M2 Carbines, how many were manufactured?

[doncb]

Curious about the M2,how many were m2 and convertion kits were manufactured. It seems to me the ideal weapon and ill bet everyone wanted one. donb in fl.

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[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

I don't know how correct it is, but Riesch shows a chart stating Inland made about 400,000 and Winchester about 17,000 M2's. Looking in War Baby page 494 cost was $35.

As for convertion kits later and or before Korea, who knows?

[INLAND44]

They were determined to make every carbine a M2, particularly when the SHTF in Korea. It's amazing to me how many were NOT converted, judging by the un-converted stocks. Of course, the M1s that were converted were not re-marked as M2. In fact, Inland stopped marking receivers '1' or '2' in order to hand-stamp them after completion either as a '1' or '2'. In the field, they just installed the kits. The hardest part was inletting the stock for the switch and trip lever. I can only speculate on numbers, but we know there were about 6 million carbines made. If 4 million survived after WWII, only a very few of those were stamped 'M2'. These would be a fantastic collectible category except the law views the so-marked receiver as a machine gun regardless of configuration of the carbine or even if the receiver is stripped and not built into a carbine. So, the great majority of 'M2's were conversions. You're exactly right, the auto carbine is one of the best sub-guns ever because the .30 Carbine round has so much more power than many other sub-gun calibers. Made into a bull pup stock with 30-round mag, it's quite a little chain saw. The Israelis are still using such guns in certain bureaus.

[CrossedCannons]

And then they were just as determined to burn them at the stake! My 7.5 million Inland ...