"Inland" Manufacturing M1 Carbines - 1st hand experience

[Sleeplessnashadow]

I understand your perspective.

Thanks. We earn our own reputation one way or the other, too.

A note to all.... As many of you know I have been posting web pages on the history of the various commercial carbine manufacturers and their carbines on my website devoted to them at M1CarbinesInc.com. One of the reasons I did the work was to dispel some rumors with facts. Another was to document the history before it was lost. Of the many other motives one I knew would come with the work was a heck of an education in who did what and when. Some of the work was like accident reconstruction but some of those carbines don't deserve the reputation spread by those who had never fired one. I've been buying, documenting, photographing, hardness testing, etc then reselling them to get another for over 10 years. I have 4 in line at the moment. I also learned to look for patterns at various points in time of a company's history as things changed over time.

One of the many things I've learned is when a company first starts making carbines there are inevitably issues they didn't expect. Another is over time other issues come up they also didn't expect. The question is, what do they do about it? Companies who earn a poor reputation sometimes manage to turn it around but with some not in time to survive the damage to their income.

There are certain parts of a carbine that function fine if cast, machined, inspected and hardened properly. The latter being a major issue over time for both cast and milled steel. For instance, a cast hammer. The hardness of a cast hammer should be mated to the bolt. Problems occur when they aren't hardened properly (both cast or milled) or someone takes a cast hammer from one manufacturer and uses it with a GI bolt. Yes, the GI carbine standards have been the best yet and were maintained by U.S. Army Ordnance quality control. To say "the GI standards were the only standards" is technically incorrect. Many commercial manufacturers have had their own standards and conducted inspections to maintain them. Their standards were not equivalent to the GI standards but neither is an M60 Main Battle Tank to an M1A1 Abrams yet I don't think we'd care to get shot by either one. The majority of commercial companies have not made their carbines for use in a combat environment even though some of their sales people later claimed otherwise.

Even if this new Inland company makes mistakes, is involved with a company who consistently made previous mistakes, both intentionally and unintentionally, I think they deserve an unbiased chance to prove themselves. If they make mistakes we need to see if they address them honestly and professionally.

The question we have to ask ourselves personally is, are we willing to take a chance with $1000 of our own money to find out? My answer is to do the work to help you make that decision. Who I am is not important, it's what I do that will outlive me if I do it right. Most companies can't afford to think that way if they wanna stay in business. Regardless of what they make.