Alexander James Ordnance or A.J. Ordnance were the producers of the Thomas pistol.
The story begins in 1971 when Frank S. Thomas Jr. along with his son S. Seaton Thomas began working on a design for a compact 45 Auto pistol. This seemed to be the order of the day as it was also during this time that the folks at Detonics were toying with the idea of a shrunken 1911 pistol. We see this a lot with inventions, it seems somethings just develop when the time is right.
Thomas decided to use the Walther PP as his basis of design. The fixed barrel of the Walther made for better accuracy and in many people's opinions better feeding. So he supersized the design and added a manual slide delay system that uses the shooters hand to engage some locking tabs in the slide.
This locking system also meant that the shooter could not rack the slide while holding the pistol normally, they must release their grip and hold the pistol without engaging the locking lugs.
The trigger system is a double action striker fired, with no exposed hammer.
The barrel was 3.5" long and the gun came in three two-toned finishes: blued, satin nickel and bright nickel.
The pistols weight came right in at 2 lbs.
The magazines were cut down 1911 magazines with an extra locking notch and trimmed to accept only 6 rounds.
By 1977 the gun was ready to go into production, which occurred at Alexander James Ordnance in Covina, California.
The plastic grips were said to be somewhat fragile.
While a few pre-production units were given single digit serial numbers, the remaining serial numbers started at 001000 or 001001. I suppose this was done to make the gun appear more popular than it was.
In the end between 600-700 guns were produced and only during 1977/1978.
Still shot courtesy of Forgotten Weapons
Serial number 2 given to Frank Thomas III by his father and then donated in his honor to the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax Virginia
These prototypes below show that the prototypes were made at H&N Mini-Craft in Covina
I could find no information on H&N Mini-Craft, I assume it was a machine shop and perhaps the predecessor to AJ Ordnance or maybe AJ Ordnance was a dba of H&N?
H&N was listed in the U.S. Small Business Administration's 1974 report.
I had also read that Thomas sold the rights to the gun to someone. Perhaps he never produced the gun himself, but rather sold the rights to AJ Ordnance who produced and sold the gun.
One gun forum member claims to have seen the left over and demilled frames being sold as paperweights by SARCO
The gun has quite the following despite its low production numbers, one online forum member alluded to starting a fan club.
The building in which A.J. Ordnance occupied still stands at 1066 East Edna Place in Covina
If you have additional information to share, please do so in the comment section below.
Sources:
AJ Ordnance Thomas 45 - Mythic Armory
Historical Firearms - AJ Ordnance Thomas 45 Developed by Frank S....
AJ Ordnance “Thomas” – A .45 Locked by Grip Alone – Forgotten Weapons
How 'Bout Some AJ Ordnance .45s? (smith-wessonforum.com)
NRA Museums:
AJ Ordnance Thomas 45 Prototype & Experimental Pistols | Glock Forum - GlockTalk
Thomas .45 ACP? | The High Road
