Pistol caliber carbines - why didn’t I know?

V

vanfunk

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How much fun they are! I just got back from the range, following the inaugural debut performances of my LNIB 90’s era Colt 6430 9mm AR and my new Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum. The Colt’s 32 round magazines take a while to load and a very short time to empty, lol. I put 200 rounds through it in what seemed like an instant, shooting plates at ranges of 15 to 100 yards. Function was 100% and accuracy was excellent. Those A1 sights are damn good and pretty much bombproof. 5.56 is more powerful at any distance of course but the lack of recoil and light, handy nature of this carbine make it a great contender for home defense IMO. I don’t reload 9mm so I’ll have to buy another case pronto.

I am pleased to say that the new Ruger-Marlin was impressive as well. i didn’t do any formal accuracy testing, just plate shooting too, but I hit everything I aimed at out to 100 yards. I had forgotten how formidable a slick-cycling lever action is and the .44 packs a good whallop out to 150 yards or so. I can’t wait to try it with handloads and put it on paper; hopefully it likes 240 grain LSWCs as I have like 7000 ready to go.

I don’t know how the lure of pistol caliber carbines escaped me for so long - I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot and now have to make up for lost time.
 
Fun, cheap shooting, can be used for plinking or social situations..... what's not to love? 😁

My first was the all-but-forgotten Taurus CT9. Loved the gun (though it was HEAVY), but Taurus never made or imported any spare magazines for them. I modded some Colt and Uzi mags to work most of the time, but not reliable enough for SD. Sold it to my buddy, who still has it.

Got 2 AR9s and the Kel-Tec now. Good stuff.
 
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Nice carbines!

Pistol caliber carbines might be some of my favorite rifles in terms of their sheer fun to shoot factor. I like 9mm PCCs because they don't chew apart steel at close ranges and have a significantly reduced muzzle blast and noise versus a similarly set-up 5.56mm carbine. And I like lever action carbines in straight-walled cartridges because they're easy (and cheap) to reload for and equally fun on close range steel. Though if you want to have a lot of fun, dropping .44 Magnum rounds onto 200 yard steel plates is sure to generate a grin. As a bonus, the Magnum caliber lever actions can even do duty as short-range light-medium game rifles.
 
Congrats on a couple classics, very cool, really digging that Colt.

One reloading note, with a blowback you can use fast powders to get a quick pressure spike sealing the chamber and burning clean compared to slower powders or factory ammo.
I use Bullseye and W231 for most of my loads for my PCC. Stays a lot cleaner even with less than full power loads. Velocity doesn’t get too high.
 
I love pistol caliber carbines. I have two favorites.

My Winchester ‘94 Trails End .357 Magnum. I bought this one for cowboy action shooting when I first started out. I’ve put thousands of rounds through this gun. I have replaced 3 links, 1 carrier and the springs. I love this lever gun.
1706584211668.jpeg

My Ruger PC Carbine 9mm. I have so much fun shooting this gun. I bought it when they first came out. I put an Sig Sauer Romeo 5 red dot on it with an American Defense QD mount. I installed an Odin Works Atlas 9 comp and some parts from MCARBO; buffer pad, receiver pins, metal recoil spring cap, cheek pad and an extended bolt stop.
1706584977016.jpeg
 
I've been into PCCs going back 30 years now with my first Hi Point carbine.
Cheap to run in 9mm which is something hard to say for other calibers. Even 7.62x39 is pricey compared to just a few years ago.
Just bought a S&W FPC to go with my Beretta Storm, KT Sub2k and TNW ASR 10mm carbines. Had many more along with some various braced pistols like Scorpion Evo, PAK 9 and Ruger PCC pistol.

I do like the shorter OALs of PCCs with magwells in the grip. And the ones I've kept are the lighter ones. My 9mm colt smg pattern AR was a good shooter but was one of the heavier setups in the safe. But never malfunctioned, and grouped el cheapo Blazer Brass 9mm just fine. But the Storm with good 124 gr. NATO is my best shooter, hoping the FPC gives it a run for it's money. FPC does seem to like Blazer, cheap Federal & Geco 115 so far...
 
Regarding economy of handloading for the PCC (or any 9mm for that matter), its always worthwhile to mention the numbers and arithmetic.

Cast/swaged 9mm bullet is about 7 cents
Primer about 7 cents
Powder charge about 3 cents
Brass is free

This means you can save about 10 cents per round on 9mm if you handload.
If you shoot 5000 rounds a year (that's a lot by my standard), you save $500/yr. by handloading 9mm.
But handloading sure does take a lot of time, and while well-crafted cast-bullet handloads can be quite reliable and accurate, I don't think anyone will argue that cast-bullet 9mm ammo is quite "as good as" factory FMJ.
And we'll keep in mind that while you "saved" $500, you still spent $850 (plus your time) on building the ammo.

