Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the James Julia
Auction House taking a look at some of the machine guns
that they are going to be selling in their upcoming
spring of 2017 Firearms Auction.
Now this is not just an M1 carbine,
this is actually a fully transferable M2 carbine.
So the M1 carbine was originally requested in 1938 and adopted in 1941.
And it was a gun to replace the 1911 pistol for support troops.
And not just support troops, but front line combat troops whose duties precluded them from carrying a full-sized M1 Garand.
For example, bazooka operators, mortar operators, artillery guys, these sorts of troops.
It had been found that the 1911 was responsible for an incredibly tiny number of enemy casualties in combat,
because as a handgun it's really kind of a difficult gun to shoot well and shoot effectively.
And it was decided, wisely, that a small light handy carbine would be a much more effective weapon
for those sorts of soldiers than a pistol.
Even as early as the very first trials, being selective fire was one of the requirements for this carbine.
However, that requirement was dropped between the first trial and the second trial.
And the ultimate adopted version of the gun was only semi-automatic.
But pretty much from the very moment that it went into combat, guys were asking for full-auto versions.
There were a lot of troops who really appreciated the lightness and the handiness of these carbines,
especially in the Pacific, and wanted a way to increase their capability for firepower.
And the Army relented and in 1944 they formally adopted the M2 carbine, which is virtually the identical gun.
In fact it pretty much is the identical gun, with the addition of some full-auto components
and an extended 30 round magazine in place of the original 15 round magazines.
These would see just a little bit of combat in World War Two,
I believe they were actually used on Okinawa. That's probably about the last
major combat situation where they were actually found in World War Two.
They did then see substantial service in Korea in particular, and also in Vietnam.
Now technically the M1 and M2 and M3 carbines were replaced by the M14 rifle in 1957,
but that didn't really mean that all the carbines just disappeared overnight.
They continued in service, especially they were used to outfit South Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam War,
and so some of the US advisers were also carrying them. They continued to see service through Vietnam.
The carbines here are in this kind of interesting legal situation, because the carbine
receiver itself is no different for an M1 in semi-auto and an M2 that's select fire.
Literally the receivers are identical. It's only ancillary parts around the receiver that make the difference.
This was extremely handy for the military in that they only actually made 217,000
original factory produced M2 carbines from the ground up.
All the rest of the guns were actually just converted from M1 carbines.
What the military produced was a literal conversion kit, and you dropped those parts into an M1 carbine
and, presto, you have an M2 carbine. And so what you'll see ... are guns like this one,
where the receiver is marked M1, and that's been over-stamped with a 2.
So the US government has a position on these where technically any receiver that is
marked M2, including over-stamps, is considered a machine gun.
But that's not always quite the case, because years ago the Civilian Marksmanship Program
did formally release M2 over-stamped carbines as semi-auto M1 carbines, and those are legal to own.
It's kind of a weird grey zone because of the fact that the receiver is not changed in any way, and it's only additional parts.
And those additional parts are unregulated to own, but if you own those parts plus an M1 carbine
then you're in ... what's called constructive possession of a machine gun.
Anyway, I don't want to get too bogged down in the minutia of the legal details
because this is a registered and transferable M2 full-auto carbine.
So we are going to take it out on the range and see how it performs.
There are some people who say these are a complete waste of time in full-auto
because they're too light and they are uncontrollable.
There are other people who say that they are in fact a fantastic little, effectively, submachine gun, sort of.
The .30 carbine cartridge is in this grey zone in between pistol and intermediate calibre cartridges.
So the only external indication of a full-auto carbine is this little switch sticking out.
In the forward position it is full-auto, and in the rearward position it is semi-auto.
You'll notice there is a little bit of a relief cut in the stock to make room for that lever.
This is a good example of an over-stamped number. So this was
originally US Carbine [Calibre] .30 M1. That M1 has been over stamped with a 2.
This was done by the military as well as just civilian manufacturers. This particular gun is a civilian conversion.
Then the one other change that was made on the M2 was to increase the strength of the magazine catch
to ... accommodate the heavier 30 round magazines. So originally you just had two tabs,
here and here, that would hold the magazine in place.
