I'd like to buy one as a shooter. Not really a collector, however I would like one that's authentic (not a cheap foreign knock-off).

What's a good brand to buy that won't break the much depleated piggy bank.

Of the service carbines, Inlands are the most common. I believe National Postal Meter, Winchester and Rock Ola all produced carbines during WWII with Rock Ola being the most rare. I dont know of any commercial brand being made now though. I think Auto Ordanance made them for a time, might still. Avoid the Universal that you see on Gunbroker and such. They are a cheap knock off and the operating rod is prone to breakage. They are fun to shoot. I have a restored Inland that i considered selling for a time, but just cant do it.

Thanks. I see on Wikipedia that Inland made 2.5 million carbines, followed by Winchester at the next highest number with 860,000 rifles made.

I see that some of the Inlands for sale have import marks. What's the story behind these?

If you see a US GI 30 carbine with import marks it just means it was given to another countries military, and later sold to a US importer, that brought them back to the USA. Many of the Carbines came back from Korea several years ago, along with some M1 Garands.

If you buy one definately buy one that is US GI instead of some of the later commercial ones.

Also magazines. US GI 15 rounders are the most reliable, the 30 rounders less so. I have known several people over the years with 30 cal carbines, and after market mags are usually junk.

Also for serious purpose ammo take a look at the CorBon DPX load.

I would like to have a M-1 Carbine and have it converted to some useful cartridge. Maybe 45 acp, 357, 45 Winchester mag, one of the new 10mm mag.
The 30 caliber round is pretty useless.

Jim

There was a company that advertised several years ago in Shotgun News, that would convert a M1 Carbine to the 45 Win Mag.

There were a couple of companies that did conversions back in the '90s, but the one I've seen the most in internet searches was called LEMAG. Apparently, they are out of business now.

From what I've learned about carbines, it's best just to leave them in their original .30 caliber, as they are pretty much "maxed out" in terms of what the action can safely handle. If you want something that handles like a carbine, but hits harder, buy one of the old Ruger .44 mag carbines.

By the way, there are thousands of dead German and Japanese soldiers that would (if they could) testify that a 110-grain M1 bullet traveling at 1900 fps handles human targets just fine.

Inlands are the most trouble free of the bunch.

I have a very good friend, that did Combat duty in Korea, and later in Vietnam.

He started out with a 30cal Carbine in Korea.

After his first Combat action, he told me he got rid of the Carbine and carried a M1 Garand, from that day foward.

Now he was a "shooter" before Korea, and we shot a lot of Handgun, and Rifle Competition.

So I do not doubt any of the "stories" he told me and my dad over the years.

The ONLY person I have ever known that realy liked the 30 Cal Carbine in combat, was Lt. Col. John George.

Not only you 30 cal. Carbine fans, but all of you on this M14 Forum, should read his book,
"SHOTS FIRED IN ANGER".

He too was a knowledgeble shooter, and his experiences on Combat, and weapons, is well worth the read.

Also another must read is the WWI story by H.W. Mcbride, "A RIFLMAN WENT TO WAR", and his second book "THE EMMA GEES".

If between NOW and the time you die,you do not read any other books, you should read those three.

I have to disagree with the opinion that the .30 carbine round is useless. It is significantly more powerful and has longer range capabilities and greater penetration than the .45 or 9mm cartridges. Couple that with a 5 1/2 lb package and 15 & 30 rd magazines and you have an excellent intermediate personal defense weapon, which is exactly how it was designed.

The National Postal Meter guns seem to be priced the most reasonable,,but with any of the WW2 makers, condition & matched parts calls for top price.
Winchesters get big dollars because,,they're Winchesters,, even though they made a lot of them.

Matching parts doesn't always mean by the same mfg'r as the receiver is marked. Much home work is needed if you're going to get into the nuts and bolts of these and many that are presented as 'matching' have been put together more recently from the mass of available parts to boost value.

