U.S. M-1 Carbine 30 Caliber Review

The M1 Carbine, let’s check it out.

 

The M1 Carbine was designed in the late 30s and put into service with the U.S. in 1942 and served not only through World War II, Korea, and also Vietnam, and still serves in military and police forces all around the world. It’s a very light and handy little rifle, and even though it is an intermediate caliber, it still can be very effective.

We’re going to remove the magazine. It’s empty. Open the chamber and the gun is unloaded.

The M1 Carbine is one of my all-time favorite rifles. In fact, firearms in general. I love this little Carbine.

A lot of it has to do, obviously, with the history that goes behind this. It has that really old vintage look with the woodstock, the parkerized finish all along the parts. And really, if this rifle could tell a story, it would probably be just incredible.

Now, the War Department during World War II was looking for an intermediate cartridge. They wanted something that was much lighter than the M1 Garand. It was really to replace your sidearm.

Having something that would be a lot more effective, especially in a combat situation. And so Winchester was one of the big ones that kind of put this forward. Now, Carbine Williams, who is a convicted felon, who was in prison, working on the short stroke action is a huge contribution to this design.

He was actually hired by Winchester and brought in to finish out the short stroke piston. But the real brainchild behind the M1 Carbine was Ed Browning, which was John Browning’s brother. The barrel is 18 inches, but the overall length is about 36 and a half inches.

It’s a very handy, very easily maneuvered firearm. One of the great things about the .30 caliber Carbine was it’s lightweight. They weigh about five and a half pounds and it makes it really handy and easy for troops behind the front lines to be able to have something for personal protection.

One of the reasons why these became such a hot topic during World War II was because of a lot of paratroopers that were landing behind enemy lines and disrupting a lot of different military operations. And so the design for this was much better than having a regular .45 caliber handgun or even the .45 caliber Tommy guns. These were much more effective out to distances up to 300 yards, but really 200 yards was really the best effective distance for these rifles.

Now, while the M1 is called a Carbine, which is typically a shorter version of an original rifle, the M1 Garand fired the .30-06. And here we have one. In fact, this is probably a military surplus. In fact, it is a military surplus .30-06. You can even see the corrosion coming through because these were corrosive.

Here is the .30 caliber. What a huge difference between these two. Now, while there are some similarities between the Carbine and the Garand, which is of course the operating rod and the rotating bolt, the only part that actually interchanges is this screw in the butt plate.

Now, the 15-round magazine fits right up here in the mag well. There is a mag release right here on the side. You just pull it out.

Real simple, real easy to install a fresh magazine. Safety right here. There are some different type safeties.

This is the lever safety. They did have a push through safety. Small trigger guard.

Here we have the charging handle. Brings it back, enters a round. It does not hold open on the last round, but right here on the charging handle is a little button and a little notch right here.

Bring it back, depress it, and it holds it into place. There were two different styles of rear safety. This is the one with the adjustable aperture.

There was an L-shaped as well. On here is marked one, two, and 300 yards, and the aperture just moves up accordingly. The front side is a post that has rabbit ears that protect it.

Here we have the barrel band, and this holds the bottom of the stock to the barrel. This one does have a bayonet lug. Some did not.

In fact, they removed these later on. There are bayonets out on the market. They are really expensive.

You get an original World War II bayonet. They did have a lot of the Vietnam era bayonets that were actually pretty reasonable, and you can get aftermarkets. We have a separate cover here, and then the stock.

These stocks typically are very beautiful hardwood stocks, as you can see with this one. Right here is US carbine caliber 30 M1. Right here is your serial number, and then underneath the rear sight is the manufacturer of the receiver.

This is a US postal meter. There were a number of different companies, including Inland, of course Winchester, which was the original. There was Saginaw, Rockola, a lot of different companies, and the parts were made that they could interchange, and over six and a half million M1 carbines were made during World War II.

Six million Garands were made, so the M1 carbine was the most produced US firearm during World War II. This is an aftermarket sling, but it has a little brass point that clips around, and then here at the buttstock, it fits through and connects to an oiler. You can see the small lid screwed into the top.

It has a little oiler piece that’s down the middle. This is fit, of course, into the sling, and you push the sling through, and you can pull out your oiler. The buttstock is metal with checkering.

Of course, the recoil on these are so light that you really don’t need anything but this metal, but of course, the Garands also had a metal buttplate, and the recoil was significantly greater than it was on the carbine. Another really popular accessory for the M1 was this little magazine pouch. It actually fits over the stock and sits just like this.

