M-1 Carbine re-make

[aka108]

I haven't used the M1 Carbine since I was in the Navy. When we were in San Diego all tied up to the pier for a weekend I could check a carbine out from the ship's armory along with 500 or so rds of ammo. The hill to the East of San Diego were unpopulated at that time so shooting was fun. Targets and varmits everywhere. I enjoyed that little firearm.

 

[amprecon]

I think if it were me back in the day and given a choice of infantry weapon, I would have chosen the M1 Carbine and a .45.
The Thompson spits alot of ammo and that .45 ammo is heavy, your effective range is limited too.
The Garand is a full size battle rifle and heavy, although not much heavier than the standard issue bolt actions of the day and had a heck lot more firepower.
But, considering the average engagement ranges were within 100yds, 15 rounds of .30 caliber delivering 600 ft.lbs of energy at 100 yards is no slouch when most considered the .38spl sufficient with barely 300 ft. lbs at the muzzle for many years.
You won't be engaging armor with it, but it is totally sufficient for anti-personnel out to 200 yards, better than the Thompson.
So for me, I'll take the M1 Carbine!
If I didn't already have AK's and AR's I'd seriously consider buying one, or two.

 

[DaisyCutter]

That's a sweet Iver Johnson!

'm dying to get my first carbine. I just got word from CMP that my envelope was drawn. It will be here Tuesday. I know it's serial number is 90,###, so it's a 1942 manufactured GM Inland Div. I'll be thrilled if it's got a decent original stock, but if it's a new stock then it"ll match the service grade 5.8 Mil SA Garand, that came with a replacement stock.

My carbine probably won't have a bayonet lug. That Iver looks great! Who cares if it"s post war. My Garand is from 1955, that doesn't make it less in my eyes.

 

[Tommygunn]

That's a sweet Iver Johnson!

'm dying to get my first carbine. I just got word from CMP that my envelope was drawn. It will be here Tuesday. I know it's serial number is 90,###, so it's a 1942 manufactured GM Inland Div. I'll be thrilled if it's got a decent original stock, but if it's a new stock then it"ll match the service grade 5.8 Mil SA Garand, that came with a replacement stock.

My carbine probably won't have a bayonet lug. That Iver looks great! Who cares if it"s post war. My Garand is from 1955, that doesn't make it less in my eyes.

Congrats! Your carbine may very well have the bayonet lug. After WW2 (and Korea) M1 carbines were all repaired and refurbished and (generally) brought up to the most recent specs. Some carbines escaped this, to be sure, and remain in their "as made" condition but these aren't common.
Another result of this is that most are actually "mixmasters" --- carbines that are made up of various different companies' parts.

 

[Captain O]

I watched my father shot a sand shark with a Charter Arms .38 back in 1969 at Deception Pass State Park. It kept us from being bitten by the beast my aunt had dragged in from Puget Sound. No big accomplishment.

Everyone underestimates the .30 Carbine with Soft Point ammunition.

At 2000 fps, a 110 grain bullet generates 977 fpe at the muzzle (and within 15 feet). Nope, no killing power here.

 

[ROAshooter]

"I watched my father shot a sand shark with a Charter Arms .38 back in 1969 at Deception Pass State Park. It kept us from being bitten by the beast my aunt had dragged in from Puget Sound. No big accomplishment."

what does this have to do with the OPs topic?

 

[Tommygunn]

I watched my father shot a sand shark with a Charter Arms .38 back in 1969 at Deception Pass State Park. It kept us from being bitten by the beast my aunt had dragged in from Puget Sound. No big accomplishment.

As a youth I was fishing in Long Island Sound with my sister & parents and caught a couple of sand sharks. They're harmless, they don't bite and if they did bite it would be harmless. If that weren't true I'd be minus a finger or two today.

 

[jad0110]

I think if it were me back in the day and given a choice of infantry weapon, I would have chosen the M1 Carbine and a .45.
The Thompson spits alot of ammo and that .45 ammo is heavy, your effective range is limited too.
The Garand is a full size battle rifle and heavy, although not much heavier than the standard issue bolt actions of the day and had a heck lot more firepower.
But, considering the average engagement ranges were within 100yds, 15 rounds of .30 caliber delivering 600 ft.lbs of energy at 100 yards is no slouch when most considered the .38spl sufficient with barely 300 ft. lbs at the muzzle for many years.
You won't be engaging armor with it, but it is totally sufficient for anti-personnel out to 200 yards, better than the Thompson.
So for me, I'll take the M1 Carbine!

