto capable handguns are derived from a design most people consider to be mediocre at best and terrible at worst, but it is a fairly popular design for the era. And almost every machine pistol design bar outlier Combloc firearms like the Vz. 61 or the PM-63 RAK fit this niche. All of them are in the same size profile of a MAC-10, fitting the same role with a variety of simple but needed product improvements over the MAC.  For a design mostly regarded as a failure on the market, it has a long standing influence on the current machine pistol design philosophy, although that’s now beginning to subside for designs like the H&K MP7 or other more modern platforms. But for a while, there were MAC-10’s and MAC-10 wannabes and they still forge onward to this day. So, today we’re going to look into the history of everyone’s favorite machine pistol. The MAC-10 and it’s role as everything from potential military sidearm, suppressed guard popper, criminal ventilator and the gun of choice for one of the largest counter-terrorism schools in America.

Goodbye My Sweetheart, Hello Vietnam

1964. John Fitzpatrick Kennedy has been shot in Dallas at the tail end of the last year by Lee Harvey Oswald, who is later shot by Jack Ruby in the following week. A back-to-back series of tragedies that are blurred together into a haze that blinds the collective American public as other issues of the era begin to mount. In the wake of this, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the new American president, presiding over an America coming to terms with a myriad of issues. Race relations in the south, a floundering economy and still hot world tension from the high point of the Cuban Missile Crisis two years prior. A shame as another issue came bubbling up, and it wasn’t economic or social reforms but one for a conflict thousands of miles away from Mainland America.

A decade prior, the French had failed in a war that was half a century in the making. Ever since their takeover of Indochina in the 1880’s, the French had fought a conflict to maintain control over the region, its varied peoples and resources. While control seemed to begin to set in during the 1930s with the French protectorate Empires of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, these would be smashed by the onset of World War II. As the Japanese expanded deeper into China, they’d also begin working on the various European territory holdings of Southeast Asia, including French Indochina. While nominally running it as an extension of Vichy France, the fact was that these Empires now were under Japanese control. This would increase the oppression down on the Indochinese groups, and would begin to ferment a new revolution that would form the concept of the League for the Independence of Vietnam coalition group. The Viet Minh.

During the war, the Viet Minh would operate an insurgent campaign against the Vichy French, the Japanese and collaborator groups with constant funding by groups like the OSS and SOE. They’d also see the return and rise of their leader, Ho Chi Minh who had finally managed to arrive in Vietnam after returning to Asia from his studies in the Soviet Union. It would be him to help rally the army of the Viet Minh and achieve more and more victories against the Japanese. With the passing of V-J Day, the collapse of the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere and soon the Empire of Vietnam came and the Viet Minh took advantage of the fragmented Allied response to who owned Vietnam to create the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. While noble, this would last a whopping 20 days before a French force would reintegrate the provinces of Indochina into the new “French Union” that made up all former French Empire territories. Initially, Ho Chi Minh and high ranking members of the Viet Minh wanted to see if compromise was achievable with a variety of talks with the French on the concept of Vietnamese independence. But nothing would come of it with the French refusing to balk, and soon conflict began again, with the Minh against a new colonial overlord, their old one. The First Indochina War started in 1946, a seven year long conflict going on until 1954. It was a war pockmarked by a longstanding insurgency, while the French tried to maintain their new State of Vietnam in the South and North, and handling the issues of a lack of air power and recruits not willing to die in a place such as this. As the war dragged on, the French would try anything to bait the Viet Minh into a direct engagement, leading to the concept of Dien Bien Phu.

Aiming to drop a large amount of paratroopers to cut off supplies coming into the north from neighboring Laos, the new and seventh French commander to the French Union Henri Navarre would draw up the concept of the air-land base, and used the previous French victory at Na San to develop his idea. The aim was simple: drop soldiers and maintain a constant supply of weapons and equipment with air power donated kindly by the United States. While this concept had worked at Na San, Dien Bien Phu was a different case. Different terrain, area, weather conditions, and tactics for both sides. The Vietnamese wisely elected to not repeat the same attack plan as Na San, and would fortify the valley hills around the landing point of the French. And so, when the battle began, the French found themselves wedged between hills dotted with Viet Minh and their AA and artillery firepower. Over the next month, the French would be whittled further and further to an outright surrender as the battle became an encirclement and was broken. Dien Bien Phu marked the end of the First Indochina War, and would lead to the 1954 Geneva Conference. 

