Auto-Ordnance Thompson SBR: $3,086 With a 50-Round Drum

Auto-Ordnance introduced a new Thompson short-barreled rifle on August 12, 2026: the T1SB50DH, a semi-automatic 1927A-1 in .45 ACP with an MSRP of $3,086 that ships with a 50-round drum magazine and a 20-round stick magazine in the same box. The barrel is 10.5 inches, or 12.5 inches measured with the Cutts compensator threaded on the muzzle. Overall length is 35 inches and the rifle weighs 12 pounds.

The build is the same one Auto-Ordnance has been shipping for decades. Receiver and frame are machined from solid steel and finished blued, the furniture is American walnut with a fixed buttstock and a horizontal forearm, and the sights are a blade front with an open adjustable rear. The company builds the rifle in Greeley, Pennsylvania as a division of Kahr Firearms Group.

What makes this a distinct model rather than a repackage is the combination. Auto-Ordnance already sold a 1927A-1 SBR and an M1 SBR; the T1SB50DH takes the 1927A-1 receiver, barrel, and adjustable sight, gives it the M1's horizontal forearm rather than the vertical foregrip, and puts the drum in the box instead of on the accessories page.

Auto-Ordnance now lists four short-barreled Thompsons, and they differ on three things: the barrel profile, the front furniture, and the stock. Everything else, including the .45 ACP chambering, the closed-bolt semi-automatic action, the steel receiver, and the 10.5-inch barrel length, is shared.

The practical read: the M1SB is the shooter of the group at 10.5 pounds and 32 inches with no compensator or fins to add mass out front, the T1BSB is the one that packs down, and the two 1927A-1 rifles are the ones that look like the gun in the poster. The T1SB50DH is the first to combine the 1927A-1 silhouette with the flatter horizontal forearm, which sits closer to the bore and gives a support hand more room than the vertical grip does.

Buying a registered short-barreled rifle costs $0 in federal tax as of January 1, 2026. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act zeroed the making and transfer tax on short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, and any other weapons, so the $200 line item that had sat on top of every SBR purchase since the National Firearms Act passed in 1934 is gone.

Nothing else about the paperwork changed. A factory SBR like the T1SB50DH is still a National Firearms Act item that transfers on an ATF Form 4 through a dealer holding an SOT, and it still requires fingerprints, photographs, a background check, and notification to your chief law enforcement officer. What did change alongside the tax is speed, and how much depends on whether you buy as an individual or into a trust. ATF reported June 2026 averages of 6 days for an individual eForm 4 and 26 days for a trust eForm 4, against the many-month waits that were routine before 2026. Either number is the difference between ordering a rifle and ordering a rifle you will see next spring. Our walkthrough of the Form 4 process covers the same pipeline step by step.

The binding constraint is your state. Several states prohibit short-barreled rifles outright no matter what the federal tax says, and a handful more attach their own registration or permit requirements on top of the federal transfer. Check state-by-state legality before you put money down, because a Form 4 will not save a purchase your state does not allow. If you already own an AR pistol and are weighing a registered SBR against keeping the brace, our AR pistol to SBR conversion guide lays out that decision on a Form 1.

The T1SB50DH weighs 12 pounds empty at 35 inches overall, which is roughly two and a half times the weight of the 12-inch M1 Carbine SBR Auto-Ordnance released in July at $1,870. A loaded 50-round drum adds more steel and fifty rounds of .45 ACP low and forward of that. Nobody buys this rifle for handling, and pretending otherwise sets up a disappointing first range trip.

What that weight does buy is recoil that essentially disappears. A 230-grain .45 ACP round out of a 12-pound closed-bolt semi-automatic with a Cutts compensator is one of the gentlest things you can shoot, and the compensator's job on the original was holding a full-automatic Thompson down. On a semi-automatic rifle it just makes the gun flat, at the cost of venting muzzle blast sideways at everyone next to you on the line. Bring real hearing protection and expect the shooters on either side to notice.

Sighting is period-correct, which is a polite way of saying there is no factory optic mount. You get a blade front and an open adjustable rear, and the published configuration carries no rail for anything else. If red dot compatibility matters to you more than the silhouette does, the options in our factory SBR guide all ship with a flat-top upper or an optics cut already there.

Buy the T1SB50DH if you want a Tommy Gun and you want it to look right. That is a complete and legitimate reason, and the drum, the finned barrel, the Cutts compensator, and the walnut are the entire product. At $3,086 with the drum included you are paying for a shape and a piece of American manufacturing history, and the short barrel gets the semi-automatic version closer to the proportions of the submachine gun it copies than any 16-inch Thompson can.

Do not buy it as a home-defense carbine or a truck gun. Twelve pounds, iron sights, no rail for a light or an optic, and .45 ACP that costs more per round than 9mm is the wrong answer to every practical question. A 9mm carbine covers that role for a fraction of the money and half the weight, and our modern pistol-caliber carbine guide covers the ones worth owning. If you want a short registered rifle you will actually carry, price out a build in our rifle builder and compare it against this one before the paperwork starts.

The timing is the genuinely new part. A registered Thompson SBR used to mean a $200 tax and most of a year of waiting on top of the purchase price, which was enough friction to push buyers toward the 16-inch carbine with the fake compensator welded on. With the federal tax at zero and eForm 4 approvals averaging weeks rather than seasons, the short one is now the default choice for anyone who wanted the real silhouette in the first place.