1943 NPM Carbine

A recent acquisition: an M1 Carbine, manufactured in 1943 by National Postal Meter. New stock finished by myself, with a repro sling from At The Front. Bore's in excellent condition. The original stock appears to be a pot bellied birch, with an Italian FAT inspection cartouche and the handguard is walnut. Rather than clean decades of grime from two pieces of wood that will never match no matter what, I decided to put them aside and do up a new stock. Besides, I've come to the point where I don't like doing anything to these old guns that I can't easily reverse. It'll turn in a four inch group at 100 yards, prone. I think that's the most you can reasonably expect from these things. Cool little shooter.

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Dear PKelly:

ODCMP has a page on Carbine accurizing: http://thecmp.org/wp-content/uploads...Notes_2007.pdf

And Dan Arnold produced a nice article on accurizing the carbine: http://docslide.net/documents/270345...1-carbine.html

That last page also has a link to the Ordnance 25yd target for making sure the elevation of the front post is correct. The Orndance TM is downloadable and has the procedure: Basically: Set the rear sight for 100yds, put the test target at 25yds, and from a good prone or seated supported position, shoot 9 rnds. If all 9 rnds are within the dotted area of the target, the height of the front post is correctly filed. If below, you *CAREFULLY* file to rais the point of impact till it meets the criteria.

If you already know all this stuff, sorry to repeat the info.

R Brown

I have read through those, but thanks for taking the time just the same. So far, I've fired 500 rounds of Armscorp ammunition through it. Thus far, I haven't had any issues with function. I may experiment with handloads a bit, but probably not too much. This isn't a gun I'm going to obsess over in terms of group size. It already shoots well enough for any task I might put it to. I have noted that the rear sight requires adjustment to 250 yards to shoot to POA from 0 to 100 yards.

That would be because the front sight was adjusted by filing for an original type 1 flip sight. If you reload for it then try some soft point round nose bullets for accuracy. But the quick thing to check for accuracy is the recoil plate that the receiver locks into on the stock. If the receiver is seated into the plate properly, the barrel should hang above the barrel channel at the front of the stock about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. If it doesn't then replace the recoil plate with the type 3 plate. The type 3 barrel band that you have will help produce the best accuracy possible. 4 inches at 100 yards is considered by many to be good accuracy with a carbine but it is surprising that many carbines can shoot even tighter groups.