Any of the original WW2 mfg'r of the M1 Carbine are a good bet. I'd stay away from aftermarket mfg'rs like Plainfield, Universal, ect. Some are just bad,others not so much. But none will ever keep it's value like an original.

Import markings have been required since 1986 on any firearm brought into the USA. It includes surplus Military surplus firearms and was one concession in the '86 Law to again allow the importation of Milsurp firearms that had been banned since '68.

Non-Import marked Military surplus firearms generally carry a slight premium in value over those that are marked.

They are a fun gun to own & shoot,,regardless of the opinion of it's cartridge or Military usefulness.
I think that's what you want it for anyway.

I bought my keeper,, a Winchester w/a boat load of accessorys, magazines and ammo 6 years ago for $300. Couldn't be happier with it.
I even reload for it.

When I think of a 30 cal Carbine for personal protection, I relate it to a 357 Mag handgun.

The 125gr 357 Mag HP, has a pretty good track record in actual shootings.

A 30 cal Carbine with 110gr SP or HP or DPX, offers similar performance. Much better for the Citizen shooter than Military Ball...

so what's the difference between the hot new do it all 327 mag & a 30 carbine?? oh yea - a rim
over the years i've probably owned several dozen carbines. most had problems with one thing or another. still the handling of them is one of the greatest military rifles there is. Of all I finally kept one. it is a remark, but shoots 3" groups at 200. Unheard of. the worst was one of 3 - the first had a egg shaped chamber and the second when the bolt would slam shut the barrel would be pushed out of the receiver

quote:

Originally posted by adamhunter:
Of the service carbines, Inlands are the most common. I believe National Postal Meter, Winchester and Rock Ola all produced carbines during WWII with Rock Ola being the most rare. I dont know of any commercial brand being made now though. I think Auto Ordanance made them for a time, might still. Avoid the Universal that you see on Gunbroker and such. They are a cheap knock off and the operating rod is prone to breakage. They are fun to shoot. I have a restored Inland that i considered selling for a time, but just cant do it.

Typically Iver-Johnson and Plainfield Machine Tool made commercial carbines are "Faithful" to the military design, even though neither manufacturer was involved in military production.

The Universal has several differences, one of which is "trivial", an aluminum casting for the trigger housing. the other two differences are non trivial, the receiver, stock and operating are redesigned to use DUAL recoil springs because of a perceived, but non-existant issue with the tendency of the operating rod to slip out of it's track at the finger piece end of the op rod.

This issue on issue and commercial carbines does not occour under firing, does not generally occour when the action is installed in the stock and has more o do with misperception of human movement.

If you old the action in your hand and work it you THINK you are miving your hand in a linear motion when in reality you are really moving in an arc, this translates to the fact that people tend to pull out on the back of the op rod because out of the stock you are generally holding the receiver next to your chest, I.E. an abnormal position.


Universal redesigned their rifle to prevent this by using a cast gas box at the front of the op-rod and attached a sheet metal handle
to it, the etra recoil spring and it's handle requires stock differences, so none of the various GI or aftermarket stocks will fit it.

ALL G.I. Carbines are elevated in price since the HBO series "Band of Brother" aired and demand for them has not faded.

the commercial carbines mostly escaped that price blip, but the recent panic on "assault weapons" has affected even the commercial carbines.

More recently taking advantage of their popularity Kahr Arms under their subsidiary brand "Auto Ordinance" are selling new production carbines.

These typically sell for under $1000

They even have a faithful to the original M1A1 (parachutist carbine) reproduction even though only 144,000 M1A1's were originally made out of a total military production of 6.5MILLION carbines.

I've found that the greatest "issue" with the 30round magazines is that though there is a standard for cartridge Over-all Length there is some variance, and 30rd mags are VERY sensitive
to even one cartridge deeper in the mag will completely jam the magazine.

On a recent box of factory ammunition I found three rounds that were 0.010" longer than the others and any one of those three rounds if loaded in the first 15rounds in any of my 30rd magazines would jam the magazine so solidly that I could literally hold it upside-down and shake all the rounds out of it and bang it several times agaisnt a table to unstock the follower.

