Why isn't .30 carbine more popular?

See.....there were many sides to this firearm. Standing along at a range with a bunch of guys around, shooting was fun. I enjoyed mine very much and it was very pretty with it's wood stock. Then there was the other side of this rifle; frozen along with the trooper who clutched it, trying to get a round off that wasn't as powerful as a .45 in the first place and wondering if we'd see another warm meal while on our bellies in Korea in the Winter.

Seems to me that it's got a wildly varied history. If it had spend all of its time in the jungles maybe the historical reference would be different. And, it make the M1 Garand all that much more spectacular.
 
M1 carbine where not designed to be "accurate".
My home PC crashed and my files are stuck in there! I have a "accuracy and targeting" diagram on it.

Not sure if this link works but basically if you can keep 5 out of 7 consecutive shots in a 12"X12" target at 100 yards your carbine is doing well.
There is another 25 yard target that's more like 3"wx4"t aiming point approx 1/3 up from bottom .
Windage centered rear sight on 100 yard mark. 7 shots 5 need to fall with in the 3x4 target and be 3/4" high from point of aim.

If not back to the armory. Link didn't work for target but can be found here in this thread. http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...-M1-Carbine-RANGE-REPORT?highlight=M1+carbine
 
Last edited:
mac1911 said:
M1 carbine where not designed to be "accurate".
My home PC crashed and my files are stuck in there! I have a "accuracy and targeting" diagram on it.

Not sure if this link works but basically if you can keep 5 out of 7 consecutive shots in a 12"X12" target at 100 yards your carbine is doing well.
There is another 25 yard target that's more like 3"wx4"t aiming point approx 1/3 up from bottom .
Windage centered rear sight on 100 yard mark. 7 shots 5 need to fall with in the 3x4 target and be 3/4" high from point of aim.

If not back to the armory. Link didn't work for target but can be found here in this thread. http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...-M1-Carbine-RANGE-REPORT?highlight=M1+carbine
Click to expand...

Wow then I guess my Inland is doing well. I can hit my 8" plate at 120 yards almost every shot (with my reloads). It's accurate enough for my plinking needs.
 
andrew1220 said:
Wow then I guess my Inland is doing well. I can hit my 8" plate at 120 yards almost every shot (with my reloads). It's accurate enough for my plinking needs.
Click to expand...

Oh they can shoot better it's just not highly expected. I think the 2015 Nationals the winner of the carbine match shot a 375/400 that's not to shabby shooting from positions. Although the nationals the carbine match is shot at 100 yards....
 
Just got my NPM back from CMP. They shot three rounds at 100 yards for sight-in: two were touching and the other was less than two inches away.

Shooting at a tennis ball 100 or 150 feet away is darned easy compared to any pistol! It's just an easy rifle to become comfortable with.
 
garandman said:
Just got my NPM back from CMP. They shot three rounds at 100 yards for sight-in: two were touching and the other was less than two inches away.

Shooting at a tennis ball 100 or 150 feet away is darned easy compared to any pistol! It's just an easy rifle to become comfortable with.
Click to expand...

Heck cmp didn't even do the 5 shot out of seven test[wink]

What did you have CMP do. They still charging 100$ for sight in? My friends dad just sent his M1 garand in to have it refinished, trigger job and sighted in . He requested it be zeroed at 200 yards @ point of aim = point of impact @ 8 clicks or less on rear elevation.
 
One more thing in favor. Know a caster? You can reload .30 Carbine for less money, in the parameters of design, for less than any other defensive rifle round. The brass will still be usable when the sun Supernovas. 15 grains of 296 with a cast 100 gr. bullet = 450 to the pound.
 
Steve Marshall said:
One more thing in favor. Know a caster? You can reload .30 Carbine for less money, in the parameters of design, for less than any other defensive rifle round. The brass will still be usable when the sun Supernovas. 15 grains of 296 with a cast 100 gr. bullet = 450 to the pound.
Click to expand...

Have you been running cast bullets in your carbine with this load?
At those velocities are you getting any leading?

466 rounds......your spilling some[smile]
70 bullets to the lb of lead.

I'm working on a cast load for the M1 garand and AR. Carbine and mauser are next. My plan is to have cast loads good to 200 yards and 2 MOA for all of my milsurp rifles.
 
Last edited:
Rover51 said:
Jason... this is BS.. Tell you what...let me shoot you with a M1 carbine and see you get up.....then I will believe your comment and statement ! [mg]LOL
Click to expand...

Actually, he's ALMOST right. The M1 Carbine was found to be an abomination during the Korean War.

Folks really have to remember the Carbine was never designed to replace the rifle. It was originally intended to replace the 1911 pistol for certain folks, usually not in combat environments, and THAT job it did well. When it went downhill was when it was used in infantry units to replace the rifle for certain users. That was pretty dumb. It worked OK in WW2, but not so well in Korea.

