.30 Carbine HD ammo?

[GaryO]

Mostly for around my home. What say you on the "best" ammo I can find? Thanks...

[T2C]

I am a fan of the M1 Carbine and I currently own two of them. I have magazines loaded with PPU SP for my Jeep carbine. The biggest issue with the M1 Carbine is that a lot of them are limited by what SP ammunition they will feed.

You asked a tough question. Hopefully someone who has seen an attacker shot with a M1 Carbine loaded with SP ammunition will respond.

[VT1032]

This thread has a lot of good info on .30 Carbine ammo.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....39-M1-Carbines

[fmiq]

PPU, Hornady, CorBon and Federal all soft points

[Pilot1]

I recently acquired a USGI Inland M1 Carbine. I am working on getting it reliable, as it occasionally will fail to feed, but I think the bolt needs a good cleaning as does the chamber. I am using Korean mags, and they have a good rep, but I may get some USGI mags just to see how they work. I should probably replace some springs also, as the rifle has sat in someone's safe for over twenty years, and I don't know the last time it was shot, nor serviced. Anyway, it does shoot well, and I can get through several mags before a failure. As soon as I can get comfortable with it, I may use it for an HD carbine, and will try some soft points. I have been using PPU ammo so far, and have reloaded for it, but think my crimp must be wrong, as my reloads won't ignite.

[T2C]

Pilot1,

Once you have performed your initial cleaning, try to avoid removing the action from the stock frequently. You should not have to remove the action from the stock for cleaning any more frequently than every 500 rounds or so. You can clean the weapon with the action in the stock. A chamber cleaning brush with 90 degree cleaning rod is a good tool to have on hand. An Otis cleaning kit or other pull through cleaning kit is the way to go in my opinion.

A thorough cleaning and a new operating spring will do wonders for a M1 Carbine and on occasion a new hammer spring is necessary. I have learned that oil is a more suitable lubricant than grease for reliability. Keeping the chamber clean is more critical for reliability than with other service rifles. The Korean magazines work really well in most carbines and I would look at cleaning and springs before spending any money on magazines.

If you are getting light primer hits with reloads, check the brass length, because the case headspaces off the case mouth. A dirty chamber and brass length have been the two most prominent factors with light primer hits in my opinion.

I've high jacked this thread enough. If accuracy drops off or the POI shifts significantly at 100 yards after 1,000 rounds, PM me or start a new thread and we can cover recoil plate adjustment. Inside the home or 25 meters it makes no difference one way or the other if you are going to use the carbine for home defense.

T2C

[m4brian]

Sticky???

[Dionysusigma]

Sticky???

... I don't think this question is asked often enough for that.

[Moose-Knuckle]

My dad always liked CorBon for his.

[Ed L.]

In my experience with several milsurp M1 Carbines, they tend to be unreliable with anything other than FMJ. Because of the feed path, softpoints and hollowpoints tend to get hung up. And it can vary from individual magazine to individual magazine.

You really have to testfire a significant number of the rounds with the exact magazines that you intend to use. It gets frustrating since the ammo you may find an ammo that shoots reliably for 50-75 rounds, only to have it fail to feed between 75 and 100. Then you try another brand of softpoint or hollowpoint, only to have it happen again.

Below are three rounds of ammo for comparison. The first found is an FMJ round. The Middle round is a Privi Partisan SP that failed to feed. Notice a wedge shaped gouge on its nose. This was from when the round caught on the feedramp when it failed to feed. Also notice that the soft lead tip has flattened out somewhat compared to next round over which is a fresh from the box softpoint.



I also noticed that when I manually ejected chamber softpoint the tip often exhibited some misshape or flattening. I didn't have any better luck with hollowpoints in terms of feeding reliability.

It got to the point where I gave up on trying to find a softpoint or hollowpoint that ran reliably. I had the luxury of doing this because the M1 was not close to being my main home defense gun. If I had to use either of my M1 carbines for home defense I would do so with FMJ for reliability reasons.