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All,
Since there are many serious Carbine fans on this site, I thought I'd share my background. I'm one of the many who worked for Old Sacramento Armory, but chiefly I worked for Pacific International/ARMEX/Inter-American Import Co; who were importers of large number of M1 Carbines in the '80's.
I was the M1 Carbine guy in '84-'85 so I can only speak to what went on during the year I was there, but I'm still good friend with some of the key players who worked for "Fast Eddie". We had two large batches, one from China which was just over 7,000 Carbines, and one from Israel which was 4,000 carbines. The Israeli carbines were the nicest I've ever seen, which included at least 3 brand new guns with no evidence of haven ever been fired, an one still in the wax wrap. The vast majority of the Israeli Carbines were mid-late WWII first arsenal upgrade with the milled rear sight. Many still had the push button safety and most had the first style recoil plate. Most had flat bolts, and 1st or 2nd style slides.
The Chinese carbines were well used, but serviceable; many of those were re-parkerized before we sold them. These all appeared to be very late guns with a hodge podge of first and second arsenal upgrades, a good half of them had stamped rear sights and round bolts. We did come across one with a serial number in the 6.9 million range. The boss walked away with that one, and I don't have a clue whatever became of it. Kinda funny, but many of the Chinese carbines retained the flat bottom stocks; I always thought that was kinda weird given the mix of other parts. "I" cut stocks were not common to either batch.
My job was to de-greas them, tear them down, bead blast them and give them over for re-finishing. Then I was the guy who put them all back together and made sure they worked. I have to say, the M1 Carbine is an impressive rifle, there wasn't a one we weren't able to make work. About a handful had to have their gas ports opened up a smidge, and every now and then we'd run across a part that was toast that we didn't notice at first. Parts interchangeability was absolute…you could assemble them with a blind fold and a bin of parts and come out with a rifle that worked perfectly. In my experience, the ones that shot really poorly typically could be greatly improved upon by switching to the later style recoil plate. (always remember to check for loose sights - get ya every time)
Needless to say, I'm pretty handy at fixing Carbines to this day. There were very few "collector" carbines in the sense of all original, but we did find a handful. The Chinese carbines had to be very closely inspected as it was not uncommon to find home-made, hand-made parts. There was one particular M2 Carbine we all got a huge kick out of. It had a hand built replacement bolt. But when they made it, they put the ejector and extractor in the wrong place. None of us had the nerve to shoot it, but we were all convinced it would have ejected brass at a rate of 775rpm straight into your forehead; could this have been the first weapon fired gangsta style?
Every last carbine I worked on which was about 11,000 was pneumatically stamped on the under-side of the barrel between the front sight band and bayo-lug "IA-CO. SAC. CA." That's my recollection.
The Carbine I bought from Pacific International is still in my possession. It's an Israeli import that somehow never got an import stamp (not sure how that happened) in excellent condition. It's an Inland with a matching Inland trigger housing, and the most beautiful burly birch stock and handguard you've ever seen, with the serial number stamped in the stock. In the past 25 years much of the green color on the Parkerizing has faded to black, but my flat bolt is still rather green. Being able to sort through 4,000 carbines and pick out the best looking was the one perk of the job.
If you're interested, here's a link to my little piece on the M1 Carbine, that's my Inland in the photos…my apologies, I didn't photograph the nice looking side: Putting the M1 Carbine in the Right Context | Shooters' Journal
Since there are many serious Carbine fans on this site, I thought I'd share my background. I'm one of the many who worked for Old Sacramento Armory, but chiefly I worked for Pacific International/ARMEX/Inter-American Import Co; who were importers of large number of M1 Carbines in the '80's.
I was the M1 Carbine guy in '84-'85 so I can only speak to what went on during the year I was there, but I'm still good friend with some of the key players who worked for "Fast Eddie". We had two large batches, one from China which was just over 7,000 Carbines, and one from Israel which was 4,000 carbines. The Israeli carbines were the nicest I've ever seen, which included at least 3 brand new guns with no evidence of haven ever been fired, an one still in the wax wrap. The vast majority of the Israeli Carbines were mid-late WWII first arsenal upgrade with the milled rear sight. Many still had the push button safety and most had the first style recoil plate. Most had flat bolts, and 1st or 2nd style slides.
The Chinese carbines were well used, but serviceable; many of those were re-parkerized before we sold them. These all appeared to be very late guns with a hodge podge of first and second arsenal upgrades, a good half of them had stamped rear sights and round bolts. We did come across one with a serial number in the 6.9 million range. The boss walked away with that one, and I don't have a clue whatever became of it. Kinda funny, but many of the Chinese carbines retained the flat bottom stocks; I always thought that was kinda weird given the mix of other parts. "I" cut stocks were not common to either batch.
My job was to de-greas them, tear them down, bead blast them and give them over for re-finishing. Then I was the guy who put them all back together and made sure they worked. I have to say, the M1 Carbine is an impressive rifle, there wasn't a one we weren't able to make work. About a handful had to have their gas ports opened up a smidge, and every now and then we'd run across a part that was toast that we didn't notice at first. Parts interchangeability was absolute…you could assemble them with a blind fold and a bin of parts and come out with a rifle that worked perfectly. In my experience, the ones that shot really poorly typically could be greatly improved upon by switching to the later style recoil plate. (always remember to check for loose sights - get ya every time)
Needless to say, I'm pretty handy at fixing Carbines to this day. There were very few "collector" carbines in the sense of all original, but we did find a handful. The Chinese carbines had to be very closely inspected as it was not uncommon to find home-made, hand-made parts. There was one particular M2 Carbine we all got a huge kick out of. It had a hand built replacement bolt. But when they made it, they put the ejector and extractor in the wrong place. None of us had the nerve to shoot it, but we were all convinced it would have ejected brass at a rate of 775rpm straight into your forehead; could this have been the first weapon fired gangsta style?
Every last carbine I worked on which was about 11,000 was pneumatically stamped on the under-side of the barrel between the front sight band and bayo-lug "IA-CO. SAC. CA." That's my recollection.
The Carbine I bought from Pacific International is still in my possession. It's an Israeli import that somehow never got an import stamp (not sure how that happened) in excellent condition. It's an Inland with a matching Inland trigger housing, and the most beautiful burly birch stock and handguard you've ever seen, with the serial number stamped in the stock. In the past 25 years much of the green color on the Parkerizing has faded to black, but my flat bolt is still rather green. Being able to sort through 4,000 carbines and pick out the best looking was the one perk of the job.
If you're interested, here's a link to my little piece on the M1 Carbine, that's my Inland in the photos…my apologies, I didn't photograph the nice looking side: Putting the M1 Carbine in the Right Context | Shooters' Journal
