CLASSIC GUNS
The M1 Carbine
This fast-handling, featherweight World War II vet still fills the niche it was created for.
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Black guns and laser sights aside, if I had to pick two guns for urban survival, they would be the 1911 Government .45 and the M1 Carbine. Forget that the carbine was designed to replace the .45, these two old war horses work very well side by side. Reams have been written about the 1911, but not that much has been penned about the lightweight, graceful and easy-pointing United States
Carbine, Caliber .30, M1, as it was officially called. Weighing in at a scant 5 1/2 pounds, this fast-shooting, gas-operated featherweight managed to blast its way through World War II, the Korean conflict and Vietnam, not to mention racking up notable credentials with National Guard units and even some law enforcement agencies. In peacetime, it remains a favorite with plinkers, small-game hunters and as a home-defense weapon.
With a semiautomatic rate of fire and being fed by 15- and 30-round magazines, the M1 carbine is capable of devastating sustained firepower, in spite of its rather miniscule .30-caliber round (a 110-grain full metal jacket at about 1,900 fps), which, ballistically, is about on a par with the old .32-20. In reality, the .30 M1 carbine cartridge was sired by the obsolete .32 Winchester Self Loading round of 1906, which went out of production in 1920.
So what made the U.S. Army adopt this carbine in the first place? It was all due to the inability of most soldiers to hit anything with the Government .45. Yet there was an obvious need for all troops in combat areas to be armed. Specifically, this included artillery and mortar crews, radio operators, NCOs and officers--in short, anyone who had to transport or handle other gear, where a 91/2--pound M1 Garand would be cumbersome. By contrast, the lightweight carbine was almost nonobtrusive. And with its peep sights and 18-inch barrel, it was a heck of a lot more accurate for most soldiers to shoot than the slab-sided .45 ACP pistol.
The M1 carbine was the invention of a team of engineers working with and for Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The genesis of the design began with a concept by Jonathon Edmund "Ed" Browning, John M. Browning's half-brother. However, popular legend--and a subsequent 1952 movie entitled "Carbine Williams" and starring James Stewart in the title rol--credits David Marshall "Carbine" Williams with creating the M1 carbine. But as Bruce Canfield points out in his excellent book, The Complete Guide to the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine (Mowbray Publishing), Williams is mainly credited with incorporating the carbine's short-stroke gas piston. The fact that he was a former bootlegger and was working on this design while in prison for murder only added spice to what has become great gun lore that does, in fact, have a basis in truth.
Yet there can be no denying that Williams' contributions, along with those of others, contributed to the carbine's eventual design. General Motors' Inland Manufacturing Division had also been working on a "light rifle" concept for the government, but with the perfection and adoption of the M1 Carbine, the Army contracted with both Winchester and Inland to produce about 350,000 carbines each, primarily for use by support personnel rather than front-line troops that had, of course, the M1 Garand; a formal contract was signed on November 24, 1941. Two weeks later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
The M1 carbine was immediately plunged into the thick of battle, and additional suppliers were called into action to supply what became the most prolific weapon of the American armed forces. There were more than 6.2 million M1 carbines made between 1941 and 1943 by no less than 10 different companies.