Simply "bumping" those long rounds in a seating die to set the bullet deeper in the case by 0.015-0.020" made all these magazines function flawlessly

because the 15rd magazines are straight they are more forgiving of rounds that may be seated "long"

If you reload the 30carbine the simple role to follow with any manufacturer's RN bullet is to stay away from the SAAMI max COAL

What I do is to seat bullets so they have 0.020" clearance versus the front of any 30rd magazine I own.

AND I verify that factory ammunition follows this rule as well.

AD

National Postal Meter here. Great shape, works just fine, fine enough that I even shoot cast from it. There weren't a lot of National Postal Meter carbines made. Just like a Garand you have to keep any mating/sliding parts lubricated and she'll run fine.

Would I want one if I was in WWII? No, but it was never meant to be a battle rifle. At close range and with soft/hollow points I think it would serve as a personal protection gun. Maybe even further out as compared with a similar caliber handgun.

M1 Carbine caliber .30 is useless? Not really.

With commercial loads it is capable of intermediate barrier penetration performance comparable to that of many good .223 loads - think auto windshields and car doors and Level IIIa body armor.

Corbon, Remington, Speer and Winchester penetrate 13"-16" and expands to .54"-.58".

Read some of Dr. Gary Roberts work on terminal ballistics and you will be convinced.

I own 3 G.I. M1 carbines and have complete confidence in their ability as a short range assault rifle.

M-1 Carbine is usless?
Friend of mine was gonna sell his cause he'd heard this. Took him outback and set two water jugs up at 50 yards. First one with a solid. It jumped up and poored water out of a couple big holes. Shot the second with a soft point and it split in two peices and blew both off the bench.

I read somewhere it's got the same energy at 100 yards as a 357 does at the muzzle.

I have an Inland carbine made in 1945, all late features, that is normal. 95-96 % by NRA grading standards. Has sling and oiler and 6 USGI 15 rd mag in mint conition. Two are in factory wrap. Also one 30 rd Mag and a GI flash hider. Have 1.5 around 150 rds of GI ammo in stripper clips, and 90-100 rds SP US made ammo. Will include a real WWII bayonet and sheath. $1150 to your door. PM if you are intereasted.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
I have a very good friend, that did Combat duty in Korea, and later in Vietnam.

He started out with a 30cal Carbine in Korea.

After his first Combat action, he told me he got rid of the Carbine and carried a M1 Garand, from that day foward.

Now he was a "shooter" before Korea, and we shot a lot of Handgun, and Rifle Competition.

So I do not doubt any of the "stories" he told me and my dad over the years.

The ONLY person I have ever known that realy liked the 30 Cal Carbine in combat, was Lt. Col. John George.

Not only you 30 cal. Carbine fans, but all of you on this M14 Forum, should read his book,
"SHOTS FIRED IN ANGER".

He too was a knowledgeble shooter, and his experiences on Combat, and weapons, is well worth the read.

Also another must read is the WWI story by H.W. Mcbride, "A RIFLMAN WENT TO WAR", and his second book "THE EMMA GEES".

If between NOW and the time you die,you do not read any other books, you should read those three.

Always thought the carbine was meant as a a "cook's" rifle, something for back of the line troops

Grizz

I have a Postal Meter version, Buffalo Arms barrel, later adjustable rear sight, Choate stock. It was in rough shape when I got it, a little filing, etc, some Brownells Baking Lacquer and I came up with a nice shooter.

I had a 30 round magazine fall apart in the mag well, after that I stuck to the issue 15's.

Useful? It stows nicely in the truck and I'd feel perfectly alright using it for self defense. I behaves as a carbine should.

quote:

Originally posted by goldy:
M-1 Carbine is usless?
Friend of mine was gonna sell his cause he'd heard this. Took him outback and set two water jugs up at 50 yards. First one with a solid. It jumped up and poored water out of a couple big holes. Shot the second with a soft point and it split in two peices and blew both off the bench.