Good post. I feel the same way. If I didn't already own an AR for home protection, I'd probably rely on either my M-1 with hollow or soft points, or my Mossberg 590. Would be a tough choice.

Picked up my M-1 Carbine up from a local gun shop. The stock probably isn't original, but the barrel and receiver are both Inland and date to January 1944. Most of the other parts seem correct, though it may have been reassembled that way recently by someone. The only thing that wasn't period correct for January 1944 was the bayo lug, so, I removed it (after the below pics were taken).

For $560 (found it 5 years ago), it is a awesome fun shooter! Other than a couple of known bad mags in my collection, it runs flawlessly, especially on original GI 15 rounders.

 

[agtman]

"I watched my father shot a sand shark with a Charter Arms .38 back in 1969 at Deception Pass State Park. It kept us from being bitten by the beast my aunt had dragged in from Puget Sound. No big accomplishment."

What does this have to do with the OPs topic?

Agree ...

And for what it's worth, my dog has multiple fleas.

 

[agtman]

I think if it were me back in the day and given a choice of infantry weapon, I would have chosen the M1 Carbine and a .45.

So in other words, you would have done just as well with two Colt .45s? That's about the effectiveness of a .30 carbine paired with a pistol.

All the "Greatest Gen" nostalgia aside, the M1 .30 carbine was a notoriously poor battlefield performer despite all the noise from modern toolbots who claim we took Iwo Jima with it ...

The M1 Garand, in contrast, performed outstandingly - and still does.

 

[Captain O]

Sorry Agtman. I didn't know your dog had a flying entourage! (Perhaps you should bathe it more frequently).

I was referring, of course, to the depiction of the 5.7mm Johnson cartridge used as "shark repellent". It isn't that hard to kill a shark with proper bullet placement. I'm sure that the print advertisement was taking advantage of the romantic aspect of using a short, shoulder arm for defense against "the perils of the deep" or other such nonsense.

Typical advertising exotic imagery as well as hyperbole.

 

[Captain O]

So in other words, you would have done just as well with two Colt .45s? That's about the effectiveness of a .30 carbine paired with a pistol.

All the "Greatest Gen" nostalgia aside, the M1 .30 carbine was a notoriously poor battlefield performer despite all the noise from modern toolbots who claim we took Iwo Jima with it ...

The M1 Garand, in contrast, performed outstandingly - and still does.

If this was the case, how did Audie Murphy manage to use it to such good effect? Jim Cirillo, with the famous NYPD "Stakeout Squad" made 40 kills using Winchester 110 grain Hollow Soft Points in a .30 Carbine.

No, I guess your right.. it didn't work.

 

[lemaymiami]

Any thread about carbines usually catches my attention... I have one, a Plainfield, and it was bought as a user (I'm the farthest thing from a collector..) for the exact same purpose that it was originally designed (and issued). I wanted a warbaby - but the Plainfield was much, much more affordable.... Although mine is a commercial carbine -it was built almost entirely with GI parts and is considered the best of the older commercial types. Any defensive action on my part won't be at long distances - if it ever occurs it will be well within 100 meters (probably a lot closer...).

The advertising and comments about sharks - like most stuff about sharks is the usual BS... I'm a full time fishing guide, working the saltwater Everglades out of a small skiff. My anglers catch and release lots and lots of sharks - including some pretty big ones. I routinely handle toothy critters up to and over ten feet long at the boat with nothing other than gloves on my hands - no gun needed ever... Many years ago as a mate on charter boats I routinely killed many up close with a 12ga. bangstick. I'm sure glad we don't kill them any more.... ps - with a bit of training you can even safely remove the hook from the jaws of a live shark with a decent hook remover - no problem...

 

[Tommygunn]

So in other words, you would have done just as well with two Colt .45s? That's about the effectiveness of a .30 carbine paired with a pistol.

All the "Greatest Gen" nostalgia aside, the M1 .30 carbine was a notoriously poor battlefield performer despite all the noise from modern toolbots who claim we took Iwo Jima with it ...