Created to settle both the Korean War and the French Indochina conflict in the same meeting, the Geneva Conference of 1954 would see France forced to give up Indochina. The Kingdom of Laos and Cambodia would be allowed freedom, but France still wanted to be involved in Vietnam. As a compromise between both the Communist signatories as well as the NATO ones, the nation of Vietnam would be split at the 17th Parallel between a French involved South and a Vietminh North, with a 3 mile DMZ between the two at the 17th. While both nations were to be independent, an election was to be held in 1956 on the topic of reunification. As such, compromise had been reached. However, things were going to begin tumbling for both sides. The State of Vietnam under Bao Dai, the same former emperor of that “Empire of Vietnam”, had chosen to use a new prime minister to affirm power in the South which was still dominated by the Viet Minh and other insurgent or criminal groups.

That prime minister was Ngo Dinh Diem, a former member of his court who left after declaring Dai a “tool of France”. While initially intended to be a mere puppet, Diem would soon consolidate power in the South via a variety of both legal and illegal means including bribery, arrests and murder. By 1955, he would announce the creation of the Republic of Vietnam by a rigged referendum with him as acting president. His strong arm tactics meant that, when time came for that 1956 vote, he would opt out claiming that North Vietnam had not signed the Geneva Conference accord. As a result, insurgencies began to pop up across the South, backed by the North in the form of the National Liberation Front, or commonly known by its nickname of the Viet Cong. Just as the first war ended, the next began.

Diem’s regime was corrupt to the nines, with the various reform plans either not panning out, having little to no noticeable result or arguably failed to meet goals and caused more problems. To make matters worse, Diem was brutal in crackdowns against supposed communists, with orders like Ordinance No. 6 forcing any member of a “communist” threat to be put under house arrest or imprisonment. He also maintained a large number of re-education camps across the South, initially for suspected communists but soon shifting to Buddhists. Diem was a devout Catholic and one vehemently against Buddhism in a nation that was predominantly Buddhist, and enforced this via a system that privileged Catholics and either denied or simply ignored Buddhists. This constant grating between the two would come to a head in 1963, when Buddhist monks tried to fly yellow flags in the city of Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. This would lead to crackdowns by police, and the death of nine civilians. Protests began to crop up across Vietnam in response, led by Buddhist monks and put down by Diem’s police. On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a monk from a Saigon pagoda, would be dropped off in a busy city intersection with two other monks. One monk would carefully place a pillow on the ground for Duc to sit on, the other would produce a can of gasoline and douse the monk in it. Clasping his prayer beads in hand, Duc would then ignite himself. 

Caught by journalist Malcolm Brown’s now iconic photo, Duc’s sacrifice would be met with widespread sorrow from the Vietnamese people and shock from the world, and critically placed huge strain between Diem’s Regime and the United States. The US forced Diem to agree to the Joint Communique, agreeing to a five point demands list and easing repression on the Buddhists. One that lasted about a day. On June 17, the day after signing, police would meet with 2,000 people still gathered outside of Duc’s pagoda in Saigon, and when the group did not disperse, they’d intervene and a riot ensued. Duc’s body would be re-cremated and buried, and his unburnt heart that had survived both cremations taken in as a holy relic. However in August, ARVN Special Forces enacted a crackdown on a variety of Buddhist pagodas, including the one containing Duc’s ashes and heart, succeeding in stealing his heart. And in doing so, dooming Diem’s regime.

In response to the constant crisis as well as worsening results in the war against the Viet Cong, an inner clique of ARVN officers would form known as the Military Revolutionary Council with less-than-obvious backing by the CIA. Overnight on November 1st of 1963, they began a coup against Diem and his regime, and succeeded in taking any Diem loyalist units off-guard and both Diem and his brother captured within the day. And by the end of the 2nd, both Diem and his brother had been killed in transport by their captors. In replacement of Diem, Duong Van Minh, leader of the junta that led to the coup would take over. He would soon be ousted by another ARVN general in January of 1964, Nguyen Khanh and then Khanh ousted a year later by a new junta headed by Nguyen Cao Ky and so on and so forth. For the next few years, South Vietnam was dominated by a mixture of corrupt military generals, junta officials and even with elections, corrupt presidents. But the critical difference now was one thing. Heavy American involvement in affairs.

