M1 Carbine Help

[cabezaverde]

I have an iAi M1 carbine knock off that I picked up for only slightly more than the value of all the loaded factory ammo that came with it.

I want to use it for HD as my wife has arthritic hands, but she can work the controls on it fine. It is actually in quite good condition and is reliable with every type of ammo I have put through it. I like the idea of an HD rifle for this gun due to the low recoil which also bothers the wife. Plus it's fun to shoot and she enjoys it which makes for more practice.

Here is the part that is driving me crazy and I need help with.

The iron sights are way off when adjusted to correct point of impact. So much so that the rear sight is so far left that it screws up the sight picture.

I have thought about putting a Bushnell TRS red dot on it using one of the mounts that replaces the rear sight. The thing I don't like about that is having to remember to turn it on in the event of an emergency.

I have also thought about a low powered scope, I have a Leupold 2x sitting around looking for a job.

I am hesitant to screw around with the barrel clocking for fear of reducing the reliability, which is excellent.

I have also thought about taking off the front sight and re clocking it, then using JB weld to keep it in place.

Thoughts?

[Jeff Michel]

Sounds like you have a bent barrel. Anything you mount on the receiver is going to be affected same as the iron sights. Not a real rare condition, a good smith can fix that in a jiffy.

[Outpost75]

The rear sight is not centered on the receiver dovetail. Center the aperture in the sight base, then drift the entire sight to align the rear sight to the bore using a collimator. Only then use the click adjustments to make final adjustment.

[cabezaverde]

The rear sight is far left in the dovetail and needs still more left adjustment with the clicks.

[cabezaverde]

Sounds like you have a bent barrel. Anything you mount on the receiver is going to be affected same as the iron sights. Not a real rare condition, a good smith can fix that in a jiffy.

I will try running a straight edge along the barrel.

[Castaway]

Dumb question I know, but is front sight bent?

[cabezaverde]

Dumb question I know, but is front sight bent?

Doesn’t appear to be.

[reivertom]

At a last resort, you could get a laser sight with a "squeeze switch" on the grip for close in HD. I'd find a Smith who knows his stuff about M1 carbines if I couldn't resolve it myself..

[Rgmcfarland]

261045 set her up with a scout setup like this, my wife loves it

[cabezaverde]

Ok, I tore the rifle down today.

What is the best way to detect a bent barrel? It looks straight from the outside, but that doesn't mean that it is drilled straight, correct?

Also, I see no index marks so I can't tell if barrel is clocked properly.

The rifle was pretty dry of lubricants, but that wouldn't have an effect on point of impact, right?

Any more thoughts?

[cabezaverde]

261045 set her up with a scout setup like this, my wife loves it

I don't want to screw around with having to turn anything on.

[elmacgyver0]

If the barrel is not bent it sounds like the front sight maybe rotated a bit to one side or another.
Something to check.

[georgerkahn]

I don't know if this may help you, but I also have a Israel Arms Houston, Tx. US Caliber .30M1 Carbine w/ metal hand guard, S/n M888-R202xxx. Mine is a bit fussy re ammo -- it seems to function best with military-style j-bullets (110 gn), but when "genuine" U S Carbines were very much out of my $$$-reach, I spied it at a gun show; affordable; and, it followed me home.
If your carbine is same generation as mine, I can/will take photos of my sights for possible comparison with those on yours. ALSO, there is a pretty good site on our little carbine, at http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_iai.html
PM me if you'd like a photo of my sights.
geo

[cabezaverde]

I don't know if this may help you, but I also have a Israel Arms Houston, Tx. US Caliber .30M1 Carbine w/ metal hand guard, S/n M888-R202xxx. Mine is a bit fussy re ammo -- it seems to function best with military-style j-bullets (110 gn), but when "genuine" U S Carbines were very much out of my $$$-reach, I spied it at a gun show; affordable; and, it followed me home.
If your carbine is same generation as mine, I can/will take photos of my sights for possible comparison with those on yours. ALSO, there is a pretty good site on our little carbine, at http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_iai.html
PM me if you'd like a photo of my sights.
geo

Thanks George.

Are your sights pretty centered?

