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reloading for the M-1 carbine

8K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  47lincsled 
#1 ·
I just picked up a nice Inland carbine, and was shocked at the price for ammo, but surprise how easy it is to find it,I actually found some at a Wal Mart in Las Vegas, I have a bunch of brass from a bulk brass buy a couple of years ago and sense I already load .45,9mm,30-06 and .308 I figured it would be worth the trouble to pick up the stuff to cast and load my own. Has anyone used any of the .32 bullets to reload the carbine, since carbine molds are a little harder to find, and can you use small pistol primers? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Bob.
 
#2 ·
I'm guessing you could cast one round soft and slug your barrel with it then mic it to see the difference. If you shave off a bunch of lead pushing it through then it's too big. I know you can buy some simple 100grn 308 plinkers that will work and you can still find 30 carbine FMJ bullets around.
 
#3 ·
If you don't want to reload, I believe CMP still has Aguila carbine ball ammo for .40 a round, not too bad. They also have Winchester ball for .45 a round. Both are boxer primed and reloadable or sell the brass for about .20 on GB and end up paying .20 a round for your ammo. Really hard to reload for that unless you go to the bother of casting.
 
#4 ·
M-1 carbine

I worked at a tire shop for 10 years, every week I would take home some old wheel weights, I have a couple hundred pounds just for casting, I shoot a lot of .45 so I started casting my own, I find it fun and relaxing, not to mention much cheaper, and my reloads are just as accurate as any store bought ammo. The cheapest reloadable Carbine ammo I have found is widners, $17.45 for a box of 50 of Sellier and Belliot, Wal Mart even has it for $24.99 a box!
 
#6 ·
I grabbed a mold and a sizer from Brownell's . It was/is totally worth it. Yes, carbine ammo is too darn steep for what it is!! I use small rifle primers and gas checks for mine. Nice full power loads to have the nifty fireball.;)
These get run through the Automag and I have no leading issues.
 
#7 ·
Bob,

I’ve tried reloading cast lead in the .30 carbine, but even with gas checks I rapidly leaded up the gas piston. Speer 100 gr .308 Plinkers work great and expand real quick. I recommend carbide dies, but you will still have to lube the cases. Watch your case length as carbine cases tend to grow. I’ve had great results with IMR-4227 powder.

Always use the primers that the cases are made for (small rifle for .30 carbine). For example the FN 5.7mm uses small rifle primers and the .50 Beowulf uses large pistol primers. Besides being thicker, rifle primers are longer. If you put pistol primers in a rifle size primer pocket they may sit so deep that the firing pin won’t set them off (and they might not withstand the pressure). Put a rifle primer in a pistol pocket and you can get a slam fire.
 
#9 ·
Use small rifle primers. I used small pistol primers by mistake years ago, and the carbine shot a foot or two low at 100 yards. This was using IMR4227 or H110 powder, I forget which. Lately I have been able to get Remington FMJ or RNSP bullets cheap at Cabela's and use those. I use the WW296 load listed in this article on the CMP site http://www.odcmp.com/Sales/pdfs/CMP_Carbine_Notes_2007.pdf
 
#11 ·
If the barrel is in decent shape, the action mates properly with the recoil plate, you have a type 2 or type 3 barrel band that holds the barrel securely, and you have decent ammunition, it can be pretty darn accurate. The article discusses all those points. If the muzzle is screwed up and the action is rattling around in the stock and you are using Chinese surplus ammo, that's another matter.
 
#12 ·
It's large pistol primers that are shorter than large rifle , Small rifle and small pistol are the same length . Just saying
Well, during the great primer shortage I loaded up a couple thousand rounds of 9mm with small rifle primers, it was all we could get at the time. With the primers seated all the way in they still stuck out proud of the back of the cases. As they were going into PPSh-41, MP-40, and UZI I wasn’t really worried about a slam fire. But it’s still not something I recommend doing.
 
#14 ·
I don't shoot cast but i would have to agree with shortround....I use a Rainer 110gr FMG ...I use a 1.0 Lee dipper cup of 2400 and get consistent / comparable ammo all day long...That's my recipe.
 
#15 ·
When loading or reloading for Military firearms especially military long arms that have floating firing pins it is real important that one stick to the primer types, pistol vs. rifle and mil spec vs. commercial, that are used in the original cartridge loadings. The floating firing pins used in the M1 Garand, M-14, M-1 Carbine, etc will impact and dimple the primer when the action is closed. Allow the action to close on a loaded cartridge and then eject the unfired cartridge and check this out for your self and notice the very small impact dimple on the chambered but unfired cartridges primer. All it takes is an overly sensitive or a grossly incorrect primer and a slam fire will occur with that slight dimple.

The dimensions of the primers between rifle and pistol types are in fact different and that includes cup material thickness, additionally the cup materiel can also be of a slightly different hardness as well.
 
#16 ·
M-1 carbine

Since primer are available again I just did the right thing and picked up a case of small rifle primers, it's not worth the risk, and I picked up a bunch of blem FMJ projectiles, so far I've only seen cosmetic problems, and I haven't had any time to fire them, maybe after I get the firewood stocked up I'll be able to get out a little more.
 
#18 ·
Berry's

Berry's is only an hour from me, so I stopped in their place one day to check out what they had and their prices are rather high, I guess it's good stuff but I'm on a budget and not shooting compitition, actually Wideners has them on sale right now for $85/1000 postage paid, if I can sell some stuff I'm going to pick some up.
 
#20 ·
I'm good on brass, a couple years ago I picked up a large 2'X2' ammo can of mixed brass at a yard sale, I actually only wanted the ammo can because it was WW2 dated but the guy didn't want to dump the brass out so I bought the whole thing and spent a couple weeks sorting brass while watching TV, I sold off all the brass I didn't use and made about 5 time what I paid for it, but around here there aren't many people shooting the carbine so I still have several hundred cases left, as soon as the temps come down a little more I'll get out and start reloading again.
 
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