Tuesday, August 26, 2008

There are many Carbines,

but this one's mine, so keep your sweaty hands off.Having been able to hie myself off to the range for a while today, and firing this beast for the first time in a while, thought I'd write a bit about it.

I've mentioned it before: it's an Inland, made(near as I can tell) December '42 or January '43. It had the usual upgrades over time(adjustable rear sight, bayonet-mount barrel band, 'turn' safety and magazine latch for the 30-round mags), but seems to have held onto the original stock. The barrel is either the original, or a replacement from the same time the receiver was made. It made its way around the world, from the markings having served with the South Korean Army before finally coming back to the States, finally winding up with me.

This was the first of these I'd ever fired. First I'd ever really handled, for that matter. Kim has waxed poetic about them before, but I was still surprised by the 'handy' factor; it's the Model 94 of semi-auto war rifles: light, short, and reliable. And I was quite pleased with the accuracy it's capable of, better than I'd hoped for. There were two things I did to it: First, the thing shot high at 100 yards, as in about 6" high. Since the top of the sight blade, where it'd been filed down, was nice and flat I made a piece to match the blade angles and width and soldered it on; that way I was able to file it down to put the shots on at 100 with the rear sight on 100. The other thing I did to it was recut and polish the crown; whoever had cleaned it over the years had been careful, but there were a couple of tiny dings. Maybe fifteen minutes work to polish them out.

Once upon a time I wrote about modifying a handguard I picked up to allow forward-mounting a pistol scope on it. That actually worked out quite well, but there was always the chance of the handguard shifting a bit, so I finally decided to get a more solid setup. I looked around and settled on the Ultimak mount, which you see on it in the picture. Machined aluminum, doesn't weigh much and mounts solidly to the barrel, replacing the handguard. And has a Picatinny rail the full length. Took about twenty minutes to put it on, that long because I was using a level and rechecking to make sure it was aligned properly.

The sight you see above is a Millett Redot SP1. After the lousy experience with a Pentax red dot(PENTAX RED DOTS SUCK!!!), I went to Midway and browsed. An Aimpoint or Eotech was out of reach, so I started browsing with the following in mind:
Brand I'd heard of,
$100 or less,
At least four stars on customer ratings.
And this was the only one that met all the above. So I decided to give it a try(Midway stands behind their stuff, which helps). And it's been great. Mounted solidly, proper click adjustments, and once zeroed I haven't had to touch it. Eleven brightness settings, which lets you adjust for ambient light conditions. And it's very fast and accurate; I've been very pleased with it.

Put the magazine pouch on the stock just so there'd always be two handy, and there's a hex key for the sight bolts in it(just in case).

Nicle little rifles, they are.

7 comments:

Thud said...

A fantastic looking and practical piece of kit...I'm jealous.

Anonymous said...

Partner's got a bunch of lead pumped through it on saturday. Damn, I'm jealous.

Firehand said...

Og, I found this one, and then a year or so later SOG had the receivers so I was able to build the other which you provided the stock for.

Tell your friend I've had a lot of compliments on the wood. And that Minwax finish is holding up beautifully.

Anonymous said...

My, my, my...that is a very nice rifle, Firehand. I would love to put my finger on the trigger. And this is just way too damn awesome to pass up:

"Tell your friend I've had a lot of compliments on the wood". (I just bet you have, Sir)

;)

Kevin said...

I may have to get a mount. I have a spare Aimpoint around here somewhere, and a long eye relief pistol scope, too.

I received my 1,000 rounds of .30 carbine brass last week, and the 1,000 Remington 110 grain softpoints came in from Midway yesterday, so I think I have a bit of loading to do.

Firehand said...

I have had many compliments on the wood, Fire; you have no idea. So there.*

Keven, get a chance give that setup a try. It worked out a lot better than I'd hoped. Also, that model Millett has a 3MOA dot, which I like better than the 5 for a rifle.


*And as long a Pistolero keeps stroking his Kimber and frowning, you ain't GONNA get an idea.

Anonymous said...

Okay........how about if I tell Pistolero to put the Kimber away...put a smile on his face? Can I get an idea then? I promise not to bite.

I tell you what, Firehand, any man who can appreciate my feisty, sexual side, and my love of guns...well, that just makes them more appealing. Any man that can get a grin out of my comments, is a man that I can appreciate.

So? How 'bout that idea? No matter what your wood looks like, I'll say that the barrel is very...very nice. (My mouth is starting to water) Must be the thoughts of guns in my head.