Well gents, my fabled good luck in finding exactly the gun for which I’m currently on a quest has kicked in again. This time it was an M1 Carbine, but not just any M1 Carbine. What I wanted was one still in World War II battle dress meaning it had no bayonet lug, had the L-shaped flip-up peep sight, so called flat bolt, etc. Furthermore, I didn’t want just any such M1 Carbine. After all they were produced in no less than 10 plants. I wanted one made by Winchester, the firm that developed the M1 .30 Carbine in the first place.

Knowledgeable gun guys all said, “Good luck!” I did find one listed on an Internet auction site. Its starting price was $2,000, precisely 100 times what I paid for my first M1 Carbine. Or rather I should say what my father paid for it, because you see, I was only 15-years old at the time. That was back in 1965 when the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM) was selling off government surplus M1 Carbines to NRA members.

My Dad had no interest in guns and only joined the NRA to satisfy my craving for an M1 Carbine. I have no recollection how someone as young as I living in the coal mining fields of southern West Virginia even heard surplus M1 Carbines were available to NRA members. But I did and in my mind I just knew life forever after would be wonderful if only I had one of those DCM M1 Carbines.

In good time it did arrive, and was an Underwood marked one. Underwood being the well-known typewriter manufacturer turned arms producer during WWII what with typewriters being classed as “non-essential” and military firearms being high priority. To the best of my knowledge, most of the M1 Carbines sold as surplus in the 1960s had come from various arsenals where they had been “rebuilt.” The post war rebuilding consisted of adding bayonet lugs, fully adjustable rear sights, and so forth. I was ecstatic to get my M1 Carbine but got a dose of economic reality the first time I bought some factory ammo for it. For that reason my .30 Carbine shooting wasn’t prolific, but it is probably a safe bet owning that little gun without being able to afford to shoot it much directed me down the path to becoming an avid handloader.

The history of the M1 .30 Carbine is beyond interesting, it is fascinating and some parts of it are awesome. Some logical minds in the US military’s hierarchy realized the average soldier couldn’t hit squat with the Model 1911 .45 ACP pistol, and the determination was made to replace it with a mild-powered, lightweight, carbine. That was early 1941 just before the United States’ entry into WWII.