"Inland" Manufacturing M1 Carbines - 1st hand experience

[browningautorifle]

Point taken Dave, but this item is already showing signs of failure.

[manteo97]

Seems the myth about steel cast parts being substandard won't die. Casting technology has come a long way from the 1950's, and the 1970's (my I-J has mostly cast parts) to what is being produced today. Jim hit he nail on the head, it's the heat treat process that can make or break a cast part. The chemical make up of cast 4140 or 8620 is the same as the wrought version, except the amounts of Silicon, and Aluminum are slightly increased to improve flow during the investment casting process. Heat treatment is still an art, batch heating and quenching processes, and equipment vary, depth of hardening etc, so simply meeting a MIL-SPEC by reverse engineering a USGI part sometimes doesn't work.

As far as this New Inland, a warped receiver is due to the H/T process. No excuse for this one getting out of the factory door. This is an example of the customer inspecting the quality into a product, not the way it should be. This kind or corporate mentality for Quality Assurance almost put GM out of business in the 70's & 80's, and led to the rise of Honda, as their quality was deemed superior. An extreme example, but these guys at the New Inland, (and others like ROCX-OLA not the real ROCK-OLA) have a dream to produce a replica of a classic firearm, and need to make a (slim?) profit to do so. The only way to do this is to make it with mostly cast parts, a minimum of finish machining for economy of production. Ok if done well, but this is not the case for this particular M1 carbine.

Lets bring the topic back into focus, are there others out there that have had experiences with the New Inland?

[Sleeplessnashadow]

Let's see how many are still monitoring this thread.

I had intentionally omitted just how many parts on the Inland I bought are from the same molds and other parts used by Auto-Ordnance the past 10 years. Including their M1A1 stock.

It appears the distributors and some retailers knew this already. Rather than post a pic of my Inland, just look at an Auto Ordnance carbine. Only difference I see is the stock, but not the handguard.

In addition to the .30 carbines it appears Inland has acquired at least two of the 1911's previously made by Auto-Ordnance.

The problems this Inland is having are the same problems the Auto-Ordnance carbines were having. Including a lack of quality control inspection before they ship them to their distributors.

And I'll also let another one out of the bag. Who owns the Inland Manufacturing trademark, and is the assembly and repair facility for Inland, is Chiappa USA in Dayton. The prez of Chiappa USA is the prez of Inland Mfg. It appears Chiappa either bought out Auto-Ordnance carbines or was one of a number of investors in Inland Mfg. I suspect the former. These are being made in the USA, not Italy. Only part I'm not sure on is the stock. The one on mine was not made by Boyds, it appears to be the same stock Chiappa uses on their M1-22's. Again, not certain quite yet on this stock. The stain they used looks like an attempt to mask what's underneath. Aesthetically the stock looks great, until I cleaned the powder residue off with Hoppe's #9 and the finish came off with it.

Jim

[shadycon]

Very interesting and thank you Jim for the new info.

[Sleeplessnashadow]

Attachment 64701

Attachment 64702
Walnut stain looked pretty nice. Until I cleaned the powder residue out of the inside with Hoppe's #9 and it also removed the finish. You can see the dark vs light areas where I also used the Hoppe's with a cotton patch. Not sure what stain comes off this easy but aesthetically it looked pretty good beforehand.

Attachment 64703
Note wear after first 500-600 rounds of factory ammo

Attachment 64704Attachment 64705
Note shape of receiver and fit of trigger housing failing to align trigger pin holes.

Attachment 64706 Attachment 64707

Attachment 64708

Attachment 64709

Jim

[imarangemaster]

That wear on the bolt is HORRIBLE! In 25 years of being an FFL, and handling hundreds of Carbines, most being Blue Sky during the hay day of importation, I have handle some really worn carbines. I have NEVER seen on with that kind of wear! Is that peening of the rear side of the bolt lug I see????? Wow. I question whether that is even safe. The Auto Ordnance web page still lists carbines. Are they just selling off existing stock?

[Wastelander]

Hi, First time posting.
Sounds like if you want to buy a cheaper Inland you can buy an Auto Ordnance instead.
$675.00 for a new Auto Ordnance on Gun Broker or $969.99 for Inland.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Hi, First time posting.
Sounds like if you want to buy a cheaper Inland you can buy an Auto Ordnance instead.
$675.00 for a new Auto Ordnance on Gun Broker or $969.99 for Inland.

