Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbine has hiccups but finally gets "shot in"

I finally got a chance to shoot my new Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbine today. I bought the Tactical Folding Stock Model at the gun store where I work because I liked being able to shoot it with the stock folded "from the hip."


With the stock folded, the butt is on the right side and makes for a extra hand-hold, as my range buddy Leon McRae demonstrates. Note the flying brass I caught with this shot, a blur against Leon's jacket.

It's a good thing I was shooting with Leon, a retired U.S. military guy with a lot of experience with all types of military weapons. He has a collection of a few hundred military guns, including several M1 Carbines.


Right off the bat, the brand-new A-O Carbine performed like a single-shot. One round would fire but it would fail to chamber the next. Leon suggested lubing it down good as he said the action was so tight it wasn't allowing the bolt to fully cycle to load the next round. So I lubed the dickens out of it and kept shooting.


It still stove-piped and jammed fairly frequently, but at least it wasn't a single shot anymore. And it's a good think I brought 150 rds. of FMJs and three new 30-rd magazines in addition to the one 15-rd. mag supplied by Auto-Ordnance. I found some new Korean military 30-rd. mags at CDNN for $15 each and all three got a workout. Between Leon and myself, we burned through all 150 rds. to "shoot it in" as Leon put it.

I fired it from the shoulder and I fired it from the hip and just kept loading magazines and shooting. At first she would fire and cycle reliably from the shoulder, but not from the hip. So I just kept on shooting.

And it worked. This is toward the end of the ammo and I was just watching the bolt cycle, waiting for the next jam shooting from the hip. By the time I got to the last 30-rd. magazine, she worked great from the hip and from the shoulder, no jams, just blam, blam, blam until slide lock.


We did have one hiccup that will require a bit of attention to figure out by my buddy Leon, the Carbine gunsmith. The metal handguard kept falling off as the barrel band on the forearm jarred forward while firing. Here's a shot of me firing without the handguard.

And with all that shooting in a short period of time, it became painfully obvious why an M1 Carbine needs a handguard. We kept putting the handguard back on and retightening the barrel band screw and getting our fingers burned in the process if we touched that hot barrel. Ouch!

Leon finally figured out the spacer on the barrel band for the sling swivel was too wide to allow tightening the band screw enough to keep the handguard in place. So we took the sling swivel off, tightened down on the screw and no more flying handguard. Leon is going to file down that spacer a bit so I can put the sling swivel back on. With the sling attached and the stock folded, this a very handy package of easy-carry firepower.

So I ended the day without the sling attached, but with an Auto-Ordnance Carbine that has been "shot in" and works just fine from the shoulder or the hip. I'm gonna have to buy a lot more Carbine ammo. I'm having almost more fun that the law allows and I see a lot more fun in the future with this new M1 Carbine.