Think That I Will Lose My Mind, If I Don’t Find Something To Pacify

American involvement in Vietnam had started from the full evacuation of French forces all the way in 1956, with a steady stream of military advisors and aid through the late 50’s and 60’s becoming the backbone of the fledgling ARVN forces. While nominally America was to be a passive participant in the ongoing war between North and South, the reality of that would begin to sour once Diem had been toppled and replaced by the aforementioned junta. Realistically speaking, the corruption of the ARVN and the South Vietnamese government left most military matters squarely in the hands of the better funded, equipped and less corrupt American garrisons. The issue came down to a fundamental core conflict.

America couldn’t take direct involvement.

By the nature of America’s involvement being based around maintaining peace and trying to assist the ARVN forces, the United States could not take direct action against the North Vietnamese government. This was mostly to avoid a repeat of the Korean War where direct involvement led to the People’s Volunteer Army coming to back the DPRK. While many didn’t want the possibility of a nuclear war with the Chinese and Soviets, the domino theory still held commendable sway in the eyes of many American strategic planners. Should Vietnam fall, then so could most of South East Asia. A paranoia that would lead to the rise of American involvement in a variety of coups, military governments, rebel organizations and violence of the highest order for the rest of the Cold War and into the modern age. As such in this early stage, the plan was a defensive war, built with superior firepower and technology in mind.

Vietnam was still a different war than any other, especially in regards to the engagements themselves. In comparison to Korea which saw mid to long range fighting over the many hills and valleys of the peninsula, Vietnam was unabashedly a close quarters conflict and constant ambushes, base attacks and routs going on within the sub-100 yard range. This was not a problem given the US had now adopted the M16 and replaced the M14, a story I do intend to flesh out further in a later article, but it did leave other areas exposed. Usage of older arms like the M2 Carbine and M3 Grease Gun as well as larger adoption of shotguns like the Stevens Model 77E, Remington 870 and Winchester 1200 proved good counters to the exposure, but there was always room for improvement and the Vietnam War was as much a testbed conflict as it was a proxy war. Many concepts were tried like the helicopter “cavalry” units, armed gunships of both rotor and prop types, jets, napalm and so on. One of the more forgotten parts of that experimentation though, was special forces.

Now, the concept of Special Forces predates Vietnam by a wide margin, with roots running as far back as the Boer Wars and the British Scouts. WWII would prove the concept very viable with the successes of units like David Stirling’s SAS, Ortho Wingate’s Chindits and the US Army’s Ranger Corp, the USMC’s Raiders and so on. A concept for sure, but one in need of refinement and one that would gain it by a combination of the Vietnam War and increased funding from JFK himself in 1961. The United States Army Special Forces, the iconic Green Berets. From there, a slow trickle of other similar units were made such as Navy SEAL/UDT, MAC-V SOG and the 5th Special Forces Group. These new units would take on a new role in regards to the conflict, bridging the gap between intelligence and armed force and providing the most direct form of counter to insurgent activity. A counter insurgent role, if you will.

As such, these units operated with more freedom from the standard Army or Marine in regards to form, equipment and weaponry. They would take their stock from both that of the Armed Forces as well as the arsenals themselves, both modern M16’s, captured AK’s and RPD’s and a variety of legacy firearms. However there was also a large interest in foreign designs that these “operators” had become used to in their more international based work. Designs like the IMI Uzi, the Carl Gustav M/45B and a whole host of prototype weapon systems that would be tested there first before being sent to the US Army.

Designs like the Colt XM148, the Stoner 63 and other oddballs that tagged along like the famous Colt 3X scope. This created an environment of experimentation, modification and most importantly, an interest in anything modern in regards to firearms technology. Anyone could get in, should they have an interesting design. As such, a market began to slowly generate around selling the American military, intelligence community and other groups with a variety of firearms, both benign and special in nature. And the MAC-10 was one of them.

It just needed two minds to meet.

Two Men, Two Designs

The tale of MAC starts with two men specifically. Both WWII vets, both involved in the intelligence community to some extent and both with an interest in firearms design. They are Gordon Ingram and Mitchell WerBell III. The man behind the M-10 and the former secret agent turned one of the largest and most prolific mercenaries of the latter half century. 

