I was at the North Store yesterday looking for a carbine. I got one, too: a Rack Grade IBM w/ IM barrel, great looking stock, not smart enough to tell you anything more about it (oh, yeah: ME 3, TE "very good," whatever that means, mirror bore). It's on it's way here to Houston. There weren't supposed to be any IBM's at the North Store but apparently a few (like 3) leaked through. Here's what else I saw in the Garandicon and carbine categories. I'm no expert, by any means, but if you'd like clarification or additional info, post a reply and I'll try to answer:

100 SA Field Grade Garands, ser no.'s mostly 3-5M, a few 1-2M, a very few six digit. Asample of barrels were in the early '50's, only one '49. Most stocks pretty rough and mis-matched (but not real different).

50 Winchester Field Grade Garands, didn't get a chance to survey condition, ser no's and whatnot.

30 Standard Product Service Grade carbines.

50 NPM Service Grade carbines, some stocks OK, many fairly rough.

50 Winchester Service Grade carbines, most stocks REALLY rough.

2 Winchester Rack Grade carbines.

40 Saginaw SG Service Grade carbines.

3 (then 2) IBM Rack Grade carbines.

20 Quality Hardware Service Grade carbines.

When I bought an SA Garand at the North Store (11/41 rcvr, 3/42 barrel, ME 3 and TE4, and my son can shoot 1.5 MOA 8-shot groups w/surplus ammo; me, not so much) about 6 years ago, the hang tags had the ME/TE on them. The Store staff was of course happy to help me figure my way through what I was looking at this time (sorry: I forgot/missed his name). A lot of the carbines were Austrian returns, based on the trigger guard stamps. Mine's got a funny bronze-looking trigger group -- anyone know what that means?
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