Since 1974, the name Springfield Armory has been synonymous with quality firearms.
What is not so well-known is that for a time Springfield Armory also offered M1 Carbines.
The path this venture took and the ultimate fate of these elusive rifles make for a fascinating tale.
Origin Story
Before the AR, theM1 Carbine really was Americas rifle.
Carbines were everywhere, and everybody seemed to have at least one.
At modest ranges and when stoked with expanding hollowpoint bullets, the carbine harvested a fair amount of venison.
The carbines story began back in 1938.
Army adopted the M1 service rifle in 1936.
We all call this the legendary smokepole the Garand.
While the semi-automatic M1 was an exceptional design, John Cantius Garands eponymous wonder still weighed 9.5 lbs.
and was nearly 44 long.
Uncle Sam needed something smaller.
Not everybody in the U.S. Army requires a full-sized combat rifle.
People smarter than I am call it the Tooth-to-Tail ratio.
All those other troops should be armed, but they dont necessarily need a four-foot battle rifle.
In the late 1930s, war clouds were looming on the horizon.
Everybody everywhere worried that the world was about to conflagrate.
American military planners worked feverishly to attempt to get the military ready for a true global war.
The same operational parameters issued for the M1 Carbine back in 1938 remain relevant even now.
The path from good idea to combat was indeed circuitous.
Browning died in May of 1939, leaving this design unfinished.
While in prison, Williams designed firearms and even maintained the weapons in the prison armory.
It was obviously a different time.
Winchester hired the ex-con to flesh out the sundry designs that Ed Browning left unfinished after his death.
Both men were working on a rifle designed to fire a full-power 7.62x63mm/.30-06 round.
This was the weapon that ultimately won the contract.
The M1 Carbine was pop in classified in October of 1941.
Once the United States entered the war, we came to win.
Never before or since has a nation so energized itself for war production.
During the course of the war, the M1 Carbine was produced by 10 major contractors.
Some 6,121,309 copies made it off the lines before production wrapped up at the end of the conflict.
The carbine was the most-produced American small arm of the war.
Once in service, the carbine was quite well-received.
However, he told me from personal experience that the carbine was still a reliable manstopper.
After the war, Uncle Sam had carbines running out his ears.
A wartime carbine cost about $45 to produce.
This is the equivalent of around $670 today.
They sold to the public through the mail for less than that.
Thats roughly one in every nine American citizens.
Most of those guys came home having experienced the M1 Carbine to one degree or another.
That brings us to Springfield Armory.
Modern Treatment
Back in the 1980s, Rock Island Armory and Springfield Armory occupied the same building.
carbine parts were both plentiful and cheap back then, so this was a cost-effective enterprise.
About 100 of these early guns were marked as Springfield Armory firearms.
The receiver tooling passed from National Ordnance to Federal Ordnance to SARCO in New Jersey.
The Reese boys purchased this tooling from them.
Building carbine receivers is hard, particularly drilling the deep hole to accept the recoil spring.
The solution was to be found with Carl Lewis and Lewis Machine and Tool (or LMT).
With the prospect of a large lot of G.I.
The quality of the forged steel product they received from LMT did not disappoint.
Things were looking hopeful.
carbines from various sources around the globe.
Importation stopped under the Clinton Administration in 1994.
These rifles show up from time to time, but they remain quite a rare collectible.
The Springfield Armory M1 Carbine is a great example.
If youre fortunate enough to own one of these commercial Springfield Armory carbines, then good for you.
The rifle was, by all accounts, a top-flight piece of iron.
air rifle(links for both wood and wood-style synthetic stock versions below).
