best M1 carbine conversion?

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jason41987

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i was kind of curious about the M1 carbine conversions i see floating around... 38 supers, 9x23, 357 magnum, various wildcat cartridges...

so im wondering, is there any M1 carbine based conversion that delivers adequate punch for such a small, light weight package?... i know 357 magnum out of a carbine length barrel produces 7.62x39 and 30-30 energies... are there any other options?
 
30 Carbine is pretty near 357 levels already. Why not just stick with it? Though I have not priced 30 Carbine recently so that may have something to do with it. I have never heard of converting a M1 Carbine but, hey I learn new things everyday.
 
I've always thought a .357 mag carbine in semi-auto would be cool. A lot of people brush it off as rimmed cases being unreliable, but there are enough .357 mag auto pistols to make me a believer.

I don't know if it'd be worth it to do the conversion money-wise, but you'd open up a whole lot of ammo choices compared to .30 carbine.
 
robert, to answer your question, .30 carbine with an 18 inch barrel does in fact come quite close to 357 magnum... from a pistol barrel, but from velocities measured firing 357 magnum from an 18 inch barrel, it has about double the energy as the 30 carbine...

im not sure how i feel about rimmed ammunition in a magazine myself... its entirely possibly for the top round being fed into the chamber to have its rimmed hooked by the rim of the next cartridge in the magazine... though studying the dimensions and pressures of .223, you could hack the neck off and have something with almost exactly the same width and length of 357 magnum with a rim...so one idea i had was doing that...

i wonder how much energy 9x23 or 38 super would have (both of which approach the energy of a 357 magnum) through a rifle barrel for the possibility of having a combination carbine and converted 1911 pistol for a one-ammo fits all package between the two... similar to how they had the 1911 and thompson in WWII, but with more energy... i mean, id never actually attempt to convert a semi-auto thompson because i doubt it could handle the pressures, which leads me towards the M1 carbine

also, .30 carbine has an overall length of what? 40-42mm?.. that gives you a lot more options
 
Where are you seeing these conversions "floating around?" Who's making them? On what guns? GI surplus carbines?
 
robert, to answer your question, .30 carbine with an 18 inch barrel does in fact come quite close to 357 magnum... from a pistol barrel, but from velocities measured firing 357 magnum from an 18 inch barrel, it has about double the energy as the 30 carbine...
Click to expand...
Not really. The M1 carbine gets a 110 grain slug going about 1900 fps. That's an ME of about 900 ft-lbs. A bit less than some .357 loads out of a rifle (1000-1200 ft-lbs), but certainly not half the energy.
 
The only one I've actually seen is the 5.7mm Johnson, AKA the .22 Spitfire, a .30 Carbine round necked down to .22 calibre for 3,000 fps velocities. It's kind of similar to the current 5.7x28mm FN, but was loaded with a 40 grain bullet, rather than the FN's 23gr.-31gr. loads. Since the Johnson round is pretty much a handload-only choice, I wonder if anyone has tried converting an M1 Carbine to use the 5.7mm FN round?
 
Best conversion I've seen is the "Advisors Carbine"

Stock M1A1 Carbine (in the WWII Folding Paratrooper Stock) with a barrel cut back to 12".

Yes, It's a SBR that requires a stamp, but the resulting weapon is light, handy, reasonably accurate to 150 yards, just short of .357 Magnum level performance, and controllable due to the light recoil characteristics.

It was a semi-official configuration used by our officers in Vietnam with many of them being created in-country at the unit depot level.

Don
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.7mm_Spitfire

About the only conversion for M1 Carbine with any practical use: .30 Carbine necked to .22, (50gr bullet at 2,700 fps velocity, 810 ft/lbs energy.)

Introduced 1963 by Melvin M. Johnson; Numrich Arms/Gun Parts Corp had barrels, headspace gauges, ammo, etc. in stock last time I checked.

IIRC Universal made a .44 mag pump-action rifle based on the M1 Carbine.

The carbine was designed by a team at Winchester around the .30 SL cartridge for WWII, and conversions to other calibers just have not been successful or popular.

For that matter, has anyone in USA seen any of the .270 Winchester caliber M1 Garands made by the civilian Springfield Armory for sale in countries where military calibers are verboten to civilan gun owners? Just as a M1 Garand in any caliber other than .30-06 is unAmerican, a M1 carbine in anything other than .30 Carbine is just wrong.
 
i in good conscience could never modify an old military rifle... i cant even bring myself to like an M1 garand in anything but .30-06, even if .308 is more readily available and just as powerful... i was mostly asking out of curiosity as one person converted their own and it seemed like the best platform for a .357 mag carbine since the cartridges are almost exactly the same size...

so it was just curiosity for the most part.. to see if it would even be worth it or not
 
"Advisors Carbine" the stuff of true legends. Take a M1A1 folding stock, cut a relief for the selector switch, drop in a M2 carbine, tack weld a front sight on the barrel band, adjust to match the rear sight alignment to the front sight, chop the barrel off 2" in front of the barrel band, final sight adjustments, BAM! PDW!!
 
The only caliber conversion that I can recall was for the 5.7mm. Spitfire designed by Melvin Johnson.
 
problem is the 5.7x28 seems to be less powerful than 30 carbine.. so youd be going backwards with that.. but if you were going to go with a wildcar, why not neck .30 carbine to 6.8?...

also, whats the wall thickness on a .30 carbine case?
 
carl.. you want an old PDW?... C-96 mauser... select fire, 7.63x25 was one of the most powerful handgun cartridges before 357 mag, and it even had an attachable stock for a profile about as compact and powerful as an FN P90... so close to a 120 year old PDW
 
I owned a 44 Mag M1 Carbine conversion, it was not only converted in caliber but also was changed to a pump action. They were made by Universal in the 60's and the model was the Vulcan 440. I sold mine after I spent several months trying to find extra mags with no success.

Vulright30.jpg
 
I have seen complaints about "where can i find a Universal Vulcan magazine" over the years since the 1970s. That's the problem with some of the carbine caliber conversions. (The Iver Johnson 9mm used modified Browning Hi-Power magazines.) The 5.7 Spitfire had the advantage of using standard .30 M1 Carbine magazines.
 
Forget about the .357 Magnum conversion. It won't kill anything that the .30 Carbine won't as well. I would (and did) concentrate on upgrading the M1 Carbine with a collapsible stock and better sights.

Don

M1A1A.jpg
 
101_1217.jpg Here is my "conversion" same .30 carbine ammo. I have had so many issues with aftermarket hack jobs trying to re chamber a rifle to do what it wasnt designed to do.
 
im curious... max pressure in a 30 carbine cartridge is 40,000 PSI... what is the limiting factor of this?.. is it the wall thickness of the case or the action itself?.. im wondering if a +P load is possible?
 
I should add that, despite the coolness factor of the folding stock, unless you really need a folding stock, don't get one. They are a real POS. Wobble and creak.
 
i agree with moxie... i hate folding AND telescoping stocks.. theyre rarely comfortable anyway
 
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