Gordon Ingram was a former Navy serviceman who had come out of the war with a mild interest in firearms design, figuring in a post-war world that submachine guns would be popular. As a response, he developed the M-5 SMG, a simple straight blowback tube gun intended for police and military sales. While the latter would never particularly materialize, the former would when the Model 6 became a popular design when sold by Police Ordnance Company. He’d also work briefly for Juan Erquiaga, a Peruvian army officer he had met via Police Ordinance, who had done everything including being the personal armorer to Fidel Castro, selling a modified M1 Garand known as the EM-62 on the American market and intending to sell a Sten style SMG to Costa Rica in the form of the MR-64, designed by one Gordon Ingram. And that sale of MR’s was illegal enough that the Treasury Department got involved and confiscated all of Erquiaga and Ingram’s work. Which included a few new prototypes, as Ingram saw that the market for cheap Thompson’s was getting slimmer. He’d look towards the ZK-476 and the IMI Uzi for his next project, a simple and cheap compact machine gun for the modern age. However, the new “M-10” as he dubbed it was not particularly interesting for the firearms market at the time. As such, while his design was finished in 1964, it didn’t have many prospective buyers interested.

Mitchell WerBell III was the son of a Russian Tsarist cavalry officer, who was a OSS operative during WWII. Serving primarily in Burma, Southern China and Indochina, he’d be exposed to a world of subterfuge, sabotage and overall chaos. While initially returning home and turning to a life as a PR manager for a Atlanta based department store, WerBell would lean heavily on his credentials for a variety of less-than-legal work. He’d rely on his former OSS contacts who had become high ranking members of the CIA by this point, including later Watergate “plumber” and CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, John K. Singlaub who’d later go on to be involved in the bad side of the Iran-Contra Crisis and Lucien Conein, the French CIA operative later who served as liaison for the Military Revolutionary Council who’d overthrow Diem. WerBell would operate first as a security advisor for the Batista Cuban government, and then later supposedly as the representative of the “United Organization for the Liberation of Cuba”. 

Later on, WerBell would begin consultation properly as the security to Rafael Trujillo during the Dominican Civil War, and later would spearhead a plan to invade Haiti with an army of Cuban and Haitian exiles to topple Francois Duvalier. Operation Nassau as it was dubbed would be stopped when several key members were arrested, although none of them were WerBell. While the ever elaborate life of WerBell was appealing, the man wanted to expand into more industries and one of them would become firearms technology. More specifically, suppressors. With his work in the OSS putting him in the front seat to use designs like the OSS modified M3 Grease Guns, Sten MkII(S) and the Welrod, WerBell had seen the potential of suppressors and the concepts that needed refining. More modern baffle systems, better materials for production and overall improvement to the quality. This would lead him to experiment with a variety of suppressor designs and in sizes ranging from .22LR rifles to one’s for the M16 and M14. He’d dub this new enterprise SIONICS, the “Studies In the Operational Negation of Insurgents and Counter-Subversion.” While pitching a concept of developing suppressors for the M16, WerBell would put the call out for investors. 

He’d pool them together into an organization known as Quantum Ordinance Bankers, funding a factory setup in Powder Springs, Georgia not too far from WerBell’s personal ranch. This investment group would also help WerBell find the M-10 design and Gordon Ingram. For Ingram, he would find the match to make his design more practical for potential buyers, and for WerBell he found a good platform to prototype and test his concepts for suppressor design. He’d make a large two stage suppressor for the M-10, and found a new company to consolidate production of the design, as well as suppressors and Quantum. He’d name it the Military Arms Corporation.

MAC’s And Gauges

The M-10 would be introduced properly in 1968, debuting alongside the M-11. They’d come in two caliber options, the 9×19 and .45 ACP alongside the slim .380 ACP M-11 model. All three would be able to be purchased with a SIONICS brand two stage suppressor and for the 9mm models, specially loaded subsonic ammo. The guns themselves were around 6.5~ loaded, with a barrel length of only 5 ¼ inches long. It fired from an open bolt that was telescoped over the breech to make the gun shorter. It also had a compact sliding stock with a folding butt plate to make it more compact. All of this for the cost of around $120 dollars in 1968. 

On paper, this sounds like a good deal.

In practice, it wasn’t. 

The critical issue with the M-10 that most people know it for is the rate of fire, it’s now the iconic part of the design if you mention it now. Due to the short bolt travel, light weight of the bolt and little to no buffering in it, the M-10 series fired at around 1,000 RPM in full auto, varying up with caliber options. The 9mm models tended to err on the side of 1,100 to 1,200 RPM and the .380 ACP M-11 was a whopping 1,500. That is a ludicrous rate of fire for any firearm, let alone a submachine gun in the size and shape of the M-10. While technically speaking, having a gun in the size bracket of the M-10 with that kind of firepower was useful, it was useful to only certain agencies. As a result, the M-10 would sell but sluggishly. The combination with SIONICS would help, the two-stage suppressor not only gave the gun a niche as a compact silenced weapon but also a handgrip at the front to improve controllability. WerBell was also a relentless marketer, going on tour throughout Vietnam and Southeast Asia selling commanders of various units on the SIONICS suppressor and the M-10. So much so that, while in theater, he was the target of a North Vietnamese assassin. Who he promptly killed, took his gun and continued on his way.

