Rebuilt/Putzed Carbines

[usmc69]

Best guesses as to how many original carbines were rebuilt in the Post-War period.

Another question is: How many of the "correct" carbines today have been made that way by "collectors"?

[Johnny P]

All the Carbines the military had for issue were sent through rebuilt for required modifications.

Not that hard to tell an original Carbine from one that has been "restored". Most of the originals were stolen from the military early in their career. I have seen original M1 Rifles come through the old NRA DCM, but never saw an original Carbine.

[usmc69]

All the Carbines the military had for issue were sent through rebuilt for required modifications.

Not that hard to tell an original Carbine from one that has been "restored". Most of the originals were stolen from the military early in their career. I have seen original M1 Rifles come through the old NRA DCM, but never saw an original Carbine.

I have bought four from CMP the first three were as a member of the Carbine Club in 2003 and the next in 2009. I started buying them in the mid 90's at LGS. The most I paid back then was $400 for a carbine.

I have only seen one carbine that I would say was "As Issued". It was a Winchester with a 7, 27X,XXX serial number. Did not realize it was right until I got it home and tore it down. Called J.C. Harrison and talked with him at length about it. He too felt it was original as the parts were correct and the wear patterns were consistent. The only reason he felt that this particular carbine was correct was it had come from the factory with all the updates on it.

All the others that I have seen look to be cobbled together to make them correct. There was a huge trade in parts at one time to enable folks to make their carbines "correct". The problem there was that the wear patterns did not match.

[Johnny P]

J. C. Harrison may have been an expert on the M1 Carbine, but he copied most of his information on the military .45 from other authors and still got much of it wrong.

[Tuna]

He also got most of his data for carbines the same way and much of it turned out to be wrong. One cannot use his information on carbines as the majority of it is now wrong.

[kicker]

I have a quility hardwere carbine that was a vet bring home. It was brought into the gun shop by the vet two days before i bought it around 1979 or 1980 when i was in high school. It had a rusty barrel and a pitted bore but the gun shoots super. It was only missing the sling swivel, but the band and screw was intact. The barrel is a buffalo arms, stock is marked Q-RMC code.

[RCS]

I think there were alot of carbines and Model 1911A1 pistols that came back with the WW2 veterans. I remember in the last years in high school
and after, some friends my age had M1 carbines that came back with veterans (both WW2 & Korea). Problem was that there wasn't any M1 carbine
ammo around - unless it came with the carbines. Later on the surplus ammo became available.

My father use to buy M1911A1 pistols back in the late 1950's for $50 each, nice examples too and all veteran returns