Love the gun history articles.

I'll third that praise- this is excellent history. I am really enjoying these.

I've owned a couple of these carbines, in the long ago. I went through a phase where I wanted a Ruger Blackhawk .30 and the carbine combo, but could never find the Blackhawk for a price i wanted to pay, so ditched the idea. I plinked an awful lot of rounds through the .30 Carbine- I had one that was a Federal Ordinance and one made by Husqvarna. One day, when the AKs were just becoming readily available, a buddy brought his AK to my camp and we took turns shooting the AK and the carbine into the hulking, home welded bumper of an old logging truck that had been abandoned there decades ago. The AK made perfect round holes, the .30 bounced off. We then went to an open area in the mountains and shot long- 500 yards or so- at a white rock about the size of a duffle bag. The AK round hit "wham" immediately, and raised white puffs of dust from the rock. The carbine rounds would take forever to get there, and make a little noise, "tunck!" that would also take forever to get back to us. It was revealing, indeed.

There is an old photo in a old history book of a German soldier carrying a M-1 carbine. I heard somewhere that the German troops liked that gun. I don't know if that was so. It seems to me that the M-1 carbine could have handled a much stiffer round.

I brought an M-1 carbine home from the gun shop where I worked as a kid to try it out. My dad saw it and was furious. Downright frothing at the mouth. I took it back. When I got home, he explained. He was on guard duty in the South Pacific and a poor starving Japanese insurgent tried to sneak into the dump and scavenge something. Guards had been told to shoot them on sight and Dad had no love for them as they had booby-trapped a bridge that nearly took his life (shrapnel sailed through both cheeks taking out a tooth). Anyway, the other guard started shooting first with a 30-06 M-1 but Dad didn't think he was making much effort to actually hit the target. Dad was armed with an M-1 carbine. He hit the Jap seven times before finally running over and taking the rifle from the other guy and putting the poor bugger away. Dad said he threw that damn gun as far into the jungle as he could. It's probably still there today.

I think the M-1 carbine must be one of the worst ideas for a military weapon ever conceived. It is useless to have a gun that performs flawlessly if the bullet it discharges won't kill a man properly. Second worst concept goes to the M-16. Personally I always thought it was just as useless. By the way, I found the 1911 to be an excellent weapon and I did well with it on the range. I carried one every day as an MP and had every confidence that if I hit someone with it, even in the arm, they were going to be out of commission instantly.

When I was a kid in the '60s, we used my friend's dad's carbine (you could buy them surplus for about $25 then) to plink snapping turtles in the pond on the farm. The turtles would eat the baby ducks they raised. That little .30 carbine made a mess out of a turtle shell!

I am a big fan of Mr. Petzal but I respectfully disagree with some of the points raised in the article.

A .30 Carbine military ball round will penetrate Class III soft body armor. I really do not think that we would save more police officers if they wore quilted Chinese Army winter coats instead of Kevlar. The .30 Carbine has an excellent record as a manstopper in police use, with both ball and expanding ammunition.

Audie Murphy favored the carbine and in his book describes an instant kill of a German soldier who was already aiming a rifle at him. I am not saying that the .30 Carbine was a satisfactory main battle rifle, but the tales of its woeful penetration and stopping power are apocryphal.

The 7.62x39mm uses a bullet of similar diameter that is 12 grains heavier and goes 300 fps faster. Given the RN profile of the carbine bullet vs the spitzer bullet of the 7.62x39, I would wager the two rounds perform similarly in combat at ranges of 100 yards or so.

Years ago, I was thinking of getting one for pig hunting. My first sergeant told me, "You don't want one of those. I shot a **** with one in Vietnam and he just kept on running."

Under the heading of YAH But,,,, I have never seen one, shot or owned one. But noticed that Tom Hanks carried one in “Saving Private Ryan. And thats good enough for me.

What I also noticed a few years ago that the afore mentioned magazine pouch was an excellent way to hold 2 Remington magazines for one of my deer rifles and that you can get a replica pouch on Ebay.

With good hot soft points it works as well as a .357 Magnum Revolver and is easier to shoot. It has it's uses within limits.

MG

My father has one. He fought in vietnam and used the m-16. He hated it cause it always jammed. I don't think he though much of the m-1 carbine as a military rifle either cause he cant hit crap with it. It is still a fun gun to shoot. I have used it for coon and groundhogs.

I also agree it could have been chambered for a slightly more powerful round. Not too powerful, though, because it defeats the purpose. The M-1 Carbine was the original PDW (personal defense weapon), more accurate than a handgun, handier and lighter than a rifle. If it were much heavier, its intended troops just might put it down while they worked, and of course, that's the inopportune time they get attacked, unarmed. The idea was to have a weapon that support staff and officers could carry all the time. Considering it only weighed a little over 5 pounds, an additional pound in gun weight would have put it in the current M4 (CAR-15) weight class, but it might also have helped it handle a slightly peppier round.

While we can disagree as to whether it was a good idea or not, consider that while it was originally conceived as a defensive weapon for troops who normally do other things (drivers, radio men, etc.), it eventually found itself in the frontline. There was enough demand for it. Had it been a tad more reliable and a tad harder hitting, we might still be using it today. With Picatinny rails, of course.

Dave, I had a used .30 carbine in the very early '70s. It was after I got out of the Army. It must have been made by Ruger, it was a lever action. Wish I had kept it just for the hell of it, not for it's value. The wood was quality stuff, not Birch. I stripped the stock and refinished it with an over the counter walnut type finish package which I can't remember the name, and it was nice. Wish I had put peeps on it rather than a Weaver K4w, the eye relief was so short on the little stock it was easy to get cut.

