Talk:M1 carbine

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Cost compared to a Garand

While Thompson SMG was indeed notorious for its complexity and cost, the price difference between M1 carbine and M1 rifle is much more subtle. I was looking for WW2 firearms prices in US appropriation bill debates, and found two following discussions taken place in 1943:

Mr. MAHON. When you come down to the unit cost I see you are ordering a certain number of hundreds of thousands of caliber .30 carbine rifles. This is a very light and beautiful rifle, but it looks to me that a price of $63 is rather high? How do you explain it?

General CAMPBELL. That includes testing, inspection, transportation, and spare parts. Even at that, it may well turn out that we will get a kickback when we get the thing rolling.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. MAHON. What is the actual cost per unit of carbine?

General CAMPBELL. The break-down of the $63 unit price of the caliber .30 carbine rifle is as follows:

Basic price — $46.35

Spare parts — 7.22

Accessories — .36

Total — 53.93

Overhead — 4.58

