I went to order another one today for my 45 Thompson. The last one I bought about 6 years ago was 160 Dollars with two boxes of shells. NOW they are over 350.00 without shells. Wanted another 50 round drum but looking around and all of the good ones are about that. The Plastic ones are JUNK!!! Anyone know of any places? My wife says to just pay it. Maybe I should.

The weight of them alone would keep me with stick mags. Especially if it's for a semi auto. I will ask around for you though.

I do not care about the weight. I want them for Home Defense. I already have a bunch of the clip(stick) mags. Thanks for asking. I was checking the Gun Shows but the good ones are even more and the cheapos are not worth having.

No problem I made a post asking in NFA talk for you. Should have some responses in the next day or two.

I understand a lot of people like big mags. Myself even my most used mags in ars are 20 round mags. Why well I don't like how far 30s stick out the bottom. I don't see needing more and if I do a mag change to a 30 is fast when the 20 is empty. Other people want a drum or the 60round sure fire mags. There is something for everyone out there for sure .

Well, they're probably not going to get any cheaper...Might want to get what you need while you still can.

That is what my wife claims as well.

Home defense?

Yea I can see that keep pulling the trigger til they quit moving even if they move on impact pull the trigger again just to be sure

Yul be Wril OG,,,, not that easty Slim Shady……

So far all the response Have gotten have bee tell him to stick with stick mags if he wants it to reliably function and there was a reason the military didn't use drums. Told them I recommend stick mags but thought I would try to find you what you want. No one had any suggestions other than keep an eye out on gun forms.

Now these guy making the suggestions have more NFA items and experience than any group I have been around and where I have been blessed with 98% of my full auto shooting as well as my boys and dad getting to burn up ammo in full auto in many platforms. Also the group that I got experience shooting 50bmgs and 338 Lapua.

So taking their advice is a smart move. Drums are not reliable in AR platform either not 100% of d the time. And in home defense you want 100% reliable. And your probably not going to get off 50 rounds but if you need that many mag changes are fast and easy and better that a Jammed up gun.

But maybe someone has one on there they want to get rid of or where that can be found and has not seen the post and replied yet.

https://www.waffenmeisters.com/thom...28-1921-1927-50-round-p-261-for-sale-buy
AS for AR drums being unreliable, I have 2 100 drums and have never had a failure to feed out of several thousand rounds.

If he wants reliable mags he wants real Thompson drums and they're running anywhere from $500-750 for a good WWII Military mag. New York drums made for the original Colt thompsons start about $1500. They do work very well and I never had any issues with the WWII seymour made drums I used in my 1928 Thompsons.
The new or newer reproduction drums are probably what you were referring to as getting up to about $350 and they can be junk, complete junk or maybe ok but not great. I'd never use one for home defense unless I was using the buttstock to squish bugs or something like that.
I have no idea where to get any drums anymore. Numrich arms did a pretty good job on the 100rd drums they had repro'd back around 2006 but I've not seen any of them for sale in years either. Like the others said, a good 20 or 30rd stick is the way to go now.

Frank

This is the latest reply from a 07sot FFL holder ( that's a manufacturer) that has many many machine guns. As in his reply he actually has a full auto Thompson. Not only that but his all get shot a lot. He loves letting people shoot his machine guns should have seen him smiling a few years back when he was at my range on the farm and he was working with my boys shooting many of his machine guns. They were 8 and 10 years old at the time. He was also one of the guys that took a lot of the mgs to knob creek mg shoot. So it's a guy with tons of actual experience and millions of rounds fired. His response is one I would listen to.

The two Drums I have now have never given me a feeding jamming issue. One came with my gun the other I bought from a Collectors collection when he passed. Both are old Military and that is what I am looking for.

I noticed the ones linked about say won't work with the real full auto guns at least they is how I take it when they say not compatible with x mode #.

Like Frank said the old ones work but the new ones may work sometimes or be a complete failure. That man has shot more rounds in a year than I have in my life and has more experience with so many full autos. I have seen some of his work where he welded destroyed to aft distruction touch cut with 1/4" wide diagonal cut receivers back to function mgs and they are flawless. So when he takes time to respond to my questions I listen.

I'm glad to hear you have some that work well for you. I just didn't want you spend money on something not reliable at best or worse need it and end up dead due to a malfunction. Let's be honest with ammo prices and available very few people are shooting hundreds of rounds testing their equipment for reliability these days. More like a box or two at most. I know I sure don't shoot like I used to.

I used to work for a = Family group in South Alabama. The owner. Let me shoot a = Navy MP-5 and a 45 Thompson Machine gun. This was 8 or 9 years ago. He said = The MP -5 was ONLY 25000 BUT the Thompson cost him 40000 ! Don’t know about the prices on NFA machine guns. HE said a Legal M-16 would run 15000 min. Point is. IF you want a used 100 rd clip. I can text him and see if he would sell 1. And what price?