I didnt know we were all so cool

[BlackBelt]

Looking through old MAC stuff and came across this old advertisement.

 

[Hey]

Winning sales strategy needs 80%marketing, 20% product.

Paid a lot of his bills at the time.

Awesome advertisement though. Saved to make garage art. Thanks for posting.

 

[ferndog1]

Typical '80s "tacticool" ad.
Fleming Firearms had similar ads with young girls holding subguns alongside a business jet, with a DeLorean sports car in the foreground.

What is odd bout the SWD above is a California address?

 

[Gaujo]

Just put my large SASE in the mail!

 

[slimshady]

Apparently that was part of what got them indicted back in 1985 for distributing machine guns to bad guys. They had a California guy, that's probably one of his ads.

Kits for Machine Guns, Silencers : Four Indicted in Plot to Sell Illegal Firearms

Four firearms dealers, including a Tehachapi, Calif., man, have been indicted as part of a nationwide conspiracy to produce illegal machine guns and silencers that have been traced to drug traffickers and convicted felons, federal officials announced Friday.

www.latimes.com

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

This ad was in gun and ammo 1987. I have the issue. I have spoken to Sylvia’s son Shane about this ad and he cannot explain that CA address. This was not an ad placed by a distributor, this is a genuine SWD ad and that is Wayne and Sylvia Daniel standing towards the back at Sylvia’s rolls Royce

 

[BlackBelt]

Not to be "that guy", but I notice the M11/9 in the foreground definitely has the bolt closed. The pic is too grainy to make out if there is a mag installed.
But I guess when you are cool as the guy in the pic there is a little "gun magic" going on and those details dont matter.
Definitely very 1980's...

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

here’s some higher resolution images of that ad from guns and ammo March 1987, yes the bolt is closed and it has a 32rd zytel mag inserted.

Also attached is the Cobray terminator ad from the same issue, a few pages after this one. Note the terminator ad has the correct mailing address for SWD. The CA address on the other ad was a mistake by whoever printed that advertisement, SWD never had a CA mailing address despite some less than legal business dealings with a CA distributor (and undercover feds posing as CA biker gang members) that landed them in hot water with the ATF and got them raided and arrested a year prior to these ads being printed, in 1986.

the guy in the terminator ad is the same guy standing in the foreground on the first ad.


Another photo from that Learjet photo shoot was used on the cover of an early 90s MAC (mountain accessory company) aka COBRAY catalog. Sylvia and Wayne are departing the Learjet, if you look closely you can see there is a Cobray emblem on the jet right next to Sylvia’s head

 

[slimshady]

The Terminator was used by the United States and other countries armed forces?

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

The Terminator was used by the United States and other countries armed forces?

No. It’s bullshit. I have no idea what design they are referring to that has been proven “for years” in combat with the US military but it’s not the terminator shotgun.. all I can think of is that they are simply referring to the reciprocating barrel mechanism of the terminator shotgun.. which could be compared to the M2 machine gun, Barret M82, or Johnson 1941 rifle.. but even that is a stretch, as the terminator uses a very odd reciprocating action to fire.. it has a fixed firing pin built into the breech block at the rear end of the receiver, a shell is placed into the chamber of the barrel and when the trigger is pulled, the barrel slams backwards under spring tension slamming the shell into the firing pin. It’s basically a reverse open bolt mechanism… very similar to one of the slam fire 12ga zip guns made from 2 pieces of pipe with a nail at the rear end.

The terminator shotgun was designed by John Foote in the mid 80s.. Foote was an engineer for the original MAC company and came up with some really interesting stuff. The terminator shotgun uses many interchangeable parts with the ENCOM/enfield America pistols that he designed in the earlier 80s, including the modular trigger group and the wire stock locking mechanism.. the prototype of the terminator even used the same exact lower receiver stamping as the encom pistol.. but none of these firearms have ever been used by any military as far as I know.

 

[SecondAmend]

"Used by the Government" is a rather vague term. For one example, I know that the U.S. Government bought at least a couple of the Segway two-wheel, self-balancing, battery powered personal transport "vehicles". One might say government employees would "use" them to zip around hallways and across the parking lots.
MHO, YMMV, etc.

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

"Used by the Government" is a rather vague term. For one example, I know that the U.S. Government bought at least a couple of the Segway two-wheel, self-balancing, battery powered personal transport "vehicles". One might say government employees would "use" them to zip around hallways and across the parking lots.
MHO, YMMV, etc.

