M1 Carbine: Should I get it?

Get it. Fun gun to shoot. Sort of like a glorified 22 lr.

I reload for mine (Inland 44 also if I remember right). It will take soft points or FMJ's. I use mine as a defense round around the house.

It is small, compact, reliable, easy to shoot, not as loud as a 223 and it is easy to handle. 15 rounds in the mag, 30 more in the butt carrier.

Think about it. It has been protecting folks since 44 and doing a reasonable job of it.

Sounds like a good deal to me if it's in as good shape as claimed.
Don't knock the round. The carbine was developed to replace the .45ACP pistol and the Thompson. In reality it did neither. Many Japanese & German soldiers went down to it's cartridge. It's true it is not as poweful as the Garand round. It was not intended to be the main battle rifle. When used under 200 yards it proved relatively accurate and powerful enough to penetrate German helmets and down them, which was beyond the ability of the .45.
It did suffer in theaters where long range shooting was the norm --- where the Garand was really required to accuratly hit and take out the enemy. But it was never intended to be used at those ranges.
I suggest if you want to use soft nose or hollowpoint you buy some and test fire them because some carbines don't like soft nose rounds. These can be helped by polishing the ramp in some cases. The carbine was intended for use with ball ammo and even that is nothing to sneeze at.
The carbine saw service up to early years in Vietnam. Soldiers having experience with both the M-1 Carbine and the M-16 thought that the carbine was as effective as the M-16 at close ranges and often prefered the carbine. The early M-16s had "teething problems" that took awhile to iron out and were jammomatics, while the carbine just plain worked.
As for a defense weapon it would be good for a home defense weapon. Try to get some good hollowpoints and run them for function assurance as I said. The #1 downside is the price of this kind of ammo. I just paid $33.00 for a box of 50 rounds and for HP they're a little more.

My M1 carbines are more accurate than my AK variants. As noted, with softpoint ammo, the carbine becomes pretty lethal. Also, the handling qualities of the little carbine make one fast rifle, possibly giving it an edge in a CQB engagement. I do not think you would be disappointed, unless you try to make it do something more than it was designed for.

For the type of defense that you are wanting, the M1 carbine shines. You will regret it instantly if you let this one go...

I think it's the perfect HD carbine.

I love mine. They won't get cheaper.

Called my uncle. I'll be picking it up tomorrow

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Great choice!! Pics when you get it?

ammo's pricey and geting higher. that's about the only thing I can say bad about an m1 carbine.

I have an old M1 carbine. It has been very reliable for many years. A 110 grain bullet with a 1,950 fps muzzle velocity will definitely do some damage. It is easy to handle and reloading ammo is easy.

I would worry about over penetration with most of the available ammo.

I do not carry mine around since I carry concealed.

A great gun for gun nuts but otherwise not that practical of choice.

Cheap surplus ammunition is long gone.

Ammo resupply may be a big issue. It is not carried by all sporting goods stores and it pricey.

The 30 Carbine is a poor stopper. This was proven time and time again in WWII and Korea.

To me the price is high but hey it is family right?

You can get a Saiga carbine for half the price...

And the price keeps going up...

There are fewer and fewer of them...

And you are a gun nut right?

The Winnie name is always an instant hit for re-sale if you decide to in the future, I would think for family he would have done ya a better price. Either way , they are fun and easy to reload for if you go that route.
Got my Inland around 5 years ago , great shooting gun. Shoot my steel target out at the 200 yard line, so they can reach out there. They were designed for out to 300 yards by Army requirements at the time.

The 30 Carbine is a poor stopper. This was proven time and time again in WWII and Korea.

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No, what was proven was that it is a short range weapon as opposed to the Garand, which is a long range weapon. IOWs when used as designed it works fine.

The 30 Carbine is a poor stopper. This was proven time and time again in WWII and Korea.

