Yep. I was right about this.

On the plus side, taking an M1 carbine apart for cleaning is pretty easy. To get the metal parts out of the stock, all you have to do is loosen (not even remove) one screw, the one holding the front (and only) barrel band. (In a clever design feature, this screw, though it can be operated with a flathead screwdriver, is actually designed to be turned with the rim of a .30 Carbine cartridge—the assumption being that there's always likely to be plenty of those around.) Then the band slides forward, the upper hand guard comes off to the front, and the whole action-barrel assembly lifts right out of the stock.

Note that the barrel band, front sling swivel, and bayonet lug are the same part. Makes it pretty easy to replace if your sling swivel or bayonet lug get broken (though you do have to take off the front sight to get it off).

Another clever design feature: the guide rod inside the recoil spring, once removed, is also the punch you need to drive out the pin holding the trigger assembly onto the bottom of the receiver. Thus, apart from the cartridge to loosen the barrel band screw, no external tools are required to dismantle the M1 carbine down to its sub-assemblies. (If you want to take the trigger/hammer group apart, you'll need more than that, but the average soldier in the field is not going to be doing that; if something's broken in there, that's a job for the armorers.)

With the trigger group out of the way, getting the slide/operating rod off and the bolt out require only a bit of finagling.

Not obvious in these photos, because it's the same color as the metal's normal finish: a layer of unspeakable filth. Well, OK, it wasn't that bad, but still. There was quite a bit of soot and grunge in there; it took a fairly substantial quantity of #9 and rags to clean up. I suspect that wasn't all from my shooting yesterday, dirty as Tulammo is.

However, all is well now, and I got the magazine back together into the bargain (though I'll probably retire that one, as it's easier to take apart again than it should be). As a bonus, while I had the carbine apart, I was able to get a couple of pictures of the gas tappet. Here it is in the fully forward position:

And this is as far back as it comes:

When they say "short-stroke gas system", they mean it! That's only a few millimeters, so you can imagine how fast it must be moving to pass along enough energy to cycle the action.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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