Back in the States, Ingram would also acquire a few other major designers to begin diversifying the designs and workflow of MAC. The first was John P. Foote, a former designer who had worked with Eugene Stoner and would begin development of some rifle prototypes while at MAC. The other was Maxwell Atchisson, the name most people know of due to the AA-12 shotgun. Atchisson would provide a .22 LR conversion kit to the M16, as well as working on the prototypes for the AA-12 that would come around later in 1972. While Ingram wanted to begin exploring other designs, and this new blood began to flesh MAC out into other prospects, there was a problem that began to loom heavier over the company. 

Quantum and the backers of the company when it was created under WerBell’s orders. While the company was beginning to see wider sales, both to civilian, police and military buyers, they were not meeting on the supposed quotas for said sales. Even worse, WerBell had secured their funding and interest primarily by a set of less than truthful quotes on both overall interest in the M-10 as well as potential buyers. Going so far as to claim that the US Military was interested in buying the M-10 as a replacement for the M1911A1. This claim had no backing, and with the development costs of Ingram’s new design team lineup as well as WerBell’s constant trips to Southeast Asia, the costs were mounting and the inner circle of Quantum were becoming more and more displeased. In 1972, they would pool enough resources to cut both Ingram and WerBell out of the MAC equation. Both were fired from the company, with Foote and Atchisson soon following. Which is a brilliant idea if you want your company to lose.

The issue was that the company was built by those two, and cutting them out of the equation for the sake of simple profits would mean they’d lose out on both Ingram’s technical expertise and his cadre of designers and WerBell’s deep pockets, relentless advertising and a Rolodex filled with the best and worst intelligence contacts to sell the design to. MAC would begin to flounder even more than it already was. While purchases by the Navy SEALs and other agencies buoyed the company, the drawdown in the Vietnam War slaked interest in weapons like the M-10. Even worse, the State Department would put a ban on the export sale of suppressors, cutting into the little niche that MAC still had. This would lead to a death spiral the company would not be able to get out of, and only two years after pushing WerBell and Ingram out were MAC having to default to creditors. By the end of 1975, they had gone bust. In bankruptcy proceedings, the tooling, equipment and flats of both uppers and lower receivers would be sold off out of their former plant in Marietta, Georgia. Thus beginning the second life of the M-10 by those who attended the auction. 

RPB/SWD/Cobray

Following the collapse of MAC, three former employees by the name of Ray Roby, Charles Pitts and Richard Brueggeman would buy a stock of upper and lower components and reopen production of MAC derivatives under the name of RPB Industries. An abbreviation of their names. While they had some interesting sales, they were constantly cash strapped and limped into the late 70’s on low production and profits. The company would be bought out in 1978 by Wayne Daniels, a former floor machinist who had gotten enough investors involved to buy out from the original trio. He’d reset production in Atlanta, Georgia, opening up lines for producing other variations of the M-10 and at just the right time. 

Back in 1973, the movie McQ would come out starring John Wayne in a role outside his standard Western fair starring in a modern police drama. Made after Wayne had declined a role as Harry Callahan, it seemed to a lot of movie goers to be a bit of a make-up for the mistake. In-general, the movie wouldn’t be regarded too well due to stiff performances, but one thing was always noted. Everyone liked McQ’s signature weapon. A M-10 fitted with the distinctive SIONICS suppressor. Wayne had been considered by WerBell as a potential financial backer to MAC in the 60’s, however a few mistakes made by MAC staff during the visit made Wayne flake out of the deal. Namely almost shooting Wayne and his group with a MAC-10 in a briefcase that someone pointed the wrong way. This would be the first movie sighting of a M-10 and kickstart the gun’s new popularity in the eyes of the public. And alongside that came the gun’s popularity in the burgeoning modern firearms market.

