Fighting rifles: Why not an M1 Carbine?

If you want cheap and quick loading try a SKS, they load with 10 round stripper clips. If you remove the bayonet from the SKS it becomes much lighter & better balanced IMHO. The trigger and sights are still poor on the SKS (reason I sold my SKS to a friend was that I could get better hits with speed with my 12 gauge and slugs out to at least 50 yards than I could with the SKS).
 
10 round stripper clips... Nice. You run out when the fight isnt even half over! The M1 has 20 round mags and you can sometimes find the 30 rounders...

The SKS is a straight wood stocked semi-auto carbine yes - so the comparison seems to be a natural one. But the amunition fired puts them in very different catagories. Most surplus 7.62 Russian I have seen is very capable of zipping right through most normal urban barriers... making it a POOR choice for home defense in an urban or even suburban areas. Just like I wouldn't reach for an FAL... or any other BATTLE RIFLE. It is too much gun.
Now, the M1 Carbine is more ideal. It hits hard, its actually very easy to learn and use (despite what W.R. says) and its even easier to make your hits with. Damn near PERFECT.
I can see these becoming more popular in the future... Next thing we will see are synth stocks and a Surefire light for it for only a small $400 to make your M1 Carbine into the "Ultimate Tactical Carbine M1 Carbine."
 
The drawbacks of the M1 Carbine are well taken. Don't treat it as, or compare it with, a battle rifle, and it'll present its own set of merits.

Today I finished up my second read of "The Pacific War, 1941-1945," by John Costello. (A highly recommended read, by the way.) On one of the few picture panels in the book, the original flag raising on Mt.Suribachi is depicted. (The now-famous second flag raising was shot later on that day with a large Stars & Stripes brought up from a Navy ship.)

Notice the rifle used by half the Marines in that picture? They're not mess hands or truck drivers, either...the flag was raised when a large portion of Mt.Suribachi was still in Japanese hands. These are Marines near the end of what was to that day the hardest and most bloody amphibious landing in USMC history. From the look of it, these Marines didn't deem the little M1 Carbine inadequate as a fighting rifle. True, it's not a battle rifle, but the point is that you don't need a big battle rifle most of the time in most scenarios we could find ourselves in. These guys seem to support that notion.

suribachi.jpg
 
Hey,
Somebody needs to tell that guy to keep his finger off the trigger :) That guy does not look like he thinks anything is over at this point.
 
AFAIK, the flag party had to dispatch an enraged Japanese officer who emerged from a dugout and tried to cut the flag down with his sword. In any case, Mt.Suribachi was still mostly held by Japanese when the flag went up, so that Marine probably had a good reason not to be too relaxed.
 
The diatribes against the M1 Carbine here are pretty amusing. While I'll certainly agree that the M1 Carbine doesn't have the stopping power of the M1 Garand, or even the M-16, it's hardly a non-lethal weapon. In any case, since most of us own guns that principally kill paper and various other range fodder, what's wrong with the M1 Carbine. It's a light, fun little rifle. If I were actually going to be in a gun battle, I'd bring an M1A1 tank, not a handgun or rifle of any sort! for 99.99% of the uses that you're going to put the gun to, the M1 Carbine is a great little gun.

If I were forced to pick between a .357 revolver and the M1 Carbine, I'd pick the carbine. With SP bullets, I'll have a round with similar effectivness, but I'll also have a much better range. I suspect that not many of the detracters could actually hit an adversary with that revolver at 50 or more yards with lead coming back their way, so the carbine would enjoy an advantage in such situations.

This is all good fun, but let's focus on reality, if you talk to a thousand people, only a couple of them have ever had to deploy a gun of any sort in a defensive situation, are the rest of you really going to carry around a Garand for the rest of your lives "in case"?
 
All right, can anyone identify the SECOND rifle the guy on the left side of the picture has slung crosswise over his back? Four possibilities come to mind (1) It's an Arisaka he picked up for a souvenier (2) He's holding a Garand for one of the other guys there (3) It's his Garand and he's picked up the carbine from a casualty (4) Some other explanation! Maybe he just wanted to be WELL armed and carried 2 rifles around with him as a general policy?

Don in Ohio
 
Thanx for the correction. I'd have sworn I read the Carbine round had evolved from the .32-20...(Or I'm accurately quoting somebody who wuz wrong.)

By the way, anybody read the October issue of SWAT?

:), Art
 
I had one, one of the aftermarket guns (Universal I think)...what a blast to shoot. My son loved it to. Mine was prone to jam'n on me so I let it go at the next gun show. I'd like to get a good one some day...but it's not in the No. 1 position on my "want-to-buy" list...it's on the list though.
I agree, with the gun being a good 100 yard or less gun...great in the home with hp ammo.
 
Art...

I had the October issue, just took a little while to find it. Thompson's article was quite good and seemed to echo the article a few months ago in the June GUNS Magazine. I am convinced. I intend to order some .30 M1 Carbine ammo from CMP to have on hand when I finally find one to buy. Maybe the Oct 6 Gun Show at the Big E in West Springfield, MA. They had some last time, maybe this time I'll find a good one.
 
And another for "The Thread That Wouldn't Die": An article about the carbine in the September issue of SOF magazine...

:), Art
 
355sigfan-

I have "used one of the things in actual combat" and shot a lot of people with it. They all promptly fell down and died. Perhaps your definition of stopping power is different than mine.:confused:
 
In Korea 1952-53 on the MLR with the 7tr Infantry Division. I was a foeward observer with various rifle companies of the 31st and 32nd Infantry Regiments. The carbine was my personal weapon (supplemented by a S&W .357 Magnum) For serious fighting I relied on "all available artillery.":cool:
 
I'm curious, too. Also, did you (usually) expend multiple rounds on each? If so, was this any different than others you saw with other autoloading rifles?

Chuck Karwan postulated that many of the stories about the lack of "stopping power" :rolleyes: may have been caused by troops using the M2...to miss a lot, very rapidly.
 
Spectre, I've found the M-2 Carbine and the M-16 to be about the same for controllability on full-auto. Easy enough to stay in a five-gallon bucket at 75-ish yards. OTOH, I felt lucky to get three shots into a three-foot circle at 100 yards with aimed fire, full-auto, from a Thompson--it climbs!

FWIW, Art
 
Art, was the 16 you were using have a muzzle brake as on the
A-2 series? Some pages earlier my reference was to the carbine being more controlable was comparing it to the old 3 prong flash suppressor on the 16. I have shot the new birdcage with the closed bottom and it is more controlable than the ones in 68.
 
a) Multiple rounds: I personally never shot anyone just once. I was, because of my duties as a forward observer firing at ranges of less han 50 yards to 10 feet. My firing technique waas to use rapid semiautomatic fire and keep shooting until the target went down. I did that with any other weapon that I used, including an M1 Garand, an M1A1 Thompson librtated from the Chinese, aaa S&W .357 Magnum and a Colt 1911A1 automatic. When people are charging you at close range and it is kill or be killed people are not easy to stop.

B) Perhaps more generally interesting would be the range at which people in rifle companies used their carbines. Two hundred yards was about the maximum range. he M1 Garands could not do better against moving targets/ In battle people are seldom obliging enough to stand still and let you take a really well aimed shot at them.
 
Byron,

I had to chuckle to myself when you mentioned the Three Prong flash surpessor. My unit 16's were outfitted with the Bird Cage but in my platoon one squad member was required to have a 16 with the 3 prong. was it a secret system to confuse charlie? NOT the 3 prong was used to break the wire on the c-rat boxes.

Turk
 
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