Quality Hardware question for the experts

[swamprat]

Quality Hardware serial number 164xxXX is Buffalo Arms BBL correct for this ser. number range?
01-P is marked on rear of 15 rd magazine

[Rob W.]

Quality used some BA barrels. Is it dated? Mag is probably OI-B for IBM.

[swamprat]

bbl was dated 2/43 IIRC.

[Tuna]

Does it have a type 3 barrel band with the lug on it and an adjustable rear sight? If so then your carbine went through a rebuild like most of them did. Your serial number dates to about September 1943 at the latest. That is when Quality Hardware started using Buffalo Arms barrels. A date of 2-43 is way to early for the serial number.

[jimb]

I suspect the barrel date is 12/43 not 2/43.

[swamprat]

It could well be a 12/43, markings were very light. It was being offered as an "as issued" with all early features. In the pics that I was sent it looked pretty good, but in person it was obvious that it had been through a rebuild and the bayo lug (shadow on bbl was obvious)was removed and repo type 1 band installed along with a repo push safety and mag release. Someone took a perfectly good rebuilt carbine and ruined it with repo parts and wanted top dollar for it.

[jimb]

Not uncommon....

[ncblksmth1]

There are 2 fellows that show up in the Fletcher NC shows that readily and frequently rebuild Carbines at the show and tell folks now with these parts your gun is correct. Folks are eating this up. These guys just put on any part late or early as long as the marking is coded to the MFG'r.

[Sunray]

"...coded to the MFG'r..." Quality made receivers and nothing else. So there are no "all correct" Quality Carbines. Sounds like Bubba is active in NC.
And not all Quality Carbines had Quality receivers. 28,949 of 'em were made by Union Switch & Signal.
All Quality Hardware manufactured receivers used the detachable recoil spring tube.

[BrianQ]

"...coded to the MFG'r..." Quality made receivers and nothing else. So there are no "all correct" Quality Carbines.

Every time you post you show how little you know about M1 Carbines.

[ncblksmth1]

Sunray:

I have a question about your "No "all correct" " quality hardware carbines. If Quality Hardware only made Receivers and all other parts were farmed out, would it not be a correct carbine if all the part's markings were of Quality Hardware sub contractors? All Quality Hardware made maybe not, but all Quality Hardware assembled in my estimation would be correct.

Bob

[Johnny P]

Exactly. All the manufacturers farmed out parts to subcontractors. If the logic is used that if all the parts were not made by the manufacturer that the Carbine is not original, then none of them would be original.

[jimb]

One of the biggest problems with subcontractors is that not all of them are known. Just because a particular maker is not known to have supplied parts doesn't mean that they didn't or that the parts were not sent over form another maker to keep the line moving when supplies of a particular part ran short.

[m1911a1]

On method to check, but not fool proof, is to look at the length of the barrel skirt. A long barrel skirt "may" indicate that the barrel was not replaced as it was practice to grind down long skirts when in refurbishment. (Assuming it was an early barrel with long skirt to begin with…) I have one such Quality H.M.C. from May 43 w Inland barrel.

[jimb]

Be careful with that too. Sometimes barrel skirts were damaged in shipment and were ground down in order to be used anyway. Since it really made no difference in the proper operation of the carbine, later barrels were just made with shorter skirts. So a short skirt may have started out longer. IF the skirt is long, that is one thing and is fairly definitive. But if the skirt is short, that doesn't prove anything.