The M1 Garand, in contrast, performed outstandingly - and still does.

No one claimed we "took" Iwo Jima with just carbines. The carbine was perfectly adequate in close combat, the type found on many Pacific Islands. One Marine commander considered the M-1 Carbine "the ace weapon of the war."
As for comparing it to the Colt 1911; the .30 carbine round would penetrate the steel ballistic vests that some Japanese officers wore in WW2 while .45ACP from both the Colt 1911 and Thompson would not.
It suffered in comparison to the Garand because, despite the two sharing "M-1" nomenclature they are different weapons for different purposes.
The carbine was never a "notoriously poor battlefield performer" except when people used it with the expectations it paralleled the Garand in performance.

 

[Speedo66]

It suffered in comparison to the Garand because, despite the two sharing "M-1" nomenclature they are different weapons for different purposes.
The carbine was never a "notoriously poor battlefield performer" except when people used it with the expectations it paralleled the Garand in performance.

But wouldn't that have been the choice for WWII grunts on the battlefield, Carbine or Garand? My Dad was a grunt, armored infantry 3rd. Armored Div., who saw a lot of combat in WWII, including the Battle of the Bulge. He had nothing good to say about Carbines. You would think the lighter weight and additional mag capacity would have been preferable. But without going into detail, which he never did, he just said the Carbine didn't have the stopping power of the Garand and wouldn't carry a Carbine. Same for M3 "Grease Gun".

 

[wd4ngb]

Another day, a different War, a different terrain, Vietnam: The M14 was the improved version of the M1. The M16 had a lot of problems in the early years, and what did most units do, the ones that got out into the bush chose the M2 Carbine.

I was assigned a M14A1E1 with full auto selector. After a very short time, I was carrying a M2 Carbine by choice. If it was in wide open country like in WW2 or Korea, the M14 would of been perfect, but in Nam, the Carbine was the best choice. What the government did by marking the sights for 300 yards was the biggest mistake. It would easily shoot that far, but the bullet was dropping like a rock by then. A Far superior weapon to the 45 that it was intended to replace, and in some areas, much superior to the M1, if properly used.

Even in the late 60s, many in Nam still used the M1/M2 Carbine over the M16s. The M1 Garand would of been discarded in the trash in favor of a Carbine in Nam.

This is USMC Commander Dale Dye in the late 60s with his Carbine.



It is selecting the proper weapon for the mission.

 

[SwampWolf]

QUOTE: "...Jim Cirillo, with the famous NYPD "Stakeout Squad" made 40 kills using Winchester 110 grain Hollow Soft Points in a .30 Carbine..."

I'd like to see the evidence for this claim.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

To the opening post: I acquired a Blue Sky re-import from South Korea of an M1 Carbine in 1990 for $225, acquired the military tech manual to keep it in proper order and "remade" mine with a replica M1A1 folding stock I bought 2nd hand for $80. I have shot it in Modern and Vintage Military Rifle matches at the local gun club for the past decade or so.

The carbine is an IBM made in 1943 but came with the flip safety, 3 nib mag catch, barrel band with bayonet lug, adjustable sight, and a M2 style stock of some odd Korean wood. So it was already a multi-generation rebuilt mix-master and any restoration to original WWII IBM factory issue I could make might be denounced by purists as fakery anyway.

As far as the thread drift into shark killer Spitfires, M1 Carbine v M1 Garand or .45 go.

The M1 carbine was good enough for protecting Victor Mature testing shark repellent in The Sharkfighters 1956.

My dad served in the 6th Army Div in New Guinea and the Philippines in WWII and carried the BAR; if he couldn't get a BAR he would, grudgingly, step down to a M1 Garand, but never an M1 Carbine, a Thompson, or a pistol.

And as far as the .30 M1 carbine not better than a .45 1911 pistol?? I shoot both in the vintage military matches, the pistol at 25 yards and the carbine at 100 yards. Facing an enemy at 100 yards, I would rather have the carbine, and him the .45, than vice versa. Or more realistically, when on the mountain, the .30 carbine is my choice for predators over the .45 pistol.

 

[kBob]

You might want to look up how fast that little 110 grain bullet is doing at 300 yards. They splatter on steel and leave little discs of lead and jacket not very thick at all.