Check out SLA Marshall's book on it, then you'll see some pretty telling stuff on the carbine.

http://www.amazon.com/Infantry-Operations-Weapons-Usage-Korea/dp/0947898883

If you dig long enough, you'll find a downloadable pdf of this book somewhere. I did, just don't remember where.
 
mac1911 said:
Have you been running cast bullets in your carbine with this load?
At those velocities are you getting any leading?

466 rounds......your spilling some[smile]
70 bullets to the lb of lead.

I'm working on a cast load for the M1 garand and AR. Carbine and mauser are next. My plan is to have cast loads good to 200 yards and 2 MOA for all of my milsurp rifles.
Click to expand...

I shoot the Lyman 130 grain cast bullet in mine with IMR-4227. I like heavier bullets to keep the velocities down and reduce leading, but I'm not looking to hit anything at 200 yards. I do see a drop in accuracy compared to jacketed bullets, but I've done no work trying to improve it. It's just a fun cheap plinking round for me.

In my bolt guns I should a lot of cast bullets with 10 grains of unique at the indoor range. Makes a Mauser feel like a 22.

Edit: Note 10 grains of Unique is not a safe load for the Carbine. Unique won't cycle the bolt on semi-autos anyway.
 
Wadcutter said:
I shoot the Lyman 130 grain cast bullet in mine with IMR-4227. I like heavier bullets to keep the velocities down and reduce leading, but I'm not looking to hit anything at 200 yards. I do see a drop in accuracy compared to jacketed bullets, but I've done no work trying to improve it. It's just a fun cheap plinking round for me.

In my bolt guns I should a lot of cast bullets with 10 grains of unique at the indoor range. Makes a Mauser feel like a 22.

Edit: Note 10 grains of Unique is not a safe load for the Carbine. Unique won't cycle the bolt on semi-autos anyway.
Click to expand...

I like 2400 and H4895 for most of my rifle cast loads.
With the carbine I need to slug the bore. Then find out how big of a bullet I can stuff in the case before I have chambering issues. Not sure how tight the neck/throat area is on the carbine.
 
YMMV re. cast bullets in a Carbine. Mine doesn't lead the barrel. Others? Some people swear at it, others swear by it. Using lead I paid 50 cents a pound for, my Carbine loads are about 8 cents each.
 
Steve Marshall said:
YMMV re. cast bullets in a Carbine. Mine doesn't lead the barrel. Others? Some people swear at it, others swear by it. Using lead I paid 50 cents a pound for, my Carbine loads are about 8 cents each.
Click to expand...

Are you gas checking them?
The cost can be cheap if you do it right. Generally the only real money spent is on molds. Unless you use Lee molds at less than 30$ each.
My entire smelting/casting set up minus the molds is less than 150$
I have approx 1500#s of lead which I have approx 175$ of real cash into it. Cost me approx 18$ (tank of propane) to smelt down 500# of lead.

So lead is .12 per pound, .04/# to smelt and another .12-.15/# for the equipment.

So .30/# for ready to cast lead... so at .004 cents per 100 grain bullet.
That's cheap.!
 
Last edited:
The Lyman 130 grain I use has no gas check. They also make a 115 grain mold that does have a gas check cut.

Generally, I don't cast to get the best ballistics and so don't bother with gas checks. If I want a flat shooting re-load I use jacketed bullets.

I make Lyman #2 alloy and haven't had any issues leading.
 
So how many of you who cast bullets are retired?

I see it as a great retirement pastime.

If you aren't retired, do you have kids of school age?

I'm starting to feel pretty inefficient. I need some confirmation that there aren't people with kids in school who have time to do this. Ha.

Mac - how did you get the lead? Car and tire shops?

Don
 
I used to cast. For a few calibers I still do.

But, for the most part, I got into swaging. Pricey, for sure, but I can make jacketed or lead bullets, and any time I want, as there are no lead fumes.
 
dcmdon said:
So how many of you who cast bullets are retired?

I see it as a great retirement pastime.

If you aren't retired, do you have kids of school age?

I'm starting to feel pretty inefficient. I need some confirmation that there aren't people with kids in school who have time to do this. Ha.

Mac - how did you get the lead? Car and tire shops?

Don
Click to expand...

I have kids, a job etc and cast bullet. It is time consuming, but once I get into a groove I can make about 5-8 bullet per minute which makes it worth it financially.

I do it because it's a process I enjoy. I make mine own alloys and lube recipes. I'm a even fan of certain mold designers like Elmer Keith and Guy Loverin. I inherited a lot of molds from my grandfather and I like to have that connection.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend it to most people. It's can be dangerous, it stinks, and it's expensive to get started. Enjoying it is probably a sign of lead poisoning.
 
