EASY WAYS TO SLIM CHEERING ON THE | OUR EXCLUSIVE GUIDE DOWN YOUR AR-15 6.5 CREEDMOOR | TO GUN METAL , : PETERSEN'S ) PO nn iee ane kcal ONEGOOL CARBINE CZUSA'S 500 CARBINE KEVLAR ‘ CHOOSING & USING . NO-LEAD AMMO ee 22S AND .17S FOR | VARMINT PASTURES | BENELLI R1 .338 WIN. MAG. LWRC M6-SL AR-15By James Tarr CARBINE FOR TAEAGES ike most American men of a certain age, I grew up watching World War TI movies, ‘The images ‘Thompsons re burned into of Garands, and ML Carbines my DNA. At one time or another I've ‘wanted to own all of them, including the '03 Springfield, but except for th 1911 pistol I never have, for ‘a very fic reason: Surplus guns scare me because I can’t tell an underval ued treasure froma piece of junk with homicidal headspacing. Every time I've bought a used firearm, I have in one way or another regretted the pur- chase. A man's got to know his limita: tion There are a number of companies out there offering refurbished WWII- ra firearms, but Auto-Ordnance is currently the only manufacturer of new Mi time. Reagan was in office the first time I ever shot an M1 Garand, but it wasn't until last August that I actu: ally fired an M1 Carbine. I have no good explanation for this other than pethaps always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I real: ize now what I was missing, Isuspect 'm not the only one. In fact, T'd bet there are a whole ‘generation of shooters out there who now next to nothing about the MI ‘arbine. As I was picking up my test rifle at my local gun store, a boy who looked about 12, who was there for 18 © RifleShooter sanuanyreseuany 2012 hunter safety class, said "What's that?” I'm sure he’ ignorance of a piece of American tory, and not alone in his, firearms light, handy arbine is, that’s @ shame. ‘The M1 Carbine was not designed tobe a front-line combat weapon but onsidering. nd soft-recoiling rather was meant for support troop: something a little more powerful and easier to hit with than the 45 ACP 1911 pistol. Nevertheless, US. soldiers carried the carbine into bat le all over the world, and more than 6.2 million carbines were produced during World War I alone, more than any other US, small arm, At 5.4 pounds and 35% inches long, the carbine is as short as a rifleshootermag.commodern-day M4 but a pound I and with a longer sight radius. It was pounds lighter than either the ‘Thompson SMG or M1 Garand but still had very litle recoil In addition to that, the carbine was fed by detachable 15-round ‘magazines. While 30-round mag es were developed in conjunction with the full-auto version of t bine, the M2, they didn't troops until the During World War Il, close to a dozen manufacturers produced carbines, and the design evolved in small ways over time. The Auto-Ord- car- 1¢ use by nance carbine, made with all new parts (and co warranty), is designed to replicate nes with a one-year 1w.1fleshootermag.com D-Day-era carbines, and a Saginaw. made carbine was used as a model for this version, In fact the paper- h my rifle uses the ‘Saginaw Packing.” Auto-Ordnance carbine has a flat-top bolt, no bayonet lug on the barrel and a push-button magazine release (marked with an M) just for ward of the cross-bolt safety on th front of the trigger guard. The rear sight is a non-adjustable flip version, with one aperture for 100-yard usage and a taller one for 300 yards. With its standard 18-inch bar- rel the carbine balances just fo ward of the magazine. There is a metal buttplate on the stock. ‘The bolt handle, which is actually part of the operating slide that controls the bolt, isthe perfect size fo and reciprocates when firi front of the receiver is stamped, CARBINE CAL 30 ML”. At the r the receiver is "AUTO WORCHESTER, MA" Auto-Ordnance actually offers three versions of the M1 Carbine: th traditional wood-stock version; a ver- sion with a pistol-grip side-folding synthetic stock made by Choate and featuring a ventilated metal hand: guard; and an MIA1 Paratrooper model. The M1A1 has a side-folding metal buttstock attached to a walnut stock and replicates versions fielded by some airborne units in World War uanuany/reenuany 2012 RifleShooter ° 19‘CARBINE FOR THE AGE IL I really like the looks of the MLAL but found that its pistol grip does not {feel nearly as good in the hand as the traditional wood-stocked version. ‘The stock on my sample was per- fectly fitted to the receiver, with no ‘gaps, scratches or dings, but it had rather boring grain and color—true GI grade, However, the Auto-Ord- nance MI Carbine in the rack at my local gun shop had a much prettier stock, as have most of them I've