Qustions about (1) orig brl and (2) op slide spring

(1) I have been told that my Std Prod 2063636 was mfg about Oct/Nov 43. The receiver has a 7 on the left toward the front. It has an Underwood brl dated 3-43. Is it likely the orig brl from the Gov't free barrel program:dunno:?

(2) When I tore it down, the op slide spring looked different:yikes:. My books say the spring should be 10.25" long with 120 coils. Mine was 11.25 inches long and has only about 113 coils:madsmile:. Anyone know what it might be for? I don't guess it is for a carbine.

Much thanks for your help.

Quick correction to post above

The Underwood barrel is dated 3-44, NOT 3-43

Colreed, It's not likely the original barrel on a receiver made about October 1943. Replaced during a rebuild as the barrel is about 6 months later then the receiver. It sounds like your recoil spring might be a commercial replacement spring.

Sarco sells a "high speed recoil spring" for M1 carbines. It is about 11 inches long, but I dont know about coil count, but it is different. I got one years ago to replace a GI one I had collapsed to 9 1/2". It sucked and was too tight and short stroked with some loads. Replaced it with a NOS GI.

Thanks, IMA,
I didn't shoot with this one. Removed it on initial teardown. Was tight and caught my attention.
Maybe I ought to try it. Suppose it could lessen the shock at the end of the backstroke.

The Sarco spring worked great with GI ball, but did not like Aguilla and some commercial loads.

First part in the bin, first out. Nothing is set in stone. There were over one thousand, five hundred contractors for Carbine parts, and the prime mfgs traded, sold and bought parts like there was no tomorrow. In WWII if military mfgs didnt pump out the parts like they did, there would have been no tomorrow.

It astounds me that carbine owners will swap out a part on a CMP carbine with no inspection or research. Its a NPM so it MUST have NPM matching parts and a freshened up repark by Homer in his garage workshop, that also makes M1 Carbine pistols.

Inland sold thousands and thousands of bolts to other Carbine mfgs. That IN bolt you removed quite likely was the original bolt that rifle was produced with. But you dont have a headspace gauge and you dont really understand the difference between "go, no go and field". But hey, you got the NPM marked bolt off gunbroke and now your Carbine is "original".

Some other schmoe bought the actual, original IN bolt from your Carbine, and now its in his parts box. Carbine mfgs got paid based on the fullfilling their contract. There was no micromanager who said "hey, this is an Inland bolt, its supposed to be Rockola".

So you have sold the real, original parts for pennies, and swapped in worn out parts that have that little W mark and now you have nothing. Wear and finish do not match. In fact, the rifle is now unsafe to shoot because of the swapped out parts which were once original and functionable.

But hey. All the part stamps match. Well sort of. Maybe you need to have joe joe repark it in his extra bedroom workshop in his condo. The one that caught on fire last week. He does such good work for $50. He made a nice tanker for me out of my IH Garand that swallowed some kind of bullet I placed in the muzzle. Maybe it was a 223?

Zertouche,

How does my replacing a badly collapsed spring rate a response like that? My Underwood is the same as the day it was rebuilt. I think you meant to post to a different thread. It's not that I disagree with what you are saying. I agree with most of it. I just don't think I rated a tirade for replacing a spring.

I agree that Zertouche probably did a compose and then pasted to the wrong thread.
When I find the one it was supposed to go in, I'll do a "thumbs up" on it.
Aren't computers fun? And faster machines and internet service just mean making uh-ohs faster.
Still following this thread.

I think zetouche has finally hit the wall probally due to humped parts,humped carbines and 100,000 owners of new CMP carbines all trying to restore there new prizes to WW2 issue with brand new properly stamped parts and stocks that have to be real because if they were fake E-bay wouldn't let them be sold on there right?

I think I remember that post from a while back in response to a fellow who just started swapping out parts on his CMP Carbine with no research at all.

Curt, I fear that you may be right in that Carbine folks are finally giving up....
It's just no fun when each part you pick up at a gun show is probably a really well done repro.

I've never been into restoring any firearm to "as produced" 'cause I'm just not that well versed in what is real and what isn't.
I kinda like the "as last issued" stuff from CMP because you have some idea as to it's heritage.
In just a few years there's gonna be a whole lotta Carbines on the market which look original but are anything but....
I don't think I'm gonna be playing in that market....

Sad, isn't it, but what are we gonna do. If it doesn't have a CMP card, I'm no longer interested. But I'm sure the humpers are turning out those CMP cards at this moment.

I guess that kinda limits my buying to a really lucky Estate Sale or the CMP site.