I read somewhere it's got the same energy at 100 yards as a 357 does at the muzzle.

Actually the factory ammo loaded with a 110gr bullet at 1980fps has 975fpe at the muzzle.
This is considerably more than factory 357mag loads that typically top out at ~600fpe

As I just stated in another topic with an Aimpoint on my M1 carbine I can reliable hit 12oz soda cans at 100yards and I can hit a running jackrabbit inside 75yards reliably enough that it is nothing special to do so.
I've never required more than three rounds to
end a jackrabbit's sprinting career.

And while I've managed to hit a soda can with a 22target pistol at 100yards I've never managed the same feat with a 357 that wasn't wearing a scope. and frankly I wouldn't want to bet my life to do the same thing again if I needed to in order to survive.

my only wish on my M1 carbine is to aquire a folding stock to make it easier to get in and out from behind the seat of my pickup truck.

And while an M1A1 stock would be "nice" the reproductions cost more than I paid total for both of my commercial M1 Carbines.

One of the Choate folders is in the top five of my personal wish list for "stuff under $200" that I want to buy.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc TH:
I have to disagree with the opinion that the .30 carbine round is useless. It is significantly more powerful and has longer range capabilities and greater penetration than the .45 or 9mm cartridges. Couple that with a 5 1/2 lb package and 15 & 30 rd magazines and you have an excellent intermediate personal defense weapon, which is exactly how it was designed.

DITTO what Doc & Allen have said. Just get out any reloading manual & compare the 30 carbine to the much touted 357 Mag. with the 110 grain pills.

GA,

I think if you're patient you can find one for a fair price. If I were looking, I would steer clear of any "Blue Sky" stamped M1 carbines unless you can inspect them closely as they can have various issues.

I've seen Carbines sell for $700 with mismatched stocks that have mismatched buttplates, but the buttplate's worth $125 attached to a mismatched original stock worth $300. Anyways, check that out, too. You could sell the stock that's not correct for the carbine anyway and pick up a nice repro stock to use a shooter.

Down the line you could always search for the correct stock for your carbine, but you'd have a nice WW2 shooter in the meantime.

I've also found the birch repro stocks fit tighter and shoot better than some of the originals with regard to accuracy.

Grizzly Adams

You are kinda correct. The M1 Carbine was originaly designed to be issued to Non Front Line Combat Troops, and to be issued to certain Front Line Combat troops to replace or supplement the pistol.

However as we all know there is always a "want" even in the Front Line" for a lighter, handier rifle.

So many times the M1
Carbine ended up on the front line.

The reports of a rifles cartridge's ineffectiveness can also be traced to another fact of life.

When a fella has only 8 rounds in a Garand, he tends to shoot a little more carefully, than the same fella would if he has a M1 Carbine with a 15 or 30 round magazine.

A police officer withe a 6 shot 38, tends to shoot more carefully, than the SAME police officer would with a 15+ shot 9mm. [I have seen this first hand]...

The same thing happened in South Vietnam, Republic Of.

The Montinyard [sp] troops first issued the 5.56 AR's reported great results, with MASSIVE wounds. They could hit what they shot at.

When the not well trained as shooters, US Troops got the M 16's, they would shoot 20 rounds at one guy, miss all 20 rounds, and then claim the 5.56 "won't kill nobody"...

And let me add that I have been to a lot of shooting's, where a bunch of shots were fired, and "nobody" got hit.

Also, I have trained a lot of people that when they showed up, THEY could not have commited suicide in a Phone Booth...

Tony, That one is too good!

Got my Inland M1 Carbine through the NRA in 1965.
This was the last bunch sold through them and when it arrived, it was BRAND NEW. Paid $15.00 + shipping Still shoots like a dream. I don't think it's ever jammed on me

MauserK98

The best comparison for what the M1 Carbine cartridge does
is considering that the 30carbine does at the muzzle
what a 30-30 does with a 150gr bullet at 100yards

THE issue in the field with the 30carbine "lacking stopping power" is related to the use of a FMJ round nose bullet.