Nickle said:
Actually, he's ALMOST right. The M1 Carbine was found to be an abomination during the Korean War.

Folks really have to remember the Carbine was never designed to replace the rifle. It was originally intended to replace the 1911 pistol for certain folks, usually not in combat environments, and THAT job it did well. When it went downhill was when it was used in infantry units to replace the rifle for certain users. That was pretty dumb. It worked OK in WW2, but not so well in Korea.

Check out SLA Marshall's book on it, then you'll see some pretty telling stuff on the carbine.

http://www.amazon.com/Infantry-Operations-Weapons-Usage-Korea/dp/0947898883

If you dig long enough, you'll find a downloadable pdf of this book somewhere. I did, just don't remember where.
Click to expand...

Here is a link to the PDF. I look at it an entertaining read. It's hardly a well documented piece of research.

http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll11/id/1350

 
I don't think it was overly researched, in fact he took a small slice of units.

That said, he also mirrors the prevailing opinions at the time.

And, for what the carbine was designed for, it's a great gun. However, it also was grossly misused. And, said misuse showed it's lack of ability to do what it wasn't designed for.

As somebody that served just shy of 40 years, I'm glad I never had to stake my life on something like a carbine. It did make a very suitable replacement for the 1911. It made a terrible replacement for the Garand.

As to it working well in WW2 in the Pacific, remember, the M16A1 worked fairly well in Vietnam (other the idiots like McNamara and his ilk claiming it was perfect, didn't need cleaning and refused to chrome line the chamber/bore), but the M14 was better suited for Europe.
 
dcmdon said:
So how many of you who cast bullets are retired?

I see it as a great retirement pastime.

If you aren't retired, do you have kids of school age?

I'm starting to feel pretty inefficient. I need some confirmation that there aren't people with kids in school who have time to do this. Ha.

Mac - how did you get the lead? Car and tire shops?

Don
Click to expand...

I have 3 kids 1 @ 7 years and twins at 5 years of age. I don't do much of anything else. 90% of my casting and smelting is done at night even before kids. I don't watch TV and I'm pretty much done with household chores by 9pm.
Smelting of lead is done in large batches I basically have enough ignots to last a few years ready to go. Next spring I plan to do another 3-500 lbs as it stores better in ignot form.

As a source of lead. I got my start with work with wheel weights all though we generate a small amount. Then Fixhah here on NES hooked me up with some. After a while I developed connections to trade various items for lead. Plus I hit up a few other shops for wheel weights. Lead wheel weights are getting less and less. With the zinc and steel weights plus balancers getting better less weight is used.

I do not get out to shoot much. I'm lucky to get out once a month. So I have lots of time at home to cast,load, and dream about shooting more. My pay also his no where near keeping up with the cost of living. So the more I can cast the more I can shoot when I do.
My average cast load for 30 cal rifles is 12-15 cents.... with pistol it's 5-8 cents each.
 
Mac,
Thanks for the info.

You lost me after the second sentence. Like you, I don't watch TV, my chores are done and the kids asleep by 9:00 pm.

The difference between me and you is that I'm ready for bed about 15 minutes after that point. Very impressive.
 
dcmdon said:
Mac,
Thanks for the info.

You lost me after the second sentence. Like you, I don't watch TV, my chores are done and the kids asleep by 9:00 pm.

The difference between me and you is that I'm ready for bed about 15 minutes after that point. Very impressive.
Click to expand...

I'm always ready for bed......key for me is I just don't stop moving.
 
I get it. If I hit the couch with a book and a half a shot of bourbon in a snifter, I'm toast. (Managed to score a bottle of George T. Stagg at retail price. Woo hoo)

Sometimes, I'll go downstairs to do some reloading and all of a sudden its 12:30. If I hit the couch, I'm out in 15 minutes and the next thing I know its 10:00 and my wife is calling for me to come to bed.

Don
 
I recently started cat nApping from about 930 to 11pm get up off the couch and hit the reloading room for a hour or so. Last night I did the final conversion /set up on the pro1000 to 30 carbine.
Regular loads. Have not worked up a cast load for the carbine yet. M1 first, I plan on having a cast load that will function in the M1 and give me decent 200 yard accuracy.
 

Similar threads

irwindale m1 carbine??????
Replies
5
Views
278
nordic alien
N
Buying more than one firearm
2
Replies
45
Views
1K
Mesatchornug
Mesatchornug
  • Locked
Navy scrubbed this photo can you see why?
Replies
17
Views
739
Mountain
Mountain
9mm Carbine
3 4 5
Replies
143
Views
7K
PappyM3
PappyM3
Why is it called a talo edition
2
Replies
48
Views
1K
Taipan01
Taipan01
Back
Top Bottom