Help with m1 Carbine for someone who knows nothing about them :(

[Ratzinger_p38]

Wanting to add to my world war II rifle collection,and next on my list is the M1 Carbine. I dont know much about them but I see that during the war many companies made them. What is confusing me is when I look for M1 Carbines on gun broker they have a load of post war clones mixed in.

I am only wanting a wartime carbine. Whatever the cheapest manufacturer is. CMP is totally out of them save for the rare ones like the IBMs. I dont know exactly which one I want though, as these clones confuse the hell out of me.

At the moment I am poor but I am wanting to pay between $500-750 for one. They never show up at my local dealer, so any help with an easy supply of them for a stable price would be helpful. Just a wartime carbine, nothing fancy or rare.

 

[DnPRK]

My best advice is to keep looking. Visit gun stores and pawn shops frequently. There are plenty of old warhorses out there. Many of "those old rifles" are sold off by the widows and kids of the deceased owner.

 

[Fergy35]

The carbines

are great little rifles. During your search there are several sites that can provide some good reading. I believe Inland and Winchester were the top two producers as far as quantity. I have seen the carbines at some of the local shows in your price range. Most of those have been reworked and contain a mixture of parts from the various manufacturers. This is pretty normal and shouldn't be a concern as long as everything is in decent shape.

If you are willing to wait for the CMP to release more, I understand that they will be. Check their site for the scheduled dates.

If you are trying to find one in WWII configuration, I'm afraid they will be quite a bit more money than you are looking to spend.

You might want to check the following sites out. These are just a couple that came up with a quick search;

www.fulton-armory.com/M1Carbine.htm

http://www.surplusrifle.com/m1carbine/index.asp

I am sure you will get some good info from the folks here that have quite a bit more knowledge than I do.

Good luck with your search.

 

[GarandOwner]

I'd recomend looking for an Inland manufacture. All of the m1 carbines you will find that are original GI (no new manufacture) were made durring the war, they stoped making M1 carbines in 1945, so if it is a GI it will of been made durring the war. Inland made the most, so you can usually find them the cheapest.

 

[Ghostrider_23]

Wolf ammo

Do not use Wolf ammo in your M1 Carbine!!!!! Steel case ammo will break your extractor and you will need to replace it and in order to do so you will need the tool for it as well. Shoot decent ammo through it and you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Universal, Plainfield, and now Kahr/Auto-Ordnance have made commercial M1 Carbines. I would avoid those. They will never have the collector value of an original wartime carbine.

Inland, a division of GM, was the largest wartime producer of M1 Carbines, and were probably the best made. Be aware though that M1 Carbines were re-arsenaled after WWII and most are now mixmasters. There is nothing wrong with this though. Thats the way they should be. If you see someone selling an all-original parts Carbine, more than likely they are misleading yo and have simply rebuilt the carbine with all parts from one manufacturer.

The CMP has recently sold out of the Inlands they had, but there are about 12,000 M1 Carbines from other manufacturers waiting to be sold by the CMP later this year. The Inlands sold for $500, and I expect the rarer manufacturers to be more than that. I would wait til the CMP has these other carbines available, and then buy them. That way you can be pretty sure that they havent been messed with or Bubba'd by someone who doesn't know what they are doing. These carbines have been in storage in Italy since WW2.

People here complained that the CMP's $500 price tag on the Inlands was too high, but since they all sold out in less than a month, I think those people were all wrong. I don't think these people have been following prices closely on carbines, because the prices have really gone up a lot in the last few years. You should expect to pay up to $700 (or more) for an wartime M1 Carbine sold by any source other than the CMP.

 

[Ratzinger_p38]

Thanks guys. I dont mind a mix of parts, or mis matched wood. Thats what a piece of sandpaper is for. I am not looking for an all matching. If anyone here has one that want to sell, I am willing to negotiate on a price. I CAN do something like 800-900 but Ill have to save for 2-3 weeks.

I had a hell of a time finding a decent M1 Garand, but all I ended up having to do was ask my local gun dealer if he knew anyone who had one he wanted to sell. He knew a guy with 6 he wanted to sell. Solved the problem with the lack of CMP Garands, and I got a nice clean up M1 for only $595. So you never know.