I believe it has more than enough velocity to go through the average human front to back or side to side even at that range.

The Carbine FM listed Max effective range as 275 yards at which point the average soldier is expected to hit a kneeling man target half the time or better,

The sights only go to 300 yards.

Do keep in mind it was intended to be something of a PDW and not a battle rifle. It does that job quite well.

-kBob

 

[Captain O]

Jim Cirillo's "Tales Of The Stakeout Squad". You can buy it on Amazon. This book is not only a great read, but tells of how well small arms, with the right ammunition work in CQB.

The stories of how Jim had a Korean service M1 Carbine's barrel ramp profiled by the NYPD Armorer altered so that it would reliably feed the Winchester (then Winchester-Western) 110 grain Hollow Soft Point is part of the book. Both the Carbine and Hollow Soft Point functioned perfectly.

 

[Panzerschwein]

If this was the case, how did Audie Murphy manage to use it to such good effect? Jim Cirillo, with the famous NYPD "Stakeout Squad" made 40 kills using Winchester 110 grain Hollow Soft Points in a .30 Carbine.

No, I guess your right.. it didn't work.

Where did you get that number? Carbines might have killed 40 people in the Stakeout Squad's entire history, but not all from the hands of Jim Cirillo!!

 

[agtman]

No one claimed we "took" Iwo Jima with just carbines. The carbine was perfectly adequate in close combat, the type found on many Pacific Islands.

Dudenal, apparently you haven't got a whiff of the .30 Carbine fanboys over on the CMP forums and other similar sites. To hear these toolbots talk, you'd think we had beaten Japan by dropping a package of M1 Carbines wrapped with grenades on Hiroshima instead of the atom bomb.

C'mon, let's get serious.

One Marine commander considered the M-1 Carbine "the ace weapon of the war."

And 1500 other Marines hated the thing ... So what?

It suffered in comparison to the Garand because, despite the two sharing "M-1" nomenclature they are different weapons for different purposes.

No, the Carbine "suffered in comparison to the Garand" because the Garand had lethal stopping-power up-close and at distance, while the Carbine consistently displayed poor stopping-power much past spitting distance, even if you emptied the magazine.

The carbine was never a "notoriously poor battlefield performer" except when people used it with the expectations it paralleled the Garand in performance.

Dudenal, seriously? Do some research ...

Apparently you've never read "U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat" (Goodwin, 2005), subtitled, "personal experiences from WW2 and Korea." I can highly recommend it for the uninformed fanboys and toolbots among us. The book contains transcripts of interviews done a few years back of a large group of then still-living vets from WW2 & Korea. Each was asked what they thought about the specific weapons they were issued and how they used them, firefights, skirmishes, foxhole sniping, etc. - everything from the Garand and the BAR, to the .30 Carbine and the Colt .45.

Of those that encountered the carbine, overwhelmingly they had nothing good to say about its battlefield performance.

 

[Gun Master]

M-1 Carbine

I previously owned a Winchester GI original M1 Carbine.
Still have the original M1 Bayonet.
For SD and my budget, I'd rather have the HiPoint 9mm Carbine that I now own.
Still like the original M1 Carbines and the Ruger BUGs, very much !

 

[Tommygunn]

Dudenal, apparently you haven't got a whiff of the .30 Carbine fanboys over on the CMP forums and other similar sites. To hear these toolbots talk, you'd think we had beaten Japan by dropping a package of M1 Carbines wrapped with grenades on Hiroshima instead of the atom bomb.

C'mon, let's get serious.



And 1500 other Marines hated the thing ... So what?

First thing: DO NOT REFER TO ME AS "DUDENAL."
Who said 1500 marines hated the carbine? I doubt it.
I once did read a letter to the editor of some firearm magazine refering to a previous review of the Garand; the WW2 vet went on and on on how he hated the Garand and by far prefered the carbine, which he was issued later.
Again....so what?

No, the Carbine "suffered in comparison to the Garand" because the Garand had lethal stopping-power up-close and at distance, while the Carbine consistently displayed poor stopping-power much past spitting distance, even if you emptied the magazine.



Dudenal, seriously? Do some research ...