As the 1970’s began, the firearms industry was dominated primarily in the steeped in tradition fuddlore of the previous decades. Wood stocked rifles in full size cartridges and no need for semi auto “black guns”. However the popularity of these “black” rifles from vets would trickle down the line, as stories of service became more inflated and war stories took to the silver screen, the life of mercenaries and survivalists became more popular. The birthplace of modern American firearms culture is more steeped in Soldiers of Fortune than it is Guns and Ammo. As a result of this transition, the popularity of those “black guns” began to rise. And the M-10 was one of them, made famous through pulp novels and its iconic shape especially with the suppressor. RPB Industries would begin seeing rising sales for both the semi and full auto versions, as the affordable price meant it was still one of the cheapest submachine guns to buy, tax stamp included. 

Daniels would capitalize on this by also reconnecting with the former MAC staff, starting with none other than WerBell. By this point, WerBell had re-established himself back in Powder Springs at the head of a few new ventures. He’d found a new training school at his ranch in Powder Springs, the “Cobray School” as it would become named. With an 11 week long course on firearms, close quarters combat and training for a variety of circumstances, it was one of the first major training camps of its type in America and open to anyone who had the money to cover travel and expenses. Soon, he was racking up a large list of customers including FBI, CIA, high ranking corporate security and military officials, and advertising his work in SoF, GaA and even a variety of now famous and mildly funny TV ads. He’d also be involved in less-than-legal activities, including potential coups in the Bahamas, a CIA backed one in Panama, and training security personnel for guarding potential US Labor Party candidate Wayne LaRouche. He’d also found an arms brokerage firm by the name of Defense Systems International. 

WerBell and Daniels would work to continue sales of their firearms internationally and abroad, and both would shake each other’s hand so-to speak. Cobray as a camp would use a variety of RPB firearms and RPB would advertise itself as the firearm of choice for men like WerBell. Daniels had also trimmed a large amount of the corporate fat from the previous RPB and MAC enterprises, operating with less marketing and management staff, a smaller floor and a more limited team for design work. This meant that his overhead costs were lower, and allowed him to make more profit off of the slimmer sales of the M-10 variants they were making. While this started to look like a good business venture for him, problems would arise courtesy of one of his decisions and new products. 

In the late 1970’s, the city of Miami became a hotbed for drug smuggling, due to proximity to the Caribbean and South America and the many different shipping companies that made Miami their home. With the rise of larger drug empires like the Medellin Cartel of Pablo Escobar, they’d expand their operations further and further both domestically in Colombia as well as internationally in Miami. The “Drug War ” as we now know it would start in 1979, when two men would enter a liquor store in the Dadeland Mall and open fire, killing two men and wounding a clerk. The two men were connected to a rival Colombian cartel, and the assassination was done with two MAC-10’s. In the subsequent investigations and crackdowns, the ATF would discover a cache of 200 M-10 SAP pistols alongside a few Interdynamic KG-9’s. The cartels were buying over-the-counter semi auto open bolt pistols and grinding the sears down to make them full auto, birthing the fuddlore of “grinding the sear down” on your gun.

This would get both companies an ATF requirement to modify their design or risk shutdown. While Interdynamic would walk away, RPB would do similar and also deflect attention away with a limited liquidation. On April 21, 1982, RPB Industries was officially shut down and their stock liquidated that October. A few buyers would pick through the equipment, patents and parts, but at the same time, Daniels pulled out his backup plan. Reforming the company under a new name, SWD Industries, helmed by both him and his wife Sylvia.

SWD would be founded in April of 1982 after Daniels had resecured the patents for the M-11 and the trademark name of “Cobray” that he shared with WerBell. He’d reform the company in the same former location in Atlanta, and begin expanding outwards with a variety of other projects to fill the lineup. Beyond simple M-10 variants, with the new M-11/9 model made based on some earlier SWD “Slo-Mo” prototypes to help deal with the M-10’s high rate of fire. He hired John Foote from MAC to help make some more designs and expand into other markets such as flare launchers, shotguns and other pistol platforms. These would have some fairly colorful names such as the Devastator shotgun, a modified shortened Mossberg 500, the Terminator single shot shotgun and the famous Street Sweeper, an unlicensed copy of the Armsel Striker.

If you’re noticing a trend with the names, then you’re noticing the problem with SWD. With the smaller team, budget and funds, SWD would lean heavier and heavier into the same market niche that RPB did, Soldier of Fortune schlock and awe. The heavy names and even heavier constant advertising would help sell the products, however it didn’t make up for worse QC and even worse publicity in the eyes of journalism. Those same ads and heavy set names began to cause problems in the eyes of the public and in regards to Cobray. The downfall began with the death of the other side of the original MAC coin, Mitchell WerBell. He died from a heart attack in 1983. And because it was WerBell of all people, it wasn’t just a simple heart attack. 

