I found an early "1st generation" carbine yesterday at the gunshow. It uses mostly GI parts, has the single recoil spring. This is my first M1 carbine of any type, I was looking for a shooter and all the GI carbines were priced a bit too high. This one is in great shape, I doubt if it has had more than a box or two fired through it.
My main question is about the barrel. It has 12 grooves (micro-groove?) and what looks to be a 1-12 twist. Anyone have experience using cast in these 12 groove barrels? I will be wanting to go cast with it, but don't have any suitable molds yet. Thinking either Lyman 311410 (would be nice to not need gc's) or 311359.
Thoughts?