M-1 Carbine Myth vs Reality

Ian at Forgotten Weapons site, has an interesting clip up talking with a gentleman about the myths and reality of the M-1 Carbine: http://www.forgottenweapons.com/ken-...on-vs-reality/ Included is the item, that GI's using the carbine in combat, would ditch the GI magazines after about a month and use new ones, until they were ditched again in favor of new ones. Because according to the gentleman, the GI carbine is a P.O.S. And that Korean made ones are a much better built magazine.
Just thought I'd toss this in.


R. Brown

I've seen that clip Richard and my take on what I saw is not the same as yours. I thought it was a rather fair review. I did find the apparent need to change old mags for new on a regular basis unusual but he never indicated that the carbine was a P.O.S. I thought he said that the Korean magazines were good but not better than G.I. He did say that all carbine magazines were on the fragile side.

It's not always the fault of the magazine. Many times the magazine release is to blame. It wears out too and will not hold a magazine in a proper position to feed the rounds into the chamber and allows the magazine to sag and sometimes move more should in the magazine well. The US military aimed at 100 magazines per carbine so times 6.2 million is one heck of a lot of magazines made in WW2. I don't know if they got that many made but they may have come close.

Mags get bashed around a great deal when you're trying to not get shot. As a result the lips can get bent in or out a wee, tiny bit that will stop 'em feeding properly. Easily fixed with needle nosed pliers, but a troopie wouldn't carry those and didn't have to buy his mags.
Have one 30 round mag I had to tweak the lips open a tick(a very small tick at that) to get it to feed reliably. Haven't had to fiddle with it since, but I'm not being chased around by people I don't know.
Mind you, Ian at the Forgotten Weapons site seems to have a lot of preconceived notions.

The only thing I disagreed with Ken Hackathorn is that Americans at that time were willing to accept a lower level of reliability in their weapons. I think that is BS. I think the M1 Garand and the carbine both ran well when taken care of. Just like the Thompson submachine gun. I have had all three of these items and they all ran like a Swiss watch if you took care of them. If my life was on the line, I would not be prone to accept "a lower level of reliability".

I've got a M1 Carbine and I would take it over a 1911 in a fire fight. That is what it was designed to do. At 50 yards it is very accurate. At 100 it not so.

The carbine was designed to be effective out to 300 yards. Granted it only had the hitting power of a 38 spl at the muzzle of the 38 at 300 yards but you could hit a man size target at that distance reliably. Can't do that with a handgun. Magazines were used till empty then dropped and left where they landed or if possible taken with you. But to loose a magazine or more of them was no big thing during battle. There were plenty of them in the rear with the ammo. Most carbines shoot between 2 and 3 inches at 100 yards. Max set by the military was 4 inches.

Not to h jack the thread, but I have read. that the much maligned Reising gun main problem were the magazine feed lips. Apparently they were used as disassembly tools which resulted. in them being damaged or bent. causing malfunctions. Can't claim any experience with the Reising, so I am just passing this along

Hmmm, when he was talking about the .30 carbine ammo he misspoke regarding a comment about it was designed to use non-corrosive ammo because of the short stroke piston design of the M1 carbine. Actually, the .30 carbine ammo was designed/developed well before the rifle itself was, therefore, the gun was designed around the ammo, not the other way around.

That is correct. It was the ammo that was design first by Winchester. Samples sent to different companies to develop new rifles and then testing of the new rifles. All were asked to improve their design. Winchester was asked to submit a design which they did in a 30 day period and it won the testing. The Military decided to make the ammo with non corrosive primers. It was felt that solders would take apart the gas system to clean them and loosing the castle nut and or the piston. Then they might also not get the nut on properly and the rifle could malfunction. So the USGI did not take the gas system apart and the primers meant no corrosion in the system. An added benefit was the amount of throat ware was minimal because of the non corrosive primers.