Send me One

Here’s an interesting fact for people who, like me, are cleanliness and order freaks.

Shut up.

It turns out that once you have an electric dishwasher, it is not possible to wash dishes by hand any more. It’s true! The dishes just pile up on the counter. How about that?

I guess now I should launch into a story about how I spent half the day under the house, talking about pipes. But I won’t.

Now that I’m not under the house, I am taking a second look at the M1 carbine.

This is an interesting gun. When I was a kid, I had a Crosman M1 replica BB gun, which I loved. The peep sight was way better than the sights on my old Daisy lever action, and the BBs flew a little faster. Believe it or not, a BB gun is pretty accurate as long as you’re shooting short distances. I liked the styling of the gun and the way it felt in my hands. I would assume that a real M1 carbine would feel the same way. Actually, I know it does, because my grandfather had one, made by Universal. But I never shot it.

I’m talking carbines here, not the M1 Garand, which is the big .30-06 job used for combat. I had to look up “carbine” the other day, because I realized I didn’t know what the word meant, and it turns out it just means “small rifle.” I had this vague notion that it meant “semi-automatic rifle,” but I was wrong. The Winchester Model 1892 lever-action rifle (pant, pant) is a carbine.

Carbines are typically used by people who need rifles but don’t need them badly enough to justify big, heavy guns. Cooks, drivers, and officers are examples. Also cavalrymen and paratroopers. There are soldiers who don’t expect to find themselves in heavy fighting, yet who want something better than a pistol when they get in trouble.

I wonder if the horrible accuracy of military-issue 1911 pistols is part of the justification for the M1. When my father was a prison guard in the Army, they told him the best way to use a 1911 was to put it in a prisoner’s ear. Actually, I suppose all pistols are inaccurate for the majority of users. A shooter who can consistently hit you at thirty feet is well above average.

The M1 carbine shoots a little-bitty .30 caliber bullet that has a muzzle velocity of something like 1900 fps. Works okay up close, but not so great farther out, where the speed drops off. It has been compared to a .38 Special. I’ll bet that’s totally wrong. An M1 round has about 1.5 times the energy of a .357 Magnum.

The M1 carbine has been criticized for bad accuracy. That’s too bad. I can’t stand a gun that won’t shoot where I point it. I suppose there must be a way to make one shoot straight. Maybe a new gun (Auto-Ordnance/Kahr Arms) would shoot better than a milsurp. But a milsurp would have more soul. As I understand it, you can buy a carbine that was used by Americans in World War Two and then shipped to Israel for use by the IDF. Is that history, or what?

I’m checking the web…looks like the Kahr M1 shoots very well. Geez…this is a puzzle. The milsurp rifles have a reputation for bad accuracy, but the new ones are…new. And they depreciate.

The carbine is cheaper than the Garand. That’s nice.

Seems to me that this thing would be a nice step up from a .22 plinker, without the pain of .30-06 recoil. But couldn’t you say the same thing about Kahr’s delicious Thompson semi-autos in .45 ACP? The problem with those is that the accuracy is deplorable. A gun rag says the spread is over 3″ at fifty yards. I’ll bet my .45 pistol could approach that, from a machine rest. I wonder why the Tommy gun is so inaccurate.

Here’s something funny. M1 carbines were contracted out to a number of different manufacturers during the war. So you can get a carbine made by IBM or even Rock-Ola, the jukebox company. I think I’d want a Rock-Ola. How can you beat that for historic weirdness?

Some people like the Winchester-made rifles, but I have read that they had terrible QC issues.

It’s very hard, trying to get straight info on these rifles. I’d be afraid that if I bought one for what seemed to be a good price, I’d find out later that I had missed some important characteristic that lowers the value.

Anyway, I need one.