Prior to his death in 1983, WerBell had been contacted by Larry Flynn, the publisher and head of Hustler magazine. With the signing of a $1 million dollar check, Flynn asked WerBell to do him a solid and murder his competition. Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, Walter Annenberg and Frank Sinatra. After this had been signed, WerBell became the target of William Ryder, a private security agent operating in LA. In an attempt to take over the Cobray school from WerBell, he spiked a drink with digoxin, a heart relaxant. Considering the timing of WerBell’s heart attack a few days later, it seems plausible. All of this intel would come out later in 1989 when William Ryder was involved in the “Cotton Club” murder of Roy Radin in ‘83. As questionable as it is, and as unverifiable as the concept was, it seems to fit a man as wild and unkempt as Mitchell WerBell.

WerBell and Cobray camp were the biggest source of free advertising that SWD had, and with them gone they saw a cut into their profits. And even worse, the hounds of the mass media campaign and the rising gun control debate would begin to lean onto SWD. Their production of the Street Sweeper would end with the gun alongside the Daewoo USAS-12 and original Armsel Striker being declared destructive devices. And with the passing of the 1994 AWB, they’d also see most of their revenue making firearms banned under the law. In the face of this motion, they’d elect to change tactics. SWD would forfeit its FFL in 1994 to the ATF, and would begin pulling out of Georgia. Initially to Tennessee before setting up shop in North Dakota. SWD and Cobray had outrun the police, at least at first. 

 Cutting off production of a variety of their other models, they’d reform Cobray under the name of Leinad. Daniel spelled backwards. Good deflection attempt. While it seemed to work at first, the issue was that they did still service a variety of parts for their previous Cobray products, and in 1998 a lawsuit would come down from Wyoming. Wellborn v. Cobray Firearms after a man by the name of Kris Wellborn had been injured using a “load your own flare kit” and a flare launcher provided by a Cobray subsidiary. The case would end in a dismissal of blame from Daniels, citing Wellborn’s failure to follow certain court procedures and leaving all litigation in the hands of the court. The constant name changes had saved Wayne and Silvia’s hide in this case, but it was a close call and one neither wanted to continue. In 1998, following the case, the company would shut down, transferring all ownership to Sylvia’s son, Shane Arrington. As of writing, Cobray is still a functioning company, selling parts and equipment for maintaining Cobray products. A shell of its former self, but one that’s at least still alive. 

But the MAC wasn’t dead yet.

MAC of the MAC Daddy

Export sales of the MAC-10 would lead to a myriad of small slight variations of the formula, the most direct being the story of Section Five Firearms.

 Founded by Chris Perkins in the UK, Perkins had seen the mild interest the MAC-10 design had with the British SAS and wanted to try his hand at the concept. As such, he’d develop a modified version using Uzi 9mm mags and a modified magwell to fit the profile. Founding Section Five Firearms at the same time, he’d try to sell a full auto model to police and military buyers as well as a semi-auto one to civilians. While initially there was mild interest, changing laws in the UK saw the market for the Section Five dwindle. Perkins would work out a deal to sell his guns exclusively for the export market only on a promise to never sell them domestically, but like WerBell and Ingram found prior to him, the market was slim to none. He’d also make a variety of gas blowback and blank fire models for use in television and movie studios which would end up backfiring on him.

While his company would go defunct in the early 90’s, his Section Five MAC’s would crop up in the news following police investigations into some gang shootings when two versions of his modified platform showed up. It turned out that a pair of local gunsmiths had begun making a business out of modifying these blank fire only firearms and selling them illegally. The smiths would be charged for the crime, but Perkins would get out scot free. It would be the first of many cases of blank fire firearms being converted to live fire in the UK, showing the concept had merit and leading to more similar stories coming out in later years.

South Africa would also take in the design, developing it’s small arms industry to counteract the constant embargoes the nation was under due to the Apartheid regimes. Mechem, a subsidiary of ARMSCOR at the time, would develop the BXP submachine gun based on the MAC-10, more specifically the later M11/9’s made by Cobray. Fitted with an underfolding stock, modified internals, longer receiver and modified furniture, the BXP would become a minor success in South Africa as one of its first native designs and is still in production to this day under new patent holder Truvelo Armory. 

