Carbines

[CAnnoneer]

What do you guys think of carbines? Which ones are your favorite?

I am particularly interested in 9mm carbines that accept pistol mags. I saw the Ruger carbines and they look really nice, albeit I would have preferred it if they were offered in stainless, rather than just blued.

How big are the advantages in muzzle velocity and accuracy?

 

[NMshooter]

If you mean pistol caliber carbines, I find them to be no better than a pistol, though for someone with little or no experience they are easier to shoot than a pistol.

If you are talking about rifles with shorter barrels, I find them to be very useful so long as you realise that below 16" for .223 and 18" for .308 you are going to lose a fair amount of performance. Depending on the rifle a gas operated semi-auto may lose reliability. Accuracy is generally not affected.

 

[mustanger98]

What do you guys think of carbines? Which ones are your favorite?

I really like Winchester's '94AE Carbine in .44mag and .45Colt. Read on.

I am particularly interested in 9mm carbines that accept pistol mags. I saw the Ruger carbines and they look really nice, albeit I would have preferred it if they were offered in stainless, rather than just blued.

Yeah, my preference is a levergun, but I also like the M1 Carbine, in principle at least, as being something light and easy and fun to shoot. I also realize not everybody shares this opinion.

How big are the advantages in muzzle velocity and accuracy?

From what I understand about carbines that fire revolver cartridges, a .357magnum gains about 300fps from a 16" barrel over a 4-6" barreled revolver. So, if a given bullet is running 1200pfs from a revolver (some are loaded that hot according to the Hornady manual) it'll run 1500fps from a carbine. Whether or not that holds true for 9mm in your prefered weapon, I don't know.

 

[P95Carry]

I have several - Camp 9, Camp .45 and also Beretta Storm CX-4 in 9mm.

Carbines are IMO a good way of better utilizing pistol ammo under some conditions. There is perforce a useful increase in MV and also accuracy can be quite good even out to 100 yards.

The Storm is light, very totable and also ''pointable'' and with my carry being SIG 226 - it would be a good tool if hunkering down and needing some useful suppression.

OK - rounds are a tad whimpy but hey - a 15 round series from the CX-4 will not be wasted within 100 yards - that's my 2c anyways

 

[DMK]

I had a Marlin 9mm. It was a nicely made carbine, very accurate, reliable and fun to shoot. However, I started questioning it's usefulness as a home defense weapon. 9mm has terrible ballistics and I just couldn't work up any confidence in it's stopping power against potential two or four legged threats.

I ended up selling it and replacing it with a .223 carbine (probably a SU-16 would be best for you in Kali). The .223 gun is just as light and handy, even more accurate, just as easy to shoot and hits a bit harder with a longer effective range. IMO, it's even more fun than 9mm as a plinker too, albiet more expensive per round.

All that said, I'd still like to get a .357 lever gun one day. Of course the .357 round is quite a bit more versatile than 9mm.

This page here compares 9mm out of a carbine (along with a few other cartidges) against 9mm out of a pistol.

http://members.aol.com/fourn6/camp95.html