It holds two 15-round magazines, really able to get to them very quickly. Now, there are a lot of mixed reports about the effectiveness of the .30 caliber. A lot of times, there was a lot of talk about the stopping power of the .30 caliber, how soldiers would take multiple hits before they were stopped, and just a lot of controversy and rumors, but a lot of it did tend to lead to fact, but I guess it was according to what situation it was in.

These were really popular in jungle warfare. One of the reasons why it was not corrosive, the ammunition, the .30 caliber, was designed to not be corrosive, whereas the .30-06 was, but one of the problems was that moisture would get into the cartridge, or could get into the cartridge, so that could present a problem in itself. The balance on the carbine is just really nice.

You can grab it with one hand, and you can maneuver it very easily. It’s not weighted. The balance is really toward where the magazine is.

A very light recoil weapon, and really the .30 caliber is really about a .357 magnum. Very pointable, very easy to maneuver, and very easy just to sling over your shoulder, especially if you have a lot of other gear, whether you’re a medic, you’re a radio operator, or a mortar crew, driving in a truck, tanks. I mean, there’s so many reasons that this came and became a very favorite firearm.

These were just really designed to replace a handgun. Handgun’s great for really up close and personal, but for distance, this really made this a much more effective weapon. The M2 was a select-fire rifle that could fire semi-automatic or full automatic.

That’s the reason for the 30-round magazines. Then they had the M3 version, which was a select-fire rifle with an infrared scope on top. During the Battle of Okinawa, the M3 accounted for 30% of the casualties, mainly because of a lot of the Japanese forces moving at night, and they were able to use those effectively because they could see them, and the Japanese couldn’t see where they were.

It was only out to about 70 yards effective. Now, once Korea came into play and they had upgraded the infrared scopes, they were able to get out to about 125 yards. Now, there is a paratrooper model which has a side-folding stock, and it was very popular with paratroopers because of how handy it was and how lightweight.

Those really bring a premium. During World War II, it only cost $45 to produce an M1 carbine. If you can find them today, typically they run between $850 and $1,000.

I believe Inland, which was one of the original manufacturers actually owned by GM, the Inland company has now started producing brand new M1 carbines. They’re running about $1,049 as far as on the Inland website. Price may be lower once they hit the market.

I believe Auto Ordnance is also making one, and they run about $850. CAR is one of the owners of Auto Ordnance, and they should be a pretty decent little rifle. I’ve seen them around, but I haven’t had a chance to fire one.

But there’s just something about these old World War II rifles that just really have a lot of soul. Now, I had previously done a review about three or four years ago on the M1 carbine that was actually my dad’s. He had talked me out of it because he was in the Army in a MAS unit in the 60s, and that’s what he carried, an M1 carbine.

I’ve been wanting one for myself again, and I just picked this up about a month ago at a local gun show. I paid about $850 for it, and really, I thought I got a pretty good deal on it. Also, Winchester seems to be one of the most expensive and most collectible, and then also Rockola, which made jukeboxes.

These were coming into the country at one point from Israel, a lot of the surplus rifles, for around $350 around 20 years ago. Then when those dried up, the prices went up on those as well. One of the things I know recently is Korea had a bunch of surplus M1 carbines, and I believe it was blocked by the White House, the importation, because they were, quote unquote, assault rifles.

But guys, these are classics. These are part of American history, and it’s really a shame that those rifles aren’t making their way here to collectors and shooters. As far as ammunition costs, there are a lot of different companies that make this ammunition.

You’re buying it in a 50-round box. These run about $2199, I think, at Academy Sport for 50 rounds. If you compare that to .223, which is a 20-round box, really, it’s pretty close to the same price per round.

So while a lot of people think that the .30 caliber is really expensive, when you compare it to your standard .556 or .223, it pretty much is the same price. One of the things about these magazines is if you’re going to get the 30-rounders, typically, the old surplus mags work the best. A lot of the commercial mags in the 30-rounders can have issues.

Here is a standard old and here World War II issue magazine, and then again, here’s some of the just box magazines that are aftermarket, and they seem to fit and work just fine. Really, in modern day standards, this would make an excellent home defense or personal defense weapon within a couple of hundred yards. It’s going to be effective.

It’s going to have decent penetration, again, like a .357 Magnum coming out of an 18-inch barrel. So you’re going to get some real velocity there. Also, with all the different loads that they’re making for this, the modern loads, there’s even self-defense loads they make and soft points for hunting.

So it can be used for a hunting caliber. The M1 carbine, how can you not give it a big thumbs way up?

 

Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.

 

-Don