New manufacture M1 Carbines with 19 inch barrels

Yeah, I forgot how truly massive the .50 is.



For a semi-auto, it must be at least 26 inches overall and have a barrel of at least 18.5 inches. In the case of folding stocks with an overall length of less than 26 inches, it must not be able to function if the stock is folded in order to be non-restricted.

Manual action only needs to be 26 inches overall.


Yeah, our gun laws were written by people who are afraid of firearms, and, as discovered in an extensive study by Dr. Langman, have had zero impact on actual crime.

I don't know Rick. The Desert Eagle feeds rimmed .357 and .44 Magnum cartridges just fine.

And the bore of the barrel. Though the overall dimensions of the .30 Carbine and .357 Magnum fairly similar.

We also can't forget the many semi-auto, box magazine fed .22 Long Rifle chambered firearms which feed rimmed cases nicely and off the top of my head the Dragunov series of Semi-auto sniper rifles which feed and fire the 7.62x54R. The "R" meaning Rimmed and man it is the biggest rim I've ever seen on a rimmed case.

Yep, the bolt would need modified too. The M1 Carbine has a gas operated rotating bolt. The Desert Eagle and Dragunov are also gas operated rotating bolt designs. So the precedence is already there, and very successfully so, of feeding and extracting rimmed cases into and out of semi-autos.

yep, so you could convert a design that fires rimless cases to fire rimmed cases by only modifying the reciever, magazine, bolt, and chamber.

or as I say in the electrical trade: "pull the meter out and hook up a new electrical system to it."

Another thing to consider is why would someone want to rebuild a rifle into a rifle that is less powerful than the original?

Average energy of an M1 is 967 ft.lb. and .357 is 535 ft.lb.
Average velocity is also slower with the .357.

I'll give you that availability might be an issue.

New magazines would have to be built, and the receiver opened up, after all, the .357 is .080" wider at the rim than a .30 Carbine case.

Another thing to consider is that a gas operated system is rather picky as to what loads will reliably work the action.

Rugers .44 carbine was a case in point, it only liked a couple of loads, the others would cause problems with feeding, extraction, etc., I know, I had one.

There are many, many different loads out there for .357, and you would have to specify exactly what load would work, otherwise, people might use too light of a bullet, or the wrong gas "profile."

(Lots of M1 Garands have bent op rods because of using the wrong propellant, wrong bullet weight, ect.)

And, if you just happen to misload a rimmed cartridge so the rim is behind the one below it, you are going to have problems.

As to my boss not thinking it would be feasable, well, if he thought it would be doable, he would have done it, because he was always doing things that no one thought possible, and he liked a challenge.

When I left, he was building a copy of a Colt Woodsman in a left handed version, and I mean making the frame from scratch, just because he figured that it would be good to have the people on the left of him also share in getting hit with empty .22's while shooting Bullseye matches.

From my ten years in the gun biz, I learned that MANY things go into firearm design, and working with a gas operated system is especially a challenge.

It just ain't as simple as it looks on paper.

I have to wonder, with the number of M1 Carbines out there, and with the number of very skilled gun makers out there, why someone hasn't already done it, if all it is a matter of "just" modifying the bolt, the receiver and putting on a new barrel.

In one of my old gun books, there is an article on how to shorten an M1 Carbine magazine to hold 5 cartridges, and how to plug the gas port, making the Carbine into a "bolt action."

IIRC, they did this because they wanted to be able to hunt with it, and they couldn't get it to function with other loadings than factory equivalent.

So, I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one...

I looked through all 664 .357 loads, and all 86 .30 Carbine loads on the loading site I use, and even out of an 18.5" through a 24" barrel, there are very few .357 loads listed that are all that much better than the Carbine at 1900 fps., in their "rifle only" .357 data.
There were a couple, with 180-200 gr. bullets that were max loads at around 1300 ft. lbs., so, that is better than the 1,000 or so of the carbine.
A rifle in .357 would be a fun rifle, "Winchester" has come out with a '73 copy that would be neat to shoot.
I never tried any cast bullets in the Ruger .44, so lead blocking the gas port wasn't an issue, it was because I wanted to use something rather than the 240 gr. jacketed factory load.
The Ruger even had an adjustable gas piston, but even tinkering with it, I never got the rifle to be reliable with handloads or 180 gr. bullets.
A .357 would be a fairly good 100 yard deer rifle, I don't think I would want to shoot at one much farther away than that, though.
For just plinking around, or for small game, a semi-auto .357 rifle would be fun though...
As to "factory limits/recommendations," yeah, if people would adhere to them it would be great, but you know as well as I do that people will want to shoot whatever fits down the barrel...

Anybody remember the Ruger XGI?
That would have been a great rifle, if they had been able to get it to shoot accurately.
It must have cost Ruger millions to shelve that one.
If someone wants to see how the 1903 Springfield rifle was made, this book is great:

Manufacture of the Model 1903 Springfield Service Rifle
by Fred H. Colvin & Ethan Viall

We used it to figure out jigs, fixtures, and the manufacture of some of the parts we made.
It really makes you realize what goes into making a firearm.

Reading this thread made me think about something as "simple" as a magazine, my boss's dad bought all the tooling to remanufacture Win. Mod. 88 and 100 magazines, just to stamp out the box itself took several punch press die sets, and more dies to make the bottom of the box and the follower. then of course, he had to have the spring made, also. I wouldn't hazard a guess to what those dies would cost to make today.

IIRC, he had around 4 presses set up.

But, it was cool to see a strip of steel be formed into a magazine box.

I actually used to have this issue of S.W.A.T. Magazine with the review of the XGI. (read the review at the link)

It was a positive review, I don't know for sure why the XGI never went production/sales. I've read it was accuracy issues, I've read it was production issues, I've read it was feared it wouldn't reliably compete in sales against the M1A, which was gaining in popularity at the time. None of those theories were from credible sources, just hearsay.

Though the reviews I've read were positive, so I've gotta go with probably wouldn't compete against the M1A well. Though am willing to admit that if it shot with similar "accuracy" as the Mini-14, then accuracy may have played a role in the decision as well.

The Mini-14 is "accurate" but it is not AR15 accurate, but folks were willing to tolerate the looser groups from the cheaper than AR15 in the 1980s Mini-14, whereas folks probably would not tolerate less accuracy from a .308 platform, when for a few hundred more dollars they could get an accurate M1A.

So it could have been both accuracy issues and competition from the M1A that canceled the XGI.