[georgerkahn]

My rear site is a tad off-centre, as you may hopefully see from attached photos I just took and cropped for you. The rear site is set for target-centre at 68.5 meters/75 yards (as opposed to, say, a "six-o-clock bull"). I hope this is of help for you.
261145261146261147

[colchester]

I had this exact problem last year with year with my surplus carbine. I had to adjust the sight all the way to the left and drift it until it was almost out of the dovetail. It still shot about 1' to the right. I thought the frt. sight might not have been at 12 o clock but it checked fine. I thought bent barrel but with the sights off as much as they were that should have been detectable with the naked eye. I pulled the barrel anyway and spun it between centers,all good.I started to look at the barrel very carefully and noticed the the muzzle was deformed a bit. I selected a pin gauge that would slide through the bore and put it in the breech end and slid it toward the muzzle it stopped about .060" from exiting. Back to the lathe for a new crown. Now the pin gauge exits the bore. I centered up the sights and test fired it and it was almost dead on now. Someone must have dropped it on the muzzle and deformed the end of the barrel. Weird thing was it was not erratic as I would have thought just shot WAY to the right. I was pretty surprised to find this as the problem. Check the muzzle out carefully might be the issue Good Luck

[RG1911]

One quick way to check for a bent barrel is to take a carbon fiber arrow shaft that is a snug fit and run it down the bore. If it hangs up, probably a good indication that the barrel is bent. If it drops neatly, the barrel probably is fine.

Next, is the barrel assembly (barrel plus block) straight on the receiver? If not, either the rear of the barrel block or the face of the receiver is off.

If everything is good, I'd give thought to the front sight and to the indexing of the barrel assembly.

I would recommend buying a copy of "U.S. M1 Carbines, Wartime Production," 8th edition, revised and expanded, by Craig Riesch. The US Army field manual also would be beneficial. These clearly show how to check the indexing of the barrel assembly to the receiver. Note that all (or at least all the ones on which I have worked) USGI M1 Carbines have very small index marks on the bottom of the receiver at the face, and on the rear of the barrel assembly on the flat. Sometimes a magnifying glass helps.

Good luck.

Cheers, Richard

[Rgmcfarland]

I don't want to screw around with having to turn anything on.

Nor does my wife, I started with a romeo5 on this scout set up, changed it to this holosun for her as it has a lot of battery on time life, auto off, movement awake, and solar power? I was like geesh... gotta try that oh and it is green dot, not red.... I change the batteries in all the goofy every year at fall time change, none of them need it, but it gives her the confidence I the garage door openers and now her PDW. Money well spent, still be fun to chase out your open sight issue but for a lady in the upper age bracket that is comfortable with the M1 a holo sight that she uses with both eyes open at our range is the big confidence builder. YMMV, I have 9 very nice weapons she has burnt through, only three are her keepers, I’ve inherited the rest

[Gtek]

With centered rear sight and holding by grip at arms length, leveling rear what does front sight position look like?

[cabezaverde]

With centered rear sight and holding by grip at arms length, leveling rear what does front sight position look like?

I need to re assemble it after a total tear down. Will advise.

[kerplode]

I don't want to screw around with having to turn anything on.

Ultimak with an Aimpoint Pro.

Battery life for that optic is ~3 years on setting 7. Just leave it on all the time and replace the battery on New Years day or whatever. Done.

[FLINTNFIRE]

Comp m4s battery life in power on is measured in years takes a regular double a I believe , or buy one of the motion activated , like the sig sauer romeo 7 uses a regular battery again and has motion awake shuts off in 2 minutes pick it up its ready to go , Sorry no idea why your rifle is so far off , had a remington bolt action 22 that was same way bored on a angle .

[deltaenterprizes]

A Mepro 2000 is tritium powered and has no batteries, they run able $500 and are made by Meprolight!