From a prairie dawg shooter's standpoint the .30 carbine round is a poor choice but then a .223 (aka 5.56 NATO) is only mediocre even in its best presentation.

BTW If I recall correctly it was Sgt Horvath that carried the M-1 carbine in that movie.

from Patrick Sweeney (my apologies to Dave and F&S and fellow commentators, knowing Sweeney works for another publication):

[quote]
"One last comment on reliability: any rifle can be made to quit. In "U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat", Scott Duff interviewed Frank Fulford about his experience in Korea.

During the battle at Kunu-ri, his Garand stopped working. He hadn’t had time to clean it, and it defaulted to a single-shot weapon. So he tossed it aside and found one that would work. The combat was so fierce that there was no time to clean rifles, so he went through a succession of Garands, dropping each one when it stopped working, and trying found rifles until he found one that worked.

The Garand, the exemplar of WWII reliability, can be made to stop working. If the Garand will stop, so will any other mechanism.

The ultimate solution? Either clean your rifle on a regular basis, or depend on something less likely to malfunction, like a Bowie knife."
[end of quote]

Warfare was so much simpler and manlier when it was fought with Macedonian pikes and 2-foot Roman swords. Which reminds me, the Swiss Guard are the only armed force of a sovereign state that still use the weapons from the age of Philip and Alexander of Macedonia.

Dave your entry here reads like a brief chapter of a book on the M-1 as a military weapon. As many here have insisted - its terrific. As the contemporary F&S magazine shrinks [understandably] and your articles there continue to shorten in kind, this is indeed a treat. Perhaps there's a book in the offing where you feature facts and stories about miltary and hunting weapons. I for one would enjoy that.
Thanks.

It may not be much of a weapon, but it sure is fun to shoot.

Movies, schmoovies; not always close to reality....

as an afterthought, the winchester model 100, although many years after production has ceased, would make a dandy little personal defense weapon that would do double duty as a hunter. redesign the bolt to improve reliability, add a 20 round magazine and an aimpoint for pd or a scope for hunting. and if recoil from a seven and a half pound, gas-operated semi-automatic in 7.62 nato is too much recoil for you, you are a candidate for the centerfold in "girly-man magazine"

Too bad that Army Ordinance and Winchester didn't choose to chamber the carbine with a rimless version of the 357 Magnum.

Hi...

When I was in my mid-teens, I bought an M1 Carbine...for $20.00...!! Wish I could do that today.

The Carbine was an excellent substitute for the pistol. It was accurate to 300 yards (at least the one I had was). You would simply 'click' the rear peep sight to the yardage you wanted...100, 200, or 300-yards.

I've put well over a thousand rounds through it...and never a failure. I thought it was a bit loud for the caliber, though.

Reloaded shells were quite inexpensive. The gun was a pleasure to carry and use. Used it many times...with great success...on varmints, mostly. Even got a deer with one; at long range, too.

Your article about the M1 Carbine was very interesting.

Bubba Squirrel,
something about an oil can, I think. it was supposed to fit in that hole in the stock.

Interesting read, some things I didn't know, thank you!

The slot in the buttstock was for a small metal oiler with a screw-on cap with an attached dip stick. The web sling fit around the oiler and both were retained in the buttstock slot. The M-1 and M-2 carbines were still doing yeoman service with our CIDG allies back in 1967-68. Clean the carbine once in a while, keep the gas piston free and not much can go wrong with it.

I own an M-1 Carbine, and it is a joy to shoot. I call it my big boy .22... It has had thousands of rounds put through it and has never jammed.

Interestingly enough I bought it from a man who used the M-1 Carbine through two tours of duty in Vietnam. He was assigned one in the late 50's and says he was a "military adviser" and was actually in Cambodia. When they gave him one of the first M-16's he said it was a piece of junk that jammed every time he tried to shoot it. He went back to the M-1 Carbine and made it home alive. Everyone has an opinion.

thank you duckcreekdick for that clarification

dr.ralph, true, many carbines stayed in the hands of South East Asia allies after the M-16 was introduced in the 1970's. In the Philippines, after regular troops switched to the "Armalite", the carbine went to anti-communist militia, but some regular Army officers who wanted a compact weapon still retained it as the CAR-15 was not yet being produced in great numbers then.

ARMSCOR still makes ammo for it, and it's a bit hot.

Back in 1973 I had a chance to buy a M1 carbine or a Ruger 44-Auto mag, my uncle had a M1 in the Army Air Core (CBI)and said its Junk not good for deer hunting in the North East Woods, He said get the Ruger Semi-Auto in 44 Magnum..Its looks just like the M1 Carbine. I still have it and use it...Wish I had both!

Great article! But the part about the old veteran facing the SS at the Bulge is a tale told by every rear echelon type in the war. Having interviews with many vets from the ETO I found that most old soldiers swagger and posture relative to their distance to the front. Those soldiers on the line that really saw the elephant are reserved and understatde and those that didn’t pour forth the BS.

I took my M1 Carbine to the range this weekend because my nephew was visiting and he had never shot a gun. We shot 150 rounds out of that rifle and he fell in love with it. We also had an AR and a Ruger 10/22 but the only one he could seem to hit with was the little Carbine. It was my children's favorite rifle when they were young too. Great way to teach someone to shoot, in my experience anyway.