Can we discuss the reliability of M-1 Carbines?????

[Bubba-7]

Do you have any parts, or know of a carbine that works, so you can swap parts to try to find what is wrong?

[imarangemaster]

I have been shooting and carrying M1 carbines as LEO duty weapons since the early 1980s. I could count the malfunctions in my personally owned and maintained carbines from tens of thousands of rounds on one hand. I SCRUPULOUSLY maintain my weapons, since for 25 years my life depended on them.

1) Make sure recoil spring is close to 10 1/4" long: degraded, short, weak springs can cause malfunctions
2) I have never had a malfunction with a US GI 15 round, and only several through the years with USGI 30s. There are no aftermarket 30s I trust, AT ALL!
3) make sure mag spring is in the right way: /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ long side to the rear
4) Make sure it is lubed properly
5) avoid some commercial reloads. BAC makes good ones, as does Georgia Arms. Avoid Aguilla ammo. underpowered, 150 to 200 fps slower than USGI. I use magtech or RP ammo exclusively.
6) a very sloppy trigger housing can cause malfunctions because it holds the magazines aligned with the receiver. I had a firends carbine that did this, DO NOT try to pinch the bottom lugs of the rear of the receiver tighter. They will snap off You can modify the lug on the trigger housing to be tighter.

[painter777]

The Magcatch, Catch spring and Plunger spring assembly are often overlooked.
Be sure they are clean, gunk free, and have a tight fit for your mags.

FWIW,
CH-P777

[imarangemaster]

Just to clarify, when I say that I can count the malfunctions on personally owned carbines on one hand, that is AFTER getting it and going through it to make it optimally reliable. Usually it just took a detail strip and cleaning, a recoil spring, or bolt rework and cleaning if gunky.

Sometimes it is one of the above causing, it can also be a cumulative effect of several issues adding up to failures. Another potential problem not mentioned above is a slide with a severely worn lug that engages the the slot in the side of the receiver. I have also found that late parts (i.e. round bolts and type V or VI slides) are more reliable.

You can tighten the trigger guard by peening the the bottom corners of the lug on the rear of the trigger guard. Doing the bottom corners snugs it against the bottom of the receiver where it should be. Also use a M2 mag catch if using 30 rounders. Between the mag being loose without a M2 catch, and the trigger guard being loose, it multiplies the effect when both are loose.

[rokwell]

APBOS: I have not run into malfunctioning carbines, the reason I break down & clean the guns is because as a kid, I went through one of those NRA shooting programs, the instructor was always drilling into our heads "clean the gun, clean the gun", "don't shoot a gun unless you have inspected it and know it's clean, parts are in good repair". So good or bad, I can't bring myself to shoot the guns I buy without going thru this ritual first.

I think Bubba 7 is right, when we buy these carbines we can be getting someones else's 'reject'. So many of these milsurp weapons I have bought look like they have not been cleaned in 30/40 years, it's scary to think to try and shoot 'em this way, but you just know ppl are, esp. when you buy a dirty carbine that has fresh 'soot' inside the op slide.

The carbine has to have a strong enough op slide spring to chamber a round and also to pull the bolt down over the bullet so the extractor can snap over it and grab it. In order to accomplish this action the op slide and bolt should be free to move easily too. When you fire the round, the bolt has to re-cock the hammer, and pull out the round, again, as freely as possible is best, no binding against the top of the hammer (i.e. worn hammer, mis-aligned t-housing). And the extractor and ejector have to have strong enough springs, and also move freely enough, to snap over and then kick out the round.

As previously mentioned here the op slide....worn ones can have play that should not be there, so much so that I've had some you could almost de-rail when pulling them back.
You can tell a big difference when you pull back the op slide of a properly spec'd carbine, it's tight yet smooth. There are many out there that are not.....just throwing out some more ideas for all you!!!

[ABPOS]

I think this might help me. Thank you guys for the input. I have always felt that my mags were always so loose when seated. I KNOW my trigger group has a real sloppy fit. And I think I have an M2 mag catch, but even that always seemed real sloppy. I'm not 100% sure I bought a new spring for that. Something tells me I did though. But maybe I could try it again. I did have the mag catch and safety completely out and cleaned with degreaser and lubed with rem oil I think. I watch those AGI videos. And do what he says. Although at the time I didn't use simple green like he uses to clean. I used some harsh thing. I think it was called gun scrubber. In a can. Anwyays, it was cleeeeeeean Rokwell. Like I said, the only thing I didn't take apart was the gas piston. I got the tool but never got it to budge and I didn't want to break anything.

