Well, I went ahead and bought myself a UK spec, Straight pull M1A1 carbine.
I apologise for the phone pics, work means little time for photography at the moment.
The s/n places this example inside the block of Carbines randomly selected for M1A1 stocks.
The barrel is Inland *44 marked (can't make out the month).
The stock is in all round good order with, no cracks or splits, crossed cannons and OI (Overton Inland) on the base of the grip and OI stamped inside.
It has M R stamped on the left (Mount Rainier Ordinance Depot), post war rebuild and upgrade with the accompanying lone 'P' added on the front of the pistol grip.
It also has '13' on the pistol grip, user wrack number I would guess.
The leather on the wire butt is fragile and frayed,I've treated it with leather oil and carefully wrapped it to conserve it and placed an ammo pouch over the top.
Interestingly, it's s/n is stamped in the barrel channel, I only found this when I started cleaning the woodwork in preparation for re-oiling.
It was hidden under 70 odd years of filth!
The rifle was 'really' dirty, took ages to clean after detail stripping, clearly it has all been together for a very long time.
Bores a little frosty in places, the odd Pit, but looks ok.
Question for the Carbine experts, did Mount Rainier typically put the S/N in the barrel channel after refurbishment?
Cheers John.
Last edited by mrclark303; 11-25-2019 at 03:18 AM.
.303, helping Englishmen express their feelings since 1889
No, none of the armories or the US military did this. It was done overseas with Israel coming to mind for serial numbers being stamped on a stock. But the carbines returned here from Israel have been clean compared to a lot of them from other countries. If I remember right quite a few M1A1 carbines went to the British military for use in Malaysia.
If you can read the number after the asterisk of the butt plate what is it, please? A pic of the butt plate inside stamping would be appreciated, not just a zoom of the numbers though.
I'm assuming the number after the wagon wheel is a month stamp?
I still can't believe the amount of crap that came off this M1 when I cleaned it, red dirt and dry oil inside the stock, carbon, sooty powder residue, dirt, mould, you name it!
Whoever the last state user was, they certainly didn't look after it!
.303, helping Englishmen express their feelings since 1889
I believe the number after the wagon wheel indicates a molding. I seem to remember that several butt plates could be molded at one time and that the molds were numbered. HTH
spec, Straight pull M1A1
PM
