M1 Carbine in an intermediate caliber

[browningautorifle]

I personally think that the M1 carbine was taken a step too far with the M2.

Yes...

[DaveHH]

I worked for the phone company for about 40 years one of the guys on my crew in Petaluma told me a nice story. Petaluma was a very famous notorious town in the 60s. "Egg Basket of the world" 10K people 28 bars just inside the city limits. It was where American Graffiti was filmed and the movie was nowhere near how wild it really was. 60 miles N/O SF it was the bedroom for airforce personnel from Hamilton Field in Novato CA. My worker told me that to install a guy's phone he had to go under the house. The owner refused. After a lot of arguing the guy relented and allowed him to enter the crawl space. Underneath was nothing but cases of carbine ammunition, thousands and thousands of rounds, dozens of crates. If I had been there, I would have blackmailed the guy into a few cases for myself. 20 years later I ran into a woman who moved into what had to be the same house and in the attic was a case of new carbines. Her father grabbed them and that was that.

[eb in oregon]

Melvin's invention was ill timed, you could get surplus carbine ammunition for about 3-5 cents a round at the time, so what's the point?
It is a fragile design compared to say M16 or AK and I doubt that it could have held up well to prolonged use of a 50,000+ CUP cartridge. They were breaking with cases that were a bit too long. In actual field use the M14 and M16 were miles ahead in reliability and especially accuracy. The carbine did what it was supposed to do and did it well. The fact that after 6.5M were made there is still a huge demand for them and they are still shooting says a lot about their history.

Phooey.

[browningautorifle]

a case of new carbines. Her father grabbed them and that was that.

I would have too...

[M94/14]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if having encountered and studied examples of the MP44, was there any attempt to produce an intermediate caliber M1 Carbine prototype?

It strikes me that the carbine is most of the way to being an 'assault rifle' anyway, some beefing up of the receiver and altering dimensions perhaps and introduce a .30 intermediate cartridge based on the German 7.96 Kurz design.

It seems to me like an obvious direction to explore, so did they?

I don't know if there were any factory prototypes designed for alternate cartridges, but certainly the commercial community was active during the 1960's with a great many conversions done to the standard action in many commercial and some wildcat cartridges.

Within the limitations of the M1 Carbines action length, there’s not much that can be done to improve performance with alternate cartridges, unless you’re looking at a flatter shooting round ie. The 5.7 Johnson, 22/30 Carbine, or perhaps the best of the bunch, the .22 Gustafson (basically a shortened .221 Fireball round).

You could go the other way, which would entail chambering for one of the big bore variants. Many were tried by various gunsmiths in the 60’s up to and including .45 colt. Probably the most successful of the bunch commercially, (and it wasn’t really all that successful as only about 1500 were made) was the Universal Vulcan 440. This was a spring assisted Pump Action .44 Magnum M1 Carbine derivative manufactured by Universal Firearms in Hialeah Florida from about 1964-67. You can still find these for sale on the usual auction sites, but good luck finding parts!

I imagine you’re thinking that pretty much everything has been tried on the Carbine action. I thought so too, until I came across a posting on “Shooters forum” about a fellow who calls himself “Grumpy OlGuy” who did something rather novel.

Here it is in his own words:

OCD caused me to try this: 110gr Spitzer BC=.273. With ~1970fps/960 ft-lbf at the muzzle, gives 9mm parabellum muzzle velocity and energy at ~350+yds (~1200 fps, ~350 ft-lbf; about 100+ yards greater range performance than the standard carbine ballistics). Drops to subsonic at about 400 yds. That's a heck of a pistol round. (I don't think there's a way to post a photo)

Uses 223 parent case, shortened 300 BO dies (to form case), and a 300 BO chamber reamer with a standard barrel. Case is shortened to 1.185in. OAL cartridge is 1.685, so can load into a standard magazine (but only 10 or 11 rounds). Case volume is about the same as the standard, although the bullet seats a little deeper (the bullet is about .125 longer than the standard FMJ). Test results so far (around 50 rnds) -- cycles ok with 12.0 to 13.0 gr WC820; ~2-2.5 MoA. Chronoed at ~1920fps. Haven't tried any higher loadings. My normal carbine load is ~13.2-13.4gr WC820 with a 110gr FMJ. Used a barrel from Sarco. Next up is to try some lil' gun. I'd love to get this up over 1000 ft-lbf and see if the accuracy was ok.