And they added this bracket on the far end of the magazine catch.
The original two magazine tabs are right here on the back,
and then for that third bracket they added this ... punched out section.
So the ... M2 carbine magazine, the 30 round magazine, has three points of support
as opposed to only two on an M1 carbine mag.
Now internally what has been added here is an auto sear, which is connected to this lever by way of this bar.
So the lever here sets the bar ... into one of two positions to determine
whether it will be used, in this position, or simply do nothing.
This is semi-auto where this bar is basically disconnected and does nothing.
In full-auto what this does is cycle up and down which pushes on the auto sear here.
And it is cycled by the carrier here.
So when this goes all the way forward, this is when the bolt is locked in place,
then this bar goes up, which impinges on this, which allows the hammer
to fall as long as the trigger is being held back.
The purpose of this is to ensure that the hammer doesn't fall until the bolt is in position and locked,
so that it will fire safely. Aside from the safety issue, this is also a way to
ensure that the hammer gets a clean strike on the firing pin, rather than
riding the bolt forward which would rob it of some of its energy,
and then might produce light strikes and unreliable fire.
Got a little spring here that puts some tension on the trip lever. You can see how that impacts where that's sitting.
So, that is the M1 to M2 conversion.
You can see that none of this stuff actually impacts the receiver itself.
This is attached to an existing pin in the fire control group.
There is some modification required to the ... op rod here.
But it's the op rod and bar and its related components.
So that is the M1 to M2 carbine conversion.
Addition of some parts, modification of a couple parts, although interestingly not the receiver.
Alright, time to get this out on the range.
So the M2 carbine really falls into this kind of grey zone between being a submachine gun and being an assault rifle.
And the reason is simply its cartridge. The .30 carbine is more powerful than say a 9x19 pistol,
but it's also substantially less powerful than a 5.56 or 7.62x39.
So it really kind of is a gun that defies easy labelling these days.
But in its original semi-auto form it was an excellent personal defence weapon.
Now, I'm curious how it will handle in full-auto. Will it be as controllable as a submachine gun?
Let's find out.
Well, I have a little bit of practice with machine guns, not nearly as much as some people,
but probably more than the average person.
And I'd say this kind of falls right in between in terms of controllability.
It's more controllable ... than a 7.62 calibre machine gun, the 7.62x39 AK I'd say.
I'd say it's pretty darn close to a 5.56.
What makes this harder to shoot accurately in full-auto at long range
it's not the cartridge but it's the weight of the gun. Because this thing is so light,
and because it has a dropped stock, it does tend to climb under recoil.
Now if you're a ... novice machine gun shooter, I think this would climb quite a lot.
If you're someone who's used to a bit of full-auto, who knows how to
effectively hold down the muzzle of a full-auto rifle, it's a lot of fun.
It's also very easy to fire in relatively short bursts.
3 rounds is easy, 2 rounds with a little bit of practice you can do as well.
And that's where this would have been the most useful. You're not going to hose something on full-auto with this.
It's short controlled bursts, which really is kind of true of all machine guns actually.
Alright, I know people are going to ask about these stories of guys in Korea using these and
dumping large numbers of rounds into Chinese or Korean soldiers and having no appreciable effect.
And I think there's ... a lot to unpack in those stories. There are issues of
controllability and whether they were actually making hits. There are issues of
ballistic effectiveness of .30 carbine. That is the subject for an entirely
separate video, there's a lot ... to that story, so we'll tackle that separately.
For now, it's a pretty slick little submachine gun.
This particular M2 carbine is of course coming up for sale here at the James Julia Company.
So if you are looking for something that could be actually a pretty darn cool
introductory machine gun, these are relatively affordable as machine guns go,
ammunition is certainly available and cheap and affordable today.
And in addition to that they are a cool piece of US military history. So
take a look at the link in the description text below, that will take you to Julia's
catalogue page where you can see the pictures, description, provenance, etc. on
this ... machine gun, and place a bid right through their website if you're interested.
Thanks for watching.
[ cc by sk cn2 ]