1st Carbine acquisition

[esu]

Gents,
picked up my first M1 carbine the other day from an old woman in the neighborhood. She found out I was a gun guy and wanted to know if I was interested in purchasing a "machine gun" from her. I obviously said yes and went to her house to check it out. It turned out to be an M1 carbine, Inland Reciever, with a 5-44 Inland dated barrel. It has the bayo lug and larger rear sight. The stock appears to be a Rock-ola that was re-worked at Augusta, AAM proof with 2 "P" proofs on the hand grip area, the handguard is a 4 rivet IO marked one, the crossed cannons are lightly struck and the rock-ola proof in the sling cut is Q-RMC. She said her husband brought it home from WW2 but since there were several firearms in the house I think we all know that wasnt a correct story. The bore is decent however the stock had a ton of "shellac" slathered all over it and even on a decent portion of the metal. I spent an hour or so with some denatured alcohol, acetone and a bunch of wrags and got about 95% of the shellac off and exposed a decent looking piece of wood. My buddy has a Rock_ola M1 with an Underwood (I think) stock so Im going to swap wood with him and then sell the Underwood and see if I can dig up a more appropriate Inland stock. Hmm I may even go totally radical and grab one of those repro paratrooper folders. The woman also had an unmarked 30rd mag and a 15 rd IA marked mag to go with the gun. I'll post some pics later when I get home. Trying to find someone with a go-no-go guage in 30cal before I shoot it. Any suggestions on what to do with the wood once I get it all cleaned up? linseed oil? Tung oil? Leave it as is? Oh, and it cost me $500, thought that was a fair price.
Thx Cory

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