The point was to see if one could extend the effective range of the carbine and stay within the overall cartridge length. And to show what might have been possible in 1940. (Not that the Carbine didn't fulfill its intended objective extremely well. Just could have been a little more with a different bullet). For those of us who really appreciate the way this thing handles. I think 9mm ballistic/power presents a reasonable motivation to keep one's head down.

[floydthecat]

1970fps/960 ft-lbf at the muzzle, gives 9mm parabellum muzzle velocity and energy at ~350+yds (~1200 fps, ~350 ft-lbf; about 100+ yards greater range performance than the standard carbine ballistics). Drops to subsonic at about 400 yds. That's a heck of a pistol round. (I don't think there's a way to post a photo)

Uses 223 parent case, shortened 300 BO dies (to form case), and a 300 BO chamber reamer with a standard barrel. Case is shortened to 1.185in. OAL cartridge is 1.685, so can load into a standard magazine (but only 10 or 11 rounds). Case volume is about the same as the standard, although the bullet seats a little deeper (the bullet is about .125 longer than the standard FMJ). Test results so far (around 50 rnds) -- cycles ok with 12.0 to 13.0 gr WC820; ~2-2.5 MoA. Chronoed at ~1920fps. Haven't tried any higher loadings. My normal carbine load is ~13.2-13.4gr WC820 with a 110gr FMJ. Used a barrel from Sarco. Next up is to try some lil' gun. I'd love to get this up over 1000 ft-lbf and see if the accuracy was ok.

The point was to see if one could extend the effective range of the carbine and stay within the overall cartridge length. And to show what might have been possible in 1940. (Not that the Carbine didn't fulfill its intended objective extremely well. Just could have been a little more with a different bullet). For those of us who really appreciate the way this thing handles. I think 9mm ballistic/power presents a reasonable motivation to keep one's head down.

What am I missing here? The spec. 7.62 x 33 ball carbine round makes these numbers already at the muzzle. With the right magazine, Spitzer style projectiles can be cycled and fired thru a carbine action. Why reinvent the wheel?

[floydthecat]

I completely understand the Spitzer profile flies much better at longer ranges, but who desires to routinely take shots out to 350 yards with a carbine and desires to build a cartridge to do that? But it’s fun and entertaining to undertake such projects. I am guilty of like activity myself.

[DaveHH]

In War Baby II pg 566 there is a section about the SCHV rifle development. It is a carbine with a .22 cal HV cartridge. The Gustavsen rifle mentioned by Jakester below. Working with a max pressure of 42,000 CUP (The estimated highest pressure that the carbine could sustain) the .22 out performed the 30 cal by a wide margin. The rifle was not tested with burst fire accuracy tests. They were just able to crack the 3,000 FPS barrier. Other powders would top out at 29,000 etc.

After this part of WBII, they cover the Winchester light rifle.

[M94/14]

I completely understand the Spitzer profile flies much better at longer ranges, but who desires to routinely take shots out to 350 yards with a carbine and desires to build a cartridge to do that? But it’s fun and entertaining to undertake such projects. I am guilty of like activity myself.

The fact that it increases the usable range of the Carbine is a side benefit. The spitzer bullet carries more velocity and energy at ALL distances, and that is never a bad thing.

Trying to seat a spitzer bullet in a .30 carbine case and keep to the 1.680" OAL so it will fit into the magazine and not have a gap where the ogive meets the case mouth is not easy. When I experimented with this many years ago, the only projectile that I've found a limited amount of success with in that regard was the Sierra 110gr Hollow Point #2310. Even so, the bullet has to be seated around 3/16" deeper than the regular 110gr FMJ which reduces case capacity drastically.

[floydthecat]

Might be interesting for someone to load-up some and hand-feed single-shot style with a full carbine powder charge and chrono at 350-yards. I can’t see that far and don’t want to walk back-n-forth that far either.