As has been pointed out there is a considerable money difference in the initial purchase.
One could buy at least two, if not three (hey, get one of each caliber!) Hi Points a load of ammo and multiple after market hi cap mags for the price of a decent condition M-1 Carbine.
On the other hand which would I rather have to protect my family or even play around with and you plan to just give it to me free.....
no contest......M-1 carbine.
I personally like the 15 round magazines in the M-1, but most that went through a GI rebuild during their service life have the M2 type magazine release and can use the 30s quite well.....if you don't get commercial 30s and stick with GI US or Korean "banana" mags.
The Army listed the Max effective range (that range at which the average trooper could achieve at least 50 percent hits on a kneeling man target) as 275 yards. The carbine is sighted however to 300 for those above average troopers, I guess. As a kid I shot holes in one side of an LP gas tank (valve removed it made a nice clang when hit) at 100 yards. Not sure a 9x19mm with FMJ could do that at 50 meters. Even out there at 300 meters the GI load is still trucking along at 950 feet per second, so faster than a .380 pistol at the muzzle with a heavier bullet. Despite a horde of war stories (and no doubt some are true) Marshall and Sanow listed even .30 GI FMJ from a carbine as a 90 percent one shot stopper in civilian shootings they could find (well over a hundred) with 100 percent through and through penitration of human beings. Their supposed nemesis Dr Martin Fackler used a carbine for his main home defense gun.
Though rebuilt maybe two or three times since it left the factory by the Army that M-1 GI carbine you buy might have waded ashore at Normandy or some nasty little pacific Island, and or crawled up the boot of Italy, or jumped into Holland only to winter in Belgium and Marched into the alpine redoubt at Berchesgarten or even made a long cold walk from the Chosen finger lakes by the Yalu down another peninsula. Oh course it might have sat in an Arms room near Leesberg LA its entire service life, but hey.......
How bout that Hi Point history?
I am not putting the Hi Point down and would love to have one, especially one of the older models with the original stock or one with the ATI stock even more and would live with a "new" factory stock as a gift.
Given the choice between the two though? M-1 hands down and spirits up.
-kBob
