the Eagle Apache and the Spitfire, the Volunteer used M1 Grease Gun magazines and shared the Apache’s and Spitfire’s tubular receiver and overall M1/Thompson appearance. Soon after the Volunteer was introduced, it was superseded by the Volunteer Mark II, which differed from its predecessor in the method by which its barrel was joined to its receiver.
The Eagle Apache, the Spitfire and the Volunteer/Volunteer Mark II had one supremely important feature in common: they fired from an open bolt. An open bolt operates just as the term suggests: when the bolt is retracted to chamber the first cartridge, it stays in the open position until the trigger is pulled. Then the bolt slams forward, scoops up a cartridge from the magazine, fires it, and returns to the open position as the fired cartridge case is extracted and ejected. Guns using an open-bolt arrangement are sometimes known as “slam-fires,” a descriptive term that usually refers to a type of malfunction, at least in genteel circles.
Over the years, quite a few commercial carbines were based on open-bolt designs, including the French Gevarm .22 of the 1960s and one or two early Marlin semi-auto rimfires. Open-bolt rifles picked up some unwanted baggage in the anti-gun late 1960s, however, and the BATF was not supportive of manufacturers who built such guns. What the BATF found so worrisome was the fact that with some minor modifi cations, most open-bolt designs could be rather easily converted to full-auto operation. Legally, such a modifi cation could be made only by a properly-licensed manufacturer, and the BATF felt that open-bolt designs were just too tempting for some home gunsmiths to resist.
A federal ruling in 1968 spelled an end to the Spitfire. To quote our friends at the BATF:
It has been determined by tests and examination that the Spitfire Carbine is a weapon which is capable of automatically firing more than one shot without manual reloading and by a single function of the trigger, and therefore is a machinegun as defi ned by section 5848(2) of the Code. . . Accordingly, it is held that the Spitfire Carbine, manufactured by the Spitfire Manufacturing Co., Phoenix, Ariz., is a weapon which comes within the purview of the National Firearms Act.
The BATF’s ruling made the Spitfire subject to all the administrative restrictions that ownership of such entails, including registration. Their market severely curtailed, Spitfire Mfg. bit the dust with only around 3,000 units produced. Probably for similar reasons, Eagle Arms also went out of businesss around the same time -- but Volunteer Enterprises did not.
One side of an original promotional brochure for the Commando Arms Mark 45 showing available accessories. Courtesy John Torelli of Jersey Small Arms Gunsmithing.
Rather, Volunteer totally redesigned the Volunteer, replacing its tubular receiver with a square design that was modeled after that of the original Thompson. The change was the brainchild of an inventive gunsmith named Lee R. Frix.
The name of Lee R. Frix is not as well-known today as that of John M. Browning or Samuel Colt. In fact, all I have been able to discover about him is that he lived in Nashville, Tennessee, and was granted patent 3,695,143 on October 3, 1972, for “a firing mechanism for semiautomatic firearms including positive disconnect means.”
Frix, who assigned the patent to Volunteer Enterprises, described his patentable invention this way: “[A] firing mechanism [in which the] disconnect comprises an elongated fl at portion disposed in a plane substantially parallel to one side wall of said trigger housing and contiguous thereto, and a lateral projection intermediate the ends of said elongated portion and extending substantially horizontally therefrom across said cavity in said trigger housing.” Well, now I get it!
Basically, Frix was saying that his patent covered a simple, semi-auto mechanism that incorporated a positive semi-auto disconnect. I would quote his patent application at length here, but there’s no humane reason for me to subject you to further passages. Patent examiner Stephen C. Bentley, who heard Brix’s application, certainly earned his pay on October 3, 1972.
Thus as early as 1972, Volunteer Enterprises owned a semi-auto design that was not likely to give the BATF any serious heartburn. Frix’s design entered production as the Mark III carbine. Chambered in .45 ACP and firing from a closed bolt, the Mark III had a 16.5-inch barrel and was loosely styled after the Thompson M1. Unlike the M1, however, the Mark III’s lower receiver incorporated an integral magazine well quite unlike that of the Thompson. As a result, the carbine could accept Thompson stick magazines but not the higher-capacity M1921/28-style drums. The overall resemblance to the Thompson was further emphasized by the Mark III’s faux compensator, modeled after the famous Cutts. (The Mark III’s barrel was not vented, so the “compensator” could haven’t have had much effect on muzzle climb except for adding a little weight.)
“For just plain plinking, it’s a blast.” Flip side of an original promotional brochure for the Commando Arms Mark 45. Courtesy John Torelli of Jersey Small Arms Gunsmithing.
Left receiver view showing the left-side bolt handle, the crossbolt safety, the funky pistol grip, the plastic lower receiver and the fi nned barrel shroud of the Mark 45.
Rollmarks on the left receiver of the Mark 45.
Oh, and one other thing: the Thompson’s lower receiver was made of steel, while the Mark III’s was made from plastic. Yes, plastic. Today’s marketing potato-heads would undoubtedly call it “high-impact polymerized ABS” or something, but it was plastic -- a highly specialized thermoform plastic called polybutylene terephthalate, marketed by General Electric under the trade name “Valox.” The Mark III wasn’t the first production rifle to have a receiver fashioned partially of plastic -- I believe that distinction belongs to Remington’s Nylon 66 .22 rifle of 1959 -- but you have to give credit to Volunteer Enterprises for having the chutzpah to tool up the mold. According to Michael Winthrop, the Mark III’s plastic receiver was molded in Italy, where it was cheaper to do so. (In another cost-cutting measure, the Mark III was designed to use Thompson stick magazines, unlike its predecessors that used Grease Gun mags. Volunteer Arms got a good deal on war surplus Thompson magazines from a European supplier -- so good a deal that it made sense to redesign the receiver to accept the less-expensive tommygun magazines.)
The Mark III was superseded by the short-lived Mark IV, and I must confess that I’ve been unable so far to find out exactly what the differences were between the Mark III and Mark IV. The Mark IV in turn gave way to the Mark V, which is the same gun that we know today as the Mark 45 carbine. However, it seems that a company named Weath-erby already owned rights to the “Mark V” name, so Volunteer Enterprises quickly rechristened its latest carbine as the Mark 45. The company even ginned up a 9mm Parabellum version of the Mark 45 called the Mark Nine.
It’s not known precisely how many Mark 45s were made under the Volunteer Enterprises name, but it is known that around 1978 (some sources say 1982) the company changed its name to Commando Arms. I remember seeing the Mark 45 in the gun magazines of the period, and although I was married with a small daughter, I wanted one just as I had wanted the earlier Eagle carbine.
Thanks to my new friend John Torelli of Jersey Small Arms Gunsmithing of Millville, New Jersey (856-825-5766), I have been able to learn quite a bit about the Volunteer Enterprises/Commando Arms Mark 45 Carbine. As a promotional slick for the new gun explained, “This Mark 45 Carbine, originally designed for law enforcement use, is built to operate reliably in conditions in which other guns could fail. If not beautiful, it’s practical, inexpensive
