New Member and owner of Blue Sky IBM

[imarangemaster]

Welcome to the M1 Carbine lovers disease! I fired my first M1 Carbine in 1962 as a 10 year old. It was a DCM/NRA gun. That coupled with the fact that my dad fought with an M1 Carbine on Iwo Jima in WW2 had me hooked. I bought my first in 1982, and have pretty much had one ever since. I carried an M1 Carbine much of my LEO career asa patrol carbine. My current is a CMP Service Grade Quality Hardware that came back from Italy in around 2008.

Some helpful hints for happy carbine use:

- Try to stick to USGI magazines, especially the 30s. Make sure your spring is in the magazine correctly /\/\/\/\/\/\ the long side (bottom of shown) to the rear.

- Vietnam era 30 rounders marked "J" and "OKay" are excellent, as are the Belgian made "AYP" 30 round mags. KCI Korean 15 round tend to be as good as the USGI, and their 30s (marked UU) are supposed to be nearly as good as GI.

- Check the recoil spring to see if it is degraded. New is 10 1/4" long. If shorter than 10 1/8" it should be replaced.

- Make sure extractor and ejector are clear of old, hard cosmoline. Carburetor cleaner soak work s well if you do not have a bolt tool. Use an empty case hooked under the extractor to work the cleaner into the ejector spring channel.

- CMP has good info on obtaining as much accuracy as you can by fitting the barreled action to the stock (it's called hanging the action in the recoil lug)