How sanctimonious of you to think I've done no research since we disagree.
The carbine did have good stopping power up close. The utility of small lightweight weapons in close spaces is well-known (atleast to those whose knowledge is based on real-life scenarios and not ballistics charts) and the carbine did very well in this role, while the Garand was often somewhat clumsier.No one is denying that the Garand's .30-'06 cartridge is flatter shooting and more powerful than the .30 carbine round, but in real life battle great distance & power are sometimes unnecessary -- as when one is fighting in close-in conditions.
You might notice that neither the Garand or the round it chambered are current issue to our soldiers. The M-4 and it's "30 carbine like" "poodle shooter" are the standard round carried by the average G.I. today.
In point of fact, soldiers who served in Viet Nam and who had experience with both the M1 Carbine and the M-16 stated that their battlefield effectiveness was pretty close.

Apparently you've never read "U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat" (Goodwin, 2005), subtitled, "personal experiences from WW2 and Korea." I can highly recommend it for the uninformed fanboys and toolbots among us. The book contains transcripts of interviews done a few years back of a large group of then still-living vets from WW2 & Korea. Each was asked what they thought about the specific weapons they were issued and how they used them, firefights, skirmishes, foxhole sniping, etc. - everything from the Garand and the BAR, to the .30 Carbine and the Colt .45.

Of those that encountered the carbine, overwhelmingly they had nothing good to say about its battlefield performance.

Except I have read the book you refer to, and you exaggerate the negative responses. History is full of accounts of soldiers who hated one weapon system or another, while others loved it. The WW1 Chauchet was a crude machine gun and it did fall into near universal disfavor as it proved unreliable in dirty environments, and its parts were not, apparently, interchangeable.
That the M-1 Carbine received mixed review indicates that it was effective atleast to a point. One book indicated that a lot of negative reactions to the carbine were based on poor marksmanship of troops who were inadequatly trained, a condition not uncommon at the beginning of some wars.
Even Patton's beloved M-1 Garand received some mixed reviews, as I've indicated above, yet I do not suggest it was a bad, unreliable rifle .... just that in fighting CGB in clearing buildings as encountered in WW2, the shorter carbine was easier to maneuver with, easy to hit with, and effective at those ranges.

 

[Gun Master]

First thing: DO NOT REFER TO ME AS "DUDENAL."
Who said 1500 marines hated the carbine? I doubt it.
I once did read a letter to the editor of some firearm magazine refering to a previous review of the Garand; the WW2 vet went on and on on how he hated the Garand and by far prefered the carbine, which he was issued later.
Again....so what?





How sanctimonious of you to think I've done no research since we disagree.
The carbine did have good stopping power up close. The utility of small lightweight weapons in close spaces is well-known (atleast to those whose knowledge is based on real-life scenarios and not ballistics charts) and the carbine did very well in this role, while the Garand was often somewhat clumsier.No one is denying that the Garand's .30-'06 cartridge is flatter shooting and more powerful than the .30 carbine round, but in real life battle great distance & power are sometimes unnecessary -- as when one is fighting in close-in conditions.
You might notice that neither the Garand or the round it chambered are current issue to our soldiers. The M-4 and it's "30 carbine like" "poodle shooter" are the standard round carried by the average G.I. today.
In point of fact, soldiers who served in Viet Nam and who had experience with both the M1 Carbine and the M-16 stated that their battlefield effectiveness was pretty close.



Except I have read the book you refer to, and you exaggerate the negative responses. History is full of accounts of soldiers who hated one weapon system or another, while others loved it. The WW1 Chauchet was a crude machine gun and it did fall into near universal disfavor as it proved unreliable in dirty environments, and its parts were not, apparently, interchangeable.
That the M-1 Carbine received mixed review indicates that it was effective atleast to a point. One book indicated that a lot of negative reactions to the carbine were based on poor marksmanship of troops who were inadequatly trained, a condition not uncommon at the beginning of some wars.
Even Patton's beloved M-1 Garand received some mixed reviews, as I've indicated above, yet I do not suggest it was a bad, unreliable rifle .... just that in fighting CGB in clearing buildings as encountered in WW2, the shorter carbine was easier to maneuver with, easy to hit with, and effective at those ranges.

Several have produced / reproduced or replicated a revision of the M-1 Carbine.

Why have none replicated the M-1 Battle Rifle .30-06 ? Is it too difficult ? Would it cost too much, or what ? Honest question.

They each have a certain following.