Update on New Aquisitions

After a thorough detail-strip and cleaning, I took the new M1 Carbine out to the range this weekend. My main goal was to try to get it in some semblance of on-the-paper, and to see how consistently it groups.

My first adventure was to find ammo for it. I have purchased .30 Carbine at WalMart in the past, but this time there was none to be found there (the WalMart gun counters around here are no longer selling guns so all they have is ammo and accessories, but the ammo is either 12 or 20 ga. shotgun or 9mm, .38, .357, .40 S&W, or .45ACP.) I would have figured with all the CMP carbines that were sold in the last 2 months, they would have stocked a box or two, but they didn't.

I finally found a box at Dunhams at the Lansing Mall. While there I checked their C&R rifles - nothing much interesting: a couple of Mosin-Nagants, a couple of Enfields, and that was pretty much it. Oh well.

So off to the Capital City Rifle Club I went. I also took along my Muzzleloader, as I put in a new trigger spring and wanted to try it out.

Since I didn't know where the sights were going to be, I set them to zero windage and 100 yds (Type 3 sights for those of you who know M1 Carbines) and sat down at the 25 yard line. Ten rounds went into the magazine and promptly went downrange. My spotting scope revealed a nice ragged hole about an inch in diameter slightly high and right. WOW! I didn't really expect that kind of accuracy right off the bat, especially with no more support than my elbows on the table! A couple of clicks brought the group back to center, and then I moved down to the 50 yard line. I didn't shoot quite that well at 50 yds, but I think the caffeine from the large soda I drank on the way to the range was starting to kick in at that point. My groups were about 5 inches here.

A couple of observations. I really like this carbine. It's light, easy to handle, has minimal recoil, and is just plain fun to shoot. I can see why guys in WW2 liked it. Shortly after I set up at 5o, a nice gentleman set up on the bench next to me to shoot his Garand. He had never handled an M1 Carbine, so I let him have a fondle and he made pretty much the same comment: "I would rather carry this than the Garand!" He also observed that it was easier to load the magazines on the Carbine than the en bloc clips on the Garand - another point in it's favor.

I also need to get better magazines. The one that came with the gun is crap, and seemed likely to come apart the more I shot it. The follower would get stuck at an up-angle, so the bolt couldn't grab the rim of the next cartridge and feed it. I made do, but it was frustrating.

Now I have to do the same process for the Enfield. It also seems that I will be buying some reloading dies for these two, as ammo is hard to come by for them at a decent price.

The muzzleloader once again proved itself to be very accurate, hitting the 50 yard bullseye with ease. It's a Thompson/Center Encore 209x50, and I was shooting 295-grain Powerbelts over 105 grains of Triple-7. The trigger is now a very light 2.3 pounds (according to my Lyman trigger gauge), and it was definately lighter than what the original spring was giving me. Trigger finger discipline will be even more important this fall in the deer woods. My thanks to Bellm TC's for the spring and the spring tool to get it in, as well as the detailed instructions on how to detail strip it. Perhaps this year I will notch my first buck, after 6 does.