Another GI Carbine Question

A

Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
While cleaning up heirloom stuff, I got to looking at an M-1 carbine regarding the manufacturer.

Okay, "Inland" I know. But on the barrel, out by the front sight, it sez "Underwood". Duh? And, the blooming thing has some sort of gizmo which doesn't look like it's a flash-hider or a muzzle brake, but it's strange: Four rows of five holes each, 90 degrees apart. And no bayonet lug.

It's in nearly new condition on the Parkerizing, and the stock looks new, like original GI.

Anybody got any idea how this critter came to be?

Art
 
I know the earlier carbines did not have a bayo lug, just a bbl band. If the receiver is Inland and the bbl says Underwood it prolly is rebarrelled. Underwood specializes in Deviled Ham and rifle bbls. :p No seriously, it was a typewriter company.

Dunno about the flashhider thingie... HTH
 
Underwood made some weapons during WWII but for the life of me I cannot remember if it was 1911's or if it was carbines. Remington Rand (another typewriter company also made 1911's, I do remember that. In fact I have a slide for a 45 made by them somewhere in my shop.
 
Art -- there is a fine art to carbine collecting and identification, and the folks over at the gun & knife forums could tell you what every letter, punch prick, and spring on your rifle means and where it came from; I'm still a newbie, but I've got some books ;) . Your rifle is an Inland, which is one of about 10 WWII manufacturers of carbines, and also the most common (Inland made 2.6 million carbines from 1942 - 1945, or 43% of the wartime production). Underwood was another, along with IBM (believe it or not), Rock-Ola (a jukebox maker), and several others. After WWII, the vast majority of carbines were rebuilt at various military armories across the country, and broken or worn out parts were replaced from spares and parts off of other rifles. Hence, many rifles have a mixture of parts from various manufacturers. I imagine that's how your rifle came to be. Many of the armory rebuilt rifles saw service in Korea. Many others were lent to various foreign countries during the cold war, and those that were reimported also bear an additional stamping from the importing company (Blue Sky, e.g.).

If you strip the rifle down, every part should have various letters stamped on it, and a good collector could tell you who made each of those (most of the Inland parts are stamped I or AI, BI, PI, etc.). The stock markings should tell you its history. If it doesn't have any stampings at all, it's not a GI stock.

I'm not sure what the muzzle device you have is -- does it attach with a thumb screw? If it's not a cone-shaped flash hider or a grenade launcher (cylindrical and about 6 inches long with circular rings milled into the surface), I don't know what it is. No bayo lug means that you have an earlier barrel band (they didn't have them initially), but this doesn't fit with the rifle being armory rebuilt (they usually updated all of the rifles when they rebuilt them).

If your carbine isn't a reimport it may still be worth a decent amount of money even though it's all mixed up. Armory-rebuilt carbines in good condition are going for at least $500, although I'm not the best person to give you accurate pricing. Don't part with it for cheap without checking, though; if it's an heirloom, you probably don't want to sell it anyway.

Carbines are very interesting and kind of addictive -- have fun.

Andrew
 
I hadn't thought about an armory rebuild, mixing parts. Makes sense. I'll check further on the "flash hider", if that's what it's supposed to be.

I'm guessing it's an old DCM gun from 40-50 years back...

Art
 
If it's a DCM rifle, I suppose one other possibility is that it was rebuilt prior to civilian sale, in which case it may not have the US armory rebuild stamping -- I'm not certain about this. I do know that the Garands available now through the CMP are often comprised of parts from incomplete or damaged rifles that are swapped and made into complete rifles in Anniston. Either way you've got a decent GI carbine. Best wishes.
 
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