Wastelander,

Welcome to the forum, guessing you are a Vikings fan. We have a lot of members from your area. Being your first post I can't tell if you are a carbine owner, shooter, and or collector. If so, we have an abundance of people here who can help someone out. Along with searching past threads for topics that might be of interest.

Personally I don't look for the cheapest carbine I can find. Reliability is tops on my list. Which almost always brings me back to a GI carbine verses a commercial version. I have had pretty poor luck with aftermarket carbines. I had an Auto Ordnance last year, and it who the failure to feed king. Now someone else gets to worry about it, though I warned them first.

Enjoy the forum

Jim

[Sleeplessnashadow]

That wear on the bolt is HORRIBLE! In 25 years of being an FFL, and handling hundreds of Carbines, most being Blue Sky during the hay day of importation, I have handle some really worn carbines. I have NEVER seen on with that kind of wear! Is that peening of the rear side of the bolt lug I see????? Wow. I question whether that is even safe. The Auto Ordnance web page still lists carbines. Are they just selling off existing stock?

The bolt wasn't hardened properly. The rear of the bolt didn't suffer damage from the hammer so I suspect it was hardened but not properly. GI specs call for a second hardening of the rear of the bolt but in my experience no commercial bolt has been hardened to GI specs, they skip the second hardening of the rear of the bolt. This doesn't make them unsafe, but it shortens their lifespan which will make them become unsafe quicker. In the case of this bolt it's unsafe after one range trip of 500-600 rounds of factory ammo. The slide has matching damage that shouldn't have happened. The metallurgist friend of mine says part of the problems with the receiver were probably caused by improper hardening but during the casting process the receiver was deformed due to something called "shrinkage". I've seen Auto Ordnance receivers with the same issue. He says "shrinkage" can also be internal and not visible. Does "shrinkage" make the receiver unsafe?, is a question I need to ask him but the deformity alone is unsafe.

I'll be calling for a return authorization probably later today.

Rea what's going on with Auto-Ordnance and Inland it would be a guessing game. What I do know and don't have to guess at is the receiver was cast from the same mold and tooling, the cast parts show the same mold marks used by Auto-Ordnance, the buttplate is the one Auto-Ordnance has been using, the folding stock on the Inland carbines is the same used by Auto-Ordnance, the Inland SKU numbers are the same as Auto-Ordnance SKU/Model numbers the only difference being the suffix INL instead of AOM. The parts milled from steel are the same parts Auto-Ordnance had milled from steel. No competitor allows another competitor to go this far. The casting molds are at Lamothermic Casting in Brewster, NY. Who originally owned them was iai. When iai folded they owed money to Auto-Ordnance, Lamothermic, Time Precision and others. Auto-Ordnance started their carbine line as a result. Who owns all the molds only they know.

I had second hand info a couple years ago that Auto-Ordnance was cutting carbine production significantly due to a lack of sales.

Inland and Chiappa haven't been public about Chiappa's involvement using MKS Supply like a front company with the inland website. But it's been no secret the USA president of Chiappa is the president of Inland and the Inland address is Chiappa HQ.

There are a few differences between Auto-Ordnance and Chiappa carbines but they are cosmetic. The parkerized finish and wood stain are different. The stock has the same cuts and miscuts as the Chiappa carbine stocks.

I'd like to stress this is just one carbine. We need to hear from others before passing judgment. As with Auto-Ordnance I hope Inland can pull it together and put out a decent carbine. A focus on profit with very little focus on quality control has killed more than one company. That Inland is relying on the casting process to make parts to spec without machining or an inspection process that would have caught these problems with mine and the one other that's been shared here is not a good sign and a repeat performance of the mistakes made by Auto-Ordnance.

I have seen Auto-Ordnance still has their carbines on their website. It's where I went to compare models and specs with the Inland sales flier that came with my carbine. Websites don't always get updated right away but with so many Auto-Ordnance carbines in the pipeline with distributors and retailers they may want to hold off on any announcement. Looking at the Auto-Ordnance carbines listed on Gunbroker by various sellers it seems most make it clear they are sold as is with no refunds. Maybe related, maybe not.

Jim

[imarangemaster]

Hi, First time posting.
Sounds like if you want to buy a cheaper Inland you can buy an Auto Ordnance instead.
$675.00 for a new Auto Ordnance on Gun Broker or $969.99 for Inland.

WASTELANDER, welcome to the forum! Lots of really knowledgable people here.