seen. (Bd. note: The author's sample is dif- Jerent from the one we borrowed to shoot the cover and most of the photos that accompany the article) A screw- river is all you need to replace the stock ona carbine, ‘The carbine's ease of use is a big reason for its huge popularity. T can’t AUTO-ORDNANCE Mi CARBINE ‘GapsCITY 10:, 1S-round detachable magazine anne 18 ‘OVERALL LENA eicre 5:4 1b, ‘STOCIHANDGUARD: Walnut ‘TRIGGER 5.5 1b. pull HHS fixed post front; 1007300 yard lip rear drift adjustable for windage PRICE $899 ‘ManoFAcTuRE® Auto- Ordnance, ALTO= ‘onDNANcE.coM, 508-795-3919 5 say enough just how light and handy itis, It comes to the shoulder quickly, points naturally, is even lighter than it looks, and it recoils about the same ‘as a 223 of equal weight, only with less muzzle blast. Unlike many weapons whose springs are so strong many kids and women can hardly load them, it is possible to work the bolt on the MI Carbine with one finger. The user ‘can lock back the bolt by the use of a spring-loaded pin on the top of the handle. Retract the bolt, push the pin down, and it clicks nicely into a de- tent in the receiver. To release, just give the bolt handle a little tug back- ward and letit fly, ‘The bolt of an Mi Carbine will lock back only if using magazines with certain types of followers. If the rear of the bullet shape on the follower is vertical, it will lock the bolt back. None of the 15-round magazines 1 used, including the one provided with the rifle, would lock back the bolt, but the 30-rounders I tried di Soldiers complained about the Garand’s weight, capacity, recoil ‘The Auto-Ordnance M1 carbine is designed to emulate D-Day era carbines, | which featured a flat-topped bolt and flip rear sight, www.rifleshootermag.comyt “Walnut Stock” Model: AOM130 (shipped with 15 rd mag) MSRP: $816.00 “Walnut Stock” CA APPROVED Model: AOM140 (shipped with 10 rd mag) MSRP: $816.00 “Paratrooper Folding Stock” Moclel: AOM150 (shipped with 15 rd mag) MSRP: $903.00 Auto-Ordnance M1 .30 Caliber Carbines The Auto-Ordnance M1 .30 Caliber carbine is produced in Kahr’s state-of-the-art ‘manufacturing plant in Worcester, MA. The Auto-Ordnance carbines are produced using newly manufactured parts on high precision computerized machinery. Markings include the following: Auto-Ordrance, Worcester, MA behind the rear sight; U.S, Carbine, Cal. 30 ML on the receiver in front of the bolt and the serial number is ‘engraved on the left side ofthe receiver. ° ‘ tainanne scouserrmourmimeevoss AULQ-Ordnante’ ose‘CARBINE FOR THE AG and its bad habit of announcing to any nearby enemy soldiers that it was empty, courtesy of a loud “ping" when the empty clip was ejected. De- tactors of the MI Carbine (and you will find naysayers of every weapon our military has ever fielded) really only ever found one flaw with it: its “underpowered” cartridge. The .30 Carbine cartridge is a straight-walled case and tadition- ally features a .30 caliber 110-grain full-metaljacket bullet traveling around 1,900 fps. If you look at the ballistics of the .30 Carbine round, it Is roughly equivalent to a .357 Mag- ‘The rear sight offers the option of 100- or 300-yard apertures. The bolt hold-back is a pin atop the cating operating handle. num fired out of a rifle-length bar- rel. That makes it substantially more powerful than the 45 ACP, and ithad more than enough oomph to pen- etrate WWII Japanese helmets and body armor plates. Admittedly, those ballistics pale when compared to the M1 Garand’s .30-06, but that’s like ‘comparing a golf club to a baseball bat; they were not designed to do the same job. You'll find anecdotal evidence ‘on both sides of the stopping power argument, and many of the nega- tive reviews come out of the Korean ‘War, where our troops were engaging Chinese troops hundreds of yards away, often in extreme cold (which | suspect affected the velocity of the 22 * RifleShooter sanvarvresauary 2012 On the plus side 1 know Audie Murphy was a big fan of the little rifle, He was not a large man himself and thought the carbine very handy for fighting in the forests of Europe. If you don'tknow who Audie Murphyis, let's just say he saw enough combatto know what worked and what didn’t, ‘and had a documented track record of hitting what he was aiming at. While everyone is scrambling to get more tactical than the next guy and find a color that’s blacker than black to paint their ARs, it wasn't so long ago that SWAT teams were arm- {ing their members with the unas- suming M1 Carbine, Author and instructor Jim Cirillo was a member of the NYPD’s Stake Out Unit and was