A couple M-1 Carbine items

I've written in the past of my fondness for the M-1 Carbine. Aside from being very fun to shoot due to the low recoil and mild report, I view it as an excellent defensive rifle for civvies or patrol carbine for policemen. I owned an Iver Johnson Carbine back in the 1980s (wish I still had it) and currently have a GI M-1 made by Underwood-Elliot-Fisher in 1943, and imported back into the country from South Korea in the late 80s.

The M-1 is a simple rifle to field strip but I want to ensure that I can keep it running in case something breaks. So, last night, I ordered a copy of The U.S. .30 Caliber Gas Operated Carbines: A Shop Manual Book by Jerry Kuhnhausen from MidwayUSA. (I generally get my books from Amazon or the local Barnes & Noble, but neither had it.) Having seen Kunhausen's shop manuals for the Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers, I'm sure this will be excellent.

While shopping, I added a couple of boxes of Remington .30 Carbine 110 grain JSPs to my shopping cart. When my dad owned the Underwood he ran a box or two through it with good results. If I can repeat this I'll stock up on a few hundred rounds. Based on ballistic gelatin testing and hunters' reports, the Remington load works very well, greatly improving the .30 Carbine's terminal ballistics. The only JSP I've personally run through the Underwood was a box of Magtech, which seemed underpowered, and caused one failure to feed and one stovepipe.

Assuming my M-1 feeds good JSP loads well, I may handload for it. I've been saving brass. I should be able to duplicate Remington's factory load with their bullets and either IMR-4227 or Alliant 2400. When I had the Iver John Carbine I did a limited amount of handloading, including some loads with 2400 under a Speer 100 grain short jacket "Plinker" bullet. They functioned OK but accuracy was inferior to 110 grain bullets. I think I'm going to have to really get back into handloading as increased fuel and metal costs drive ammo prices ever higher.