Who here is going to shoot FMJ's at anything besides paper
or water filled milk jugs?

*******************

As for "other cartridges" a full conversion to "Something else"
is going to get ugly in a hurry.

Making a full barrel for a carbine is not going to be "pretty"

So boring one becomes the only reasonable option.

I can easily see the bolt face being enlarged to take a 223 sized case head, but anything bigger is going to need an
entirely "new" bolt body.

a fatter chamber in that skinny barrel and that weak looking receiver ring males me want to be FAR AWAY when you test fire it with a "Bigger" chamber regardless of what cartridge you use in it.

When a person gets shot the results like a lot of animals a lot of time just isn't instant.

If they don't fall right now they are going to get shot more times the easier to shoot firearm means more rounds on target.Doesn't mean it doesn,t work.

Saw a video of a robber getting shot with a 45 1911.

The shooter drew dumped a mag into the robber. Was in the process of reloading then the robber fell over.

Time from the frist one hitting to last round was something like 1.5 seconds. The shooter was a hard core IPSC shooter and was a very good shot.

All good center mass hits the shooter stated after wards he was sure he was missing and thought the guy was just standing there like forever.

It takes a while for a body just to collapse

I won't get into the foot-pounds part of the argument. Over my lifetime I have shot enough columbia blacktail deer with the .30 carbine to know I will never use one again for shooting at any mammalian thing that lives here on earth.

And for self-defense where high output semi-auto fire would be of any use, I'd take a single AR-platform rifle over whole trailer full of M-1 Carbines. So it is highly likely I will never own another one.

I think they are "cute", but its like with women. I prefer the adult version to the pre-pubescent girls, no matter how cute the little ones may be.

AC, too funny. I always tell my friends that they would have never given me a Carbine in WWII. Although it wasn't originally built to end up on the front line it did. No way no how for me. To tell you the truth a rifle that shoots a small cartridge, but larger then the 30 Carbine, is SKS and it's more rifle then the Carbine ever dreamed of being. More robust, more reliable, more powerful. That's not a pitch for a Communist rifle, but hey you have to give it credit. You have to admit too that the PPhS41, a small 30 caliber cartridge submachinegun, was a very feared weapon.

I agree on the SKS and the 7.62x39 cartridge, SmokinJ. I had a virtually brand new Russian SKS for the first half of the 1990s, but I sold it in 1995.

I really like the cartridge. I modified one for .30 cal BR competition back in 1998 (JGS made the reamer to my specs), and I called my version the .30 PPC. But I only made them for me, so I am NOT trying to lay any claim to what is now the dominant version of the .30 PPC.

Then, in about 2007 0r 2008, I found a NIB complete 7.62x39 AR upper including bolt, etc., with a 16" barrel, for sale online unfired for just under $500 from a dealer in San Diego. I bought that to use on my Bushmaster lower when I wasn't hunting varmints with it.

Contrary to all I ever read about that round in the AR-15s, mine works just fine with magazines I bought from CDNN, and with the three Colt magazines which came with the upper.

It has never jammed on me or failed to feed....at least not YET.....

So now that is my primary home-defense rifle.

(I will still go to my Glock 20 and my shotgun before turning to ANY rifle though.)

P.S.: When I served in the '50s in the 25th U.S. Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning Division) many of the troops had been issued M-1 carbines for use on the battlefield in both WWII and Korea. (The 25th was the second U.S. force into Korea, the 24th Division was the first.) The M-1 carbine was universally held in contempt by those folks in our Division....lack of killing power was the reason. When the enemy was coming through the wire within feet of you on an ice-cold, inky black night with no reserves where they could help save one's butt, nobody wanted to have to locate & shoot any of them twice.

AC,

While I would never consider shooting a deer of any kind with a 30Carbine,
I'll point out that the LESS powerful 357 is legal for deer where I live.