involved in more gunfights than every cop I person- ally know put together. He quite often carried an Ml Carbine, loaded with 110-grain jacketed softpoints and said that of all the weapons the unit used the carbine had the best track record: 100 percent one-shot stops. Anyone thinking about using an MI Carbine for personal defense today has the option of loading it with soft- point or hollowpoint ammunition, something our soldiers couldn't do. ‘The carbine's utility isn't limited to personal defense. There are many locales around the country where it {s not legal to hunt deer with a .223, but over the last 60-plus years untold whitetail deer have been killed with the .30 Carbine. Many ammunition won rileshootermag.commanufacturers make softpoint or hollowpoint .30 Carbine ammo, and while a 110-grain jacketed softpoint at 1,900 fps is no belted magnum, it is more than enough to kill 2 deer. Because itis so light and handy, with modest recoil, itis a great centerfire Tong gun on which to start a new shooter. Auto-Ordnance provides one 15-round magazine with the rifle (or a 10-rounder if you live in California), anditsells 30-rounders as well, butin preparation for this article I searched around online to see what else was out there. While surplus magazines are still available, “new in wrap” GI mags are impossible to find, What I did dis- cover was new, commercial, Korean- made 15- and 30-round MI Carbine magazines. ‘The 15-rounders were selling for $10 or less, and I ordered | some of both. The wrappers for the 30-rounders have an NSN number ‘on them, but I believe this is just for show as Korean troops haven't been armed with carbines since the 1970s. The 30-round magazines had fol- Iowers that would lock back the bolt when empty. 1 also bought a perfect new re- production of the double-magazine ‘canvas stock pouch seen on many GI The N1 Carbine we received for photography had good-looking wood while the author's test sample we on the plain side. The Auto-Ordns versions have no bayonet lug. \won.rileshootermag.com vanuarviFeBRUARY 2012 RifleShooter * 23CARBINE FOR THE AGES ‘guns, complete with 1943 markings. ‘This pouch was actually designed to fit on a belt and hold stripper clips instead of 15-round magazines, but once one GI didit.. Shooting the carbine was an old-fashioned experience. By that I mean itis the first rifle in a long time that I have had to break in. At first it was only reliable with two of the six test magazines, but after about 150 rounds (most of it steel-cased Horna- dy and Wolf, which Auto-Ordnance doesn't recommend anyway) the lit- tle rifle ran reliably with every maga- zine I had and fed Federals jacketed softpoints as easily asit did FMJs. Its crisp, single-stage 5%pound trigger had no take-up, and while I was able to get decent groups with it (2% and three inches at 100 yards}, I suspect someone with younger eyes would have done even better. The sights were exactly right for el- Recoll of the light carbine was minimal, on par with a .223 but without the muzzle blast. It would make a great d fense gun or even a deer rifle. Regardless of what you use it fo t's fun to shoot.vation, but the carbine was hitting three inches right for me at 50 yards. ‘The rear sight is drift adjustable for windage, so this is a quick fix. I will freely admit that I haven't discovered anything about the MI Carbine that people smarter than me didn’t already know 40 years ago. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, but Americans have short memories. The MI Carbine has proven itself on battlefields around the world and hunting grounds here at home, and itavoids the stigma of the “evil black assault rifle.” ‘There are some who might argue that because an Auto-Ordnance MI Carbine is new, as opposed to a sur plus war veteran, that itis nota “his- toric” weapon but rather a nostalgic one. So what? Collectors have driven the prices of surplus carbines up to (and far beyond in some cases) the cost of a new Auto-Ordnance, and most people can't afford to buy guns they don't intend to shoot. ‘This MI Carbine is a shooter. e JTO-ORDNANCE Mi CARBINE Ballet Na cn a0cubion Weighed Valea ta roan Hornady FMI 110 1891 242 Wolf FM 110 1.909 321 Federal JSP. 110 1.944 2:30 Winchester FM 110 1,952. 287 inchester JHSP 110 1.941 2.66 ‘Notes: Accuracy reste are the averagar of Trea thee ahot groupe at 100 yards From a sand Baa reat. Vlcties are marages of 10 seta meneved whan! Apta ctonogy dl from Shooting Chrony 12 feet ram the muzzle, Abbreviations: FMI, ful metal jacket, JHOP, jacketed hollow sofipint ISR, ecksted eoftpant