Gobs of Garands and carbines...

[A. F Medic]

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[bearhunter]

AFMedic, thanks for posting the pic. The mags on those M1 Carbines, look longer than the normal 15 round mags. I have seen commercial mag variants in 5, 10 (uncommon), 15 and 30 rounds. There was a rumor floating around that there was a 20 round mag that was issued as well. Do you know if there was any truth in the rumor?

[us019255]

Under magnification the mag. looks like a 30 rounder, but I could be wrong. Would need to look at a higher res. version to be sure.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Bearhunter,

When Winchester was working on the first prototype in the trials competition they had a five and a twenty round magazine. During the trials they were contemplating making the carbines fully automatic. It was decided that the carbine would be semi auto and they settled on the 15 round magazine, and I don't think a twenty round magazine ever went into production.

Late in WWII they went ahead with the production of the full auto selective fire carbine (M2) and started producing 30 round magazines because of the increased rate of fire.
Inland and Winchester produced M2 carbines along side standard M1 carbines late in production. Later M2 kits were made and many M1 carbines from all manufacturers were made into selective fire M2 carbines.

A great deal of the carbines used in the Korean War were M2 carbines so they used the longer 30 round magazine.
I suspect the photo was from the Korean War period.

[A. F Medic]

Yes, the image is from the Korean War....