With the passing of the AWB in 1994, the MAC-10 would begin to see a brief resurgence as many companies would take advantage of the parts kits and unfinished receivers left behind by RPB/SWD/Cobray. Based in Comer, Georgia, Masterpiece Arms would begin it’s work primarily servicing MAC-10 and MAC-10 derivative firearms with other aftermarket parts such as new uppers featuring improved ergonomics, picatinny rails and so on. This would help them develop into a proper custom house, making their own derivative MAC designs as the MPA series that’s still in production today. Although Masterpiece Arms has moved on to a variety of other projects.

MAC-10 knockoff guns are also fairly common still on the illegal market, in a varying quality ranging from craft produced to limited factory production. While many of them aren’t made on any form of tooling from either MAC, RPB, SWD or Cobray, the looks, internal mechanics and basic form are the same. Open bolt, square receiver, cocking piece on the top, ejector built into the rear of the receiver that protrudes into the breech face on firing. Despite being over 50 years old, the design still remains a common sight in crime photography. A lasting legacy. While more modern and cheaper to produce designs have begun to replace the old MAC and Luty knockoffs, the MAC style of homemade SMG still lives on. Doesn’t help that the design has a longstanding legacy and infamy connected to it.

 And it doesn’t help that the gun has seen more name drops than Biggie, starting as far back as 1980, with it’s inclusion in the song “Jungle Work” by Warren Zevon off of the Bad Luck Streak at Dancing School album.

And yes, I had to mention it. 

Someone else would’ve.

Strength And Muscle

The MAC-10 as a firearm is a strange one to look back upon given its history being filled with so many hiccups, mistakes and good intentions gone bad and vice versa. The tale is a mixture of intrigue, backstabbing and shady work. But the legacy the gun has is one that’s wrapped in both that mythos and the mythos around it. The Soldier of Fortune schlock of the era feeds into the MAC-10, making it seem like a shady gun for suspect work. However, it’s barely that. This isn’t a PPK in a tuxedo or dashing mercenaries under dark. A MAC-10 is trash.

It’s a 7 pound cinder block with a grip that only vaguely tries to keep your hand on it, with no spot to put your support hand, a stock that’s too short for children and with a buttplate too low to actually hold or support your shoulder on firing. It has a fire rate that exists to ventilate a hallway and nothing else, sights that do nothing but waste your time and so on. I could continue to rant on the faults, but there are some other good aspects. Despite being out of production for years, the sheer amount of them on the NFA registry means that it’s still the first choice for a full auto if you want one for as cheap as possible. Thus the legend of the MAC remains strong alongside a thriving aftermarket to keep the guns alive and more functional, with companies such as Lage allowing you to convert your MAC into a simple lower upon which to build a better gun.

Plus, it’s also a cornerstone of modern firearms culture, and part of that first step away from the wood clad guns of the late 1800’s and 1900’s. The rule of cool that the MAC-10 cultivated would shift the modern perception of firearms away from the simple bolt guns and revolvers of old, in the same way that they’ve shifted prior to that and so on. Like it or not, the firearm buying public gets a lot of its opinions, takes and purchasing information for what it sees in the media. Mass media from movies, television, books, music and so on. Before the MAC, people were buying 1911’s due to seeing them in episodes of Combat!, buying Colt Detective Specials due to mentions of snub noses in noir thrillers, buying Winchester rifles and Colt revolvers from pulp cowboy novels and so on. While we all carry our opinions, we can’t deny the fact that we have a gun or two we’ve bought due to some form of media. And that media connection has carried the MAC-10 and its legacy to the point it sits today, and has shifted more units than any other submachine gun design in modern history, to levels beyond even the Uzi or MP5. 

Arguably speaking it is a gun who’s own legacy outstrips itself. The name is even a clue of it, “MAC-10” is a name no company producing the design has ever used. MAC called it the M-10, as did RPB, SWD, and Cobray. No company has ever used the name and yet every time we see one, we know it as a MAC-10. It is a firearm so common in it’s concept, simple in it’s form and distinctly its own with a simple boxy shape that we know it as simply the MAC-10. All of the names, subvariants and models blur together to make a MAC. It is a gun utterly dominated by the rule of cool and a rule of cool it both does and doesn’t deserve. A paradox of firearms design and legacy, but yet even with cynicism dangling from your neck like a pendant to St. Pedantic, you can’t deny the cool of the MAC-10. Whether as the slick black spy SMG it was designed to be, the drive by blaster it became or as the gigglingly silly SMG you use to spray the backstop with .45 ACP you see people use it for now. There’s an air of both sophistication and brutality in equal measure with the MAC. As stated, a paradox.

But a fun one.