I can foresee these 9mm PCC's I've got still lying over here new-in-the-box could eat up some ammo.
Hoping for fun times in the process.
 
cfullgraf said:
My 9mm AR is fun to shoot but I was kind of surprised at the lack of velocity increase from the longer carbine barrel.

Same with my 45 ACP Auto Ordinance Thompson.
Click to expand...
9mm velocity peaks out between 9 and 11 inches typically. Thats one reason military subguns have barrels in that range. The round actually starts to slow down in 16" US-legal civilian barrels, though its still cooking faster than out of a 4" pistol.
 
vanfunk said:
Exactly!

Regarding 9mm reloading, I can get new factory ammo for $.20 per round. Given the price of powder, primers and bullets, I might be able to beat that by 2 cents but it’s not worth the time. I can see reloading 9mm for gilt-edged accuracy and competition but I can’t see the financial advantage for range ammo.
Click to expand...
Using my cast bullets i can beat you by more than half.
 
Thanks everyone! Thanks as well for all the “baby pictures” of your carbines!

Regarding the economy of reloading 9mm, it still just doesn’t add up for me although it certainly may for others. For the time I have to reload, it makes better sense for me to save $.50-70 per round loading .223, .308 etc. than 9mm. I have to say, though, I was mighty tempted at the range yesterday to dump the contents of the brass bucket into a trash bag and take it home. There must have been 10k 9mm cases in there. A few weeks ago, I waited patiently while a father-son duo blasted mag after mag out of their ARs and then swept all that beautiful brass into the bucket. I scored 1300 cases that day for free. Love it.

Anyway, sorry for the drift. I’m kinda getting interested in the new S&W Response as it can be configured to take Glock magazines, of which I have a bunch. For now, though, I am super happy with my Colt and love having the familiarity of the platform. The new Marlin is so great too that I am thinking about the Winchester (Miroku) model 92 in .44-40 that my LGS has hanging from the ceiling. I think they want $1100 for it. Hmmmmm…..
 
Anyway, sorry for the drift. I’m kinda getting interested in the new S&W Response as it can be configured to take Glock magazines, of which I have a bunch.
Click to expand...

Read my recent thread.

I bought the wrong gun!

And it turned out to be a good thing. I've never had much interest in PCC's but a while back I saw where S&W had introduced one in 9mm with an adapter to use either Smith M&P or Glock mags. I have a butt-load of Glock mags and the carbine looked interesting. But I really didn't pay much...
www.thehighroad.org

I had a Marlin 44 mag for years. Never shot it much, 44 mag ammo is expensive and in that rifle recoil was a little snappy. I just liked my 30-30's better. A few years ago when lever guns started going crazy with prices I sold it for 3X what I paid. It would go for 6X what I paid if I'd held onto it a little longer.

I'd never been interested in modern PCC's until recently as explained in my earlier thread. I didn't realize Smith made 2 different PCC's. I'd noted they had the Response and was interested because it uses Glock mags. I ended up buying the FPC thinking it was the Response. But after getting it home and discovering my mistake I like it better.

No, I can't use my Glock mags, but it comes with one 17 round mag and two 23 round mags. You can buy 3 more Smith mags with the $100 you save. It will be Friday before I get a chance to shoot it but unless it is horribly inaccurate I'm liking it so far.

You may still prefer the Response, but give the FPC a look before you buy.

you can save about 10 cents per round on 9mm if you handload.
Click to expand...

I can still get factory JHP loads at 25-30 cents/round. I paid 70 cents/round for Winchester HP ammo over the weekend.
 
vanfunk said:
The Colt’s 32 round magazines take a while to load and a very short time to empty, lol. I put 200 rounds through it in what seemed like an instant, shooting plates at ranges of 15 to 100 yards.
Click to expand...

Your fingers will get tougher in no time, if you don’t resort to a mag loader.

www.youtube.com

Gong target

www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
I've always enjoyed mine, and the point about them being mild and not chewing up steel at close range is well-taken.

Just want to add that at today's prices, off-the-shelf* .38 Special isn't the cheap shooting that it used to be in years past.



* (yeah - I know. You still have to find primers, though.)
 
All very interesting, guys, thanks. I’ll take a look at the FPC - that’s the one that folds, correct?

Yes, my fingers took a beating yesterday between the new, stiff loading gate and magazine spring in the Marlin and the 32 round Colt 9mm sticks. The frigid cold didn’t help much either. It makes me want to come up with a line of masculine, shooter’s hand cream, lol. I have a LULA and I’ll see if it’ll work on those mags.

I agree .38 special isn’t cheap anymore! I can reload it for about $.15 a round vs $.60-70 for factory ammo.
 
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