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It was proven that it did not stop as well as the Garand. It was also proven using FMJ rounds, which is not a restriction placed on the OP.

funny thing is, I hear all kinds of whining about the poor stopping power of the 30 carbine 110grn bullet @ 1950fps, but nobody seems bothered at all by virtually identical performance out of the "new hotness" 300 blackout.

it's also fairly similar to the 357 mag with a lightweight bullet. ball ammo just goes through and through, pretty good on rabbits and squirrels. a soft point however, well it's killed plenty of deer in our family.

heck yeah

doubt you'll regret buying it. it's one of the few firearms I've ever regretted selling, since my wife passed I didn't need it and sold locally (not for that high a price though as this was around 15yr back). wish I had thought to get it to one of my nephew's wife.

M1 carbine threads need photos.........here's a 1943 Underwood.

Ok....what do you think is a better option for my wife to use in the house? A handy carbine with which she can put a LOT of rounds with more energy EACH than a .357 through center of mass VERY quickly and reload easily.....

OR....should I give her a GARAND to use for home defense?

Jim Cirullo (RIP) used to recount of his days on the NYPD Stakeout Squad where MANY perps got what was coming to them before PC outcry wuz heeded, the Carbine with Remington Soft Point Ammo wuz used . The NYPD guns were in great shape and POSSIBLY "polished" a little but were other wise stock, no flash lights , pic rails or muzzle attachment in those days.Both the para troop and M2 variant were available but those who USED them soon preferred the fixed stock version for WORK.
Jim said all though the 12 gauge rifled slug was usually definitive, he preferred the carbine from across the Liquor store distances where he usually went for a nose or eye shot and never missed one. His partners used body shots with the carbine and said it was like a long barreled .357 (which were banned for police use in NYPD regs) in effect with quicker and much more accurate follow up shots. Jim said no one shot with the carbine lived. Soon the WW2 hero carbine was getting a bad rap in the Big Apple Big Newspapers and they went back to 12 Ga. slugs before the whole hyper effective Stakeout Squad was disbanded so armed robbery rates could get back to normal.
Bottom line the M1 carbine is a nasty hombre inside 50 yards and thats where 99% non military gun fights will ever occur. In closer it delivers one fast hit to the cabeza let me tell ya ! I started shooting my dad's Carbine in the 50s and by 64 had brandished it in a home defense scenario when the gang assault was stopped in my drive way before they got out of the car. In Nam I did get my hands on an M2 Para from an ARVN but soon traded it for a dumb M3 Grease Gun which was authorized for me and seemed to go with my issued 1911. I got a very nice Inland in 1994 for $350 and used it to slaughter sheep and goats I could not catch for the next 15 years. Yep Remington Soft Point were the bomb like Jim C. said and a sheeps head would just swell up and pop the eyes out when hit with one out to 50 yards or less.
The new Korean 15 round mags seem to reallybe reliable, as good as the new in wrap military ones I got in 1994. Wonder of wonder the good Korean 30 rounders seem to work really well! The first 30 rounders I've seen work BTW. I took a Louis Awerbuck Carbine class in 2002 or so at Modesto and I used an AR (which I really never had any formal training on) and an older gentleman with me who was a genuine retired CIA field officer used an M1 carbine. He did better than me , overall, faster than most of the cowboys and basically got the accolades from Louis. Over cocktails he tried to convince my training partner how effective the Carbine was in the real world of killing. He did have to convince me!

For close range work, it is a wonderful platform. At the muzzle, a .30 carbine bullet has 1/3 MORE momentum and 80% of the energy of a 5.56 round. It is, however, very light for it's caliber and bleeds energy downrange. Inside of 100 to 150 yards, though, I don't think there is enough difference to matter.

Personally, I prefer shooting an M1 to an M4gery.

mljdeckard said:

Ok....what do you think is a better option for my wife to use in the house? A handy carbine with which she can put a LOT of rounds with more energy EACH than a .357 through center of mass VERY quickly and reload easily.....

OR....should I give her a GARAND to use for home defense?

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Uh, seriously? A garand? How big is she? Can she manipulate the garand effectively?

I LOVE my garands but for in-the-house work I'd pick the carbine every time.