It is a bogus ploy that is notoriously overused by RPB and SWD. A brief scan of the 1981 RPB industries catalog reveals this sales tactic used many times. According to that catalog the 10” Barrel M10 uppers were designed for a special military contract, as well as the M11 380 leather cutaway holsters and various other items. I have my doubts that any of these items were ever used by any branch of the US military.

 

[BlackBelt]

It is a bogus ploy that is notoriously overused by RPB and SWD. A brief scan of the 1981 RPB industries catalog reveals this sales tactic used many times. According to that catalog the 10” Barrel M10 uppers were designed for a special military contract, as well as the M11 380 leather cutaway holsters and various other items. I have my doubts that any of these items were ever used by any branch of the US military.

Is it possible the "special military contracts" were from other countries militaries, not the US?

 

[Deerhurst]

Is it possible the "special military contracts" were from other countries militaries, not the US?

I believe there was history of trying to sell to foreign countries. I'd have to look through the macman book again .

 

[slimshady]

Old School MAC Cans - Small Arms Review

By Frank Iannamico

smallarmsreview.com

According to Small arms review the original business prior to 1974 sold to 50 countries, I have seen articles over the years showing Werbell and others putting on demonstrations for customers all over the world or hosting them in the United States. As far as I know they never had any major General military issue contracts but selling 20 here, 100 there to special forces and police was fairly common.

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

Is it possible the "special military contracts" were from other countries militaries, not the US?

The original MAC company had a lot of small foreign orders here and there, but it wasn’t the original MAC company that was touting any of these accessories that were supposedly designed for “special government contracts”.. it was RPB and SWD that designed and sold those accessories, and those companies mainly dealt with civilian sales for the most part, with the occasional small foreign orders. As far as I’m aware, none of those items have ever turned up anywhere else in the world on any guns or otherwise.. just in the hands of American civilians.

The only documented “special government contact” that I’m aware of was the M11 and M10 components (bolts, barrels, triggers and magazines) that were manufactured with an electroless nickel coating for use by the Argentine Navy. Apparently the contract fell through and these nickel parts ended up being used up on standard production guns for the US market. A great deal of the RPB overstamp Marietta MAC M11a1 SMGs, as well as some RPB overstamp M10s have the nickel bolts and barrels, though I have only ever seen the 380 factory mags with the nickel coating, never any M10 mags. These nickel parts are also occasionally seen on RPB open bolt semi auto pistols. According to the MAC man book, those nickle parts were indeed designed for a “special government contract”.. though ironically, RPB never publicly advertised any of this or used it as a selling point for the nickel parts.

 

[BlackBelt]

In the May 1978 issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine author Chuck Taylor recounts his experiences running parallel operations near the Laotion border during the Vietnam war. He ran into what he called a "Special Forces A-team member" who had been running multiple "snatch" operations with a team of other Special Forces guys. The Spec Ops guy said that his team had been using the Ingrams on their missions (plural).

I would assume the different military branches each procured their own quantities of MAC type weapons for testing and evaluation, and apparently some even fielded the weapons, if even on a limited basis

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

In the May 1978 issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine author Chuck Taylor recounts his experiences running parallel operations near the Laotion border during the Vietnam war. He ran into what he called a "Special Forces A-team member" who had been running multiple "snatch" operations with a team of other Special Forces guys. The Spec Ops guy said that his team had been using the Ingrams on their missions (plural).

I would assume the different military branches each procured their own quantities of MAC type weapons for testing and evaluation, and apparently some even fielded the weapons, if even on a limited basis

Yes. In the MACMAN book there are detailed lists of the number of guns ordered by the US military by MAC, RPB and SWD. MACs were purchased and fielded by the US military as recently as the early 90s, by the Navy Seals. Other branches purchased them in limited quantities as well… that said, I have my doubts that they purchased any of the gimmicky upgrades or accessories for them. The navy SEALS did upgrade their MACs, the guys over at CRANE devised a larger charging handle for the MAC after an incident on an aircraft carrier doing night exercises in the rain when a charging handle slipped from a soldiers gloved hand and discharged the weapon into the flight deck. The larger navy seal charging handles pop up from time to time on the civilian market now, as the guns were destroyed at CRANE decades ago and the demilled chunks were sold on the civilian market, including the large charging handles.
If you look closely at the cover of this gung-ho magazine cover, you can see the larger knurled handles on the seals M10s.