[samari46]

Part of the regulations regarding the installation of the rear sight on an M`1 carbine require that the sight must take 2000 pounds of force to move the sight itself. So how did they do this?. By basically useing something like a big centerpunch to create divots on either side of the dovetail to basically lock the sight in place. Whoever installed the sight on my Saginaw Steering gear carbine must have taken this as gospell. I have 4 divots two on each side of the sight body. So you really have to be careful when trying to move the rear sight on a carbine. I actually had to buy a set of diamond files and remove metal from the underside of the dovetail to get the busted rear sight out and a new one installed.If the divots are small should be no problem to try and shift the rear sight. If they are large you may have to remove some metal on the underside of the dovetail. brute force isn't going to work here because you could damage or crack the metal in the dovetail. Frank

[akajun]

This is more than likely a barrel timing issue. ie the barrel is too tight or not tight enough in the receiver. ON a short barrel carbine it does not take much to be off due to the short sight radius. not a hard problem to fix but requires re correct action wrench and barrel vise bushing and timing gauges to fix. If you just have the wrenches you can estimate it by inching it a hair either direction to center it up.
FYI Ive fixed this issue on plenty of USGI guns as well. Soldiers rebarreling these things didn't pay that much attention to them, lol.

[Texas by God]

A .300" diameter brass rod about a foot long will serve to check barrel straightness.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[35 Whelen]

cabezaverde, I ran into this very problem with an Iver Johnson M1 Carbine. If you want to see how I fixed it, here's the link to the thread (https://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=266874).

35W

[samari46]

Another thing to check out is wether or not the rifling at the muzzle end is good as the carbine could only be cleaned from the muzzle end. Good old steel cleaning rods as issued by Uncle Sam. Frank

[Ramguy]

I had a friend who worked at a plant that made M-1's during the war. He said that they test fired a gun, if it was way off, "we just put it in a vise and bent the barrel a little". Sounds archaic, but I guess when you're in a hurry to get them into troops hands in the most expedient way, you just do what needs done to get it out the door.

[Larry Gibson]

The iron sights are way off when adjusted to correct point of impact. So much so that the rear sight is so far left that it screws up the sight picture.

I have thought about putting a Bushnell TRS red dot on it using one of the mounts that replaces the rear sight. The thing I don't like about that is having to remember to turn it on in the event of an emergency.

I have also thought about a low powered scope, I have a Leupold 2x sitting around looking for a job.

Thoughts?

A small grinder (used for sharpening chainsaws) in a Dremel will fit down inside the rear sight to the left and right of the aperture (cranked to the left or right) to grind away a bit of the riveted part of the receiver staking the rear sight in place. The rear sight base can then be drifted to the left a bit to "zero" with the aperture centered in the base. With the amount of rear sight base drift established and confirmed by shooting then with a center punch re-stake the receiver into the rear base notches.

The scope base that replaces the rear sight puts the scope/Dot sight to high for quick use. After numerous different scope bases mounted on the receiver I went with the forward base that replaces the handguard as has Rgmcfarland. I've found it to be excellent, especially with a low powered "scout" or pistol scope.....extremely fast and accurate to use with both eyes open.

As to scopes and electronic dot sights. The M1 carbine, as with other gas guns, can be very hard on them....especially the less expensive ones. Many such inexpensive scopes and Red Dot sights are not made to take recoil or vibration in both directions. Gas guns like the m1 Carbine recoil in both directions (the bolt going back forward give recoil in the opposite direction) much like springer air rifles. Unless made for such recoil and vibrations scopes and Red Dot sights easily rattle apart internally. I have several less expensive such sight as a testament to my learning this the hard way. I suggest either a scope or Dot Sight made to handle such. I have found Burris and Leupold scout and handgun scope hold up. I have a Burris 2X handguns scope on my M1 Carbine and it has held up for several years and thousands of round. The smaller Red Dots made for use mounted on semi-auto handgun slides also hold up. I prefer the Burris Fast Fire IIs but use the scope on the M1 Carbine as the optic blocks the issue sights so I don't want to have to turn a sight on if needed quickly. The scope is always "there" when needed. Alsi with the scope use rings that get it mounted as low as possible over the receiver front.

M1 carbines are excellent carbines for plinking with cast bullets and for PD with good SP or HP bullets. With such your wife should be happy with it. My wife thinks my shooter M1 carbine is hers.....

265526

[cabezaverde]

Here is an update to this:

I found a local smith that knows what he is doing. It turns out the barrel was not bent and it was clocked correctly.

The slot for the front sight was cut to the 11:00 side, and he recut the slot and all is well now.

Thanks to all for your help and suggestions.

[35 Whelen]

I hope this fixed it! Have you fired it yet?

Unless my thinking is flawed (which is entirely possible) , my concern is this- Your front sight would have to be offset the same distance as the rear was when you got POI centered. Hope that makes sense.

35W