Personally I didn't put an Aimpoint 2000 onto an M1 Carbine to make it a deer killer, I have a rifled 12ga shotgun and several more serious rifles for that...

But as a Varmint killer... if you aren't after the hide, but simply making a Coyote or Fox DEAD a 30carbine that can hit a 12oz pop can at 100yds or a running jackrabbit at 50-75yds will do the job very well...

Here in Britain Westley Richards developed a quite adequate PARK DEER rifle (that is for shooting deer in an enclosed park of a stately home) the .300 Sherwood.

That fired a 140 grain bullet, of .308" diameter, at 1,400 fps muzzle velocity. So it seems that maybe it is the bullet weight rather than the bullet speed that matters?

Some ill informed commentators call it a "rok and rabbit" rifle cartridge. It wasn't. That's their ignorance. Read the original sources...Westley's promotional material...and you'll see it was designed for these PARK DEER. That is mainly the British fallow deer.

So there may be something missing in the .30 M1 Carbine cartridge regardless of bullet style or bullet velocity that makes it an inadequate deer cartridge and, by extension with an FMJ bullet a poor military cartridge?

I suppose that the inventors that just took the .44 cap n'ball round ball and squashed it down to .38 Long Colt thought that the stopping power would be the same too?

FWIW again here in Britain after WWII they did the usual survey of those that had used infantry weapons as to what "worked" and what didn't. Problem is for those for whom the .30 M1 Carbine that "worked" there's no doubt many, their names on war memorials, for who it didn't work...and never got the chance to say so...

But its bullet out weights and out velocities the Russian Tokarev and PPsH SMG. And I never recall any stories of those being thought inadequate.

So is the "failure" of the M1 Carbine really just badly placed shots from pressure or poor marksmanship?

Well, one does have to admit that a military loaded 110 grain FMJ is not going to work as well as a soft point expanding bullet.

I know some military guys who basically said that if you can hit what you shoot at, it really doesn't matter too much what you are shooting; but the reason carbines were being carried by lots of folks was that it was light, recoiled minimally, and since 90% of the troops either couldn't or wouldn't shoot to kill, it really didn't matter- most bad guys were killed by artillery or machine guns, not the rifles.

Rifle fire suppressed the enemy targets so that the heavy weapons could kill. These guys mostly fought in Germany and Korea.

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Well, one does have to admit that a military loaded 110 grain FMJ is not going to work as well as a soft point expanding bullet.

I know some military guys who basically said that if you can hit what you shoot at, it really doesn't matter too much what you are shooting; but the reason carbines were being carried by lots of folks was that it was light, recoiled minimally, and since 90% of the troops either couldn't or wouldn't shoot to kill, it really didn't matter- most bad guys were killed by artillery or machine guns, not the rifles.

Rifle fire suppressed the enemy targets so that the heavy weapons could kill. These guys mostly fought in Germany and Korea.

I recall reading that 84% of Axis casualties on the western front of WW2 were caused not by infantry weapons, but by Artillery.

"Leg" does the dying, but "Red-leg" does most of the killing.

I sold all of my "authentic" WWII m1 carbines, for example Winchester, Saginaw, Postal meter, and Inland. I will say that if you are not dead set on a collector piece, look for an IMI after market carbine. They actually shoot tighter groups than the originals unless they have been worked over. The nice part is you can find one for about $450 to $500. I know they are not original but the majority of the parts are USGI. If you are not a collector and don't mind the name brand thing it is a good deal. They really are the most bang for the buck to make a bad pun. To get any half way decent carbine these days you will spend 1k and up. Unless someone looks at the stamping, they will never know the difference. So I guess my question is how bad do you want a "real" war vet versus a much more affordable and usually better shooting rifle? Personally I am a collector so I look for the "real deal" but in all honesty if all you want to do is have some fun with a good shooter, go for the IMI. If you plan however on shooting sanctioned military competition you need to go the other route.

I do have a lot of 30M1 carbine ammo if you may be interested.