I will check the springs on the mags to make sure they are in the right way. I don't recall if I knew this or not. I think I did, but we'll see. Those are great tips Imarangemaster!!!! I think this thing with the trigger group being sloppy could be part of my problem. I'm not sure I'm bold enough to to your fix, but I just might.

I have another complaint. I got one of those bolt tools and the dang thing broke after that second time I rebuilt the bolt. What the heck? Anyone else have that happen. It's things like that, it just seemed like my M-1 carbine experience has not been all that great.

And btw, my bolt is a flat bolt. Not round.

[Capt Mil Coll]

I have 4 M1 Carbines. One, my IBM, can shoot the nuts off a fly at 25 yards. And does pretty darn good at 50 yards. I use 30 round mags all the time in my carbines. The targets show me shooting 30 round mags as fast as I can reaquire the target. Lighting off 30 rounds in well under one minute. As you can see I do pretty well with them.

I did have one that when I got it would FTF or FTE constantly. But as ROKWELL said you tear them down, replace worn parts, replace the op rod spring, (which I think you should do with any that are not functioning properly), clean, reassemble then GREESE and oil them properly. I think a lot of problems with the Carbines is people do not Greese them.

[ABPOS]

I have 4 M1 Carbines. One, my IBM, can shoot the nuts off a fly at 25 yards. And does pretty darn good at 50 yards. I use 30 round mags all the time in my carbines. The targets show me shooting 30 round mags as fast as I can reaquire the target. Lighting off 30 rounds in well under one minute. As you can see I do pretty well with them.

I did have one that when I got it would FTF or FTE constantly. But as ROKWELL said you tear them down, replace worn parts, replace the op rod spring, (which I think you should do with any that are not functioning properly), clean, reassemble then GREESE and oil them properly. I think a lot of problems with the Carbines is people do not Greese them.

I use grease and mine are spotless. I don't know how many different ways I can say it. I don't think "clean" is the problem. But thank you for your input. I'm not trying to sound rude. But I feel like I've been over this already and I'm pretty sure I cleaned it properly. As I do all my other weapons that have not given me nearly the amount of grief that my little carbine has. Garands, AR's, M1A's, and many autoloading pistols.

[INLAND44]

Sounds like you have had bad luck with the carbine. But there is no systemic problem known that makes the carbine generally unreliable. The only negative about the carbine in military service related to its lack of penetration as compared to the M1 Rifle. This wouldn't have been a problem if they had not overused the carbine as a main battle rifle. So, to compensate, they made it a select-fire, thinking more rounds on target would increase stopping power. That would have worked, but in the excitement of battle, it is suspected that troops fired over the enemy because of inexperience and recoil in automatic fire, at the same time shooting up all their ammo before the enemy closed with them. The answer was the M14 Rifle, select-fire with a slightly shorter round with most of the power of the .30-'06. Unfortunately for this truly great system, the AR-type rifle ended up taking it's place.
I've never had any trouble with my Inland, but I only shoot it every ten years or so.
I would guess if any of us here could get our paws on your carbine, we could figure it out right quick. There's no telling what you actually have, what's in it or who put it together. Generally, carbines straight from government stocks or prime foreign users like Israel or Austria can be counted on to work or at least have minimal problems. Anything else is luck of the draw.

---------- Post added at 02:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 PM ----------

After going over your post again, I would soak the piston/nut area with penetrant and use a G.I. wrench to remove the nut and piston to get to the gas port. Ream the gas port, clean out the gas chamber and other parts, put back together and see if your problem was under-gassing. Messing with this area has ruined many barrels (cross-threading, cracking the gas block, drilling into the top of the bore, etc.) but is necessary if all other tests check out, like loading/extracting manually.

[Capt Mil Coll]

Im not saying you do. But when I was a rangemaster I would see FNGs with their M1 Carbines they got from Granpa, or Uncle George that passed, or the local gunshow. They had the habit of trying to close the bolt by hand. They did this even after I told them they had to pull the op-rod back and let it go to advance a round into battery. Instead they seemed to think that they had to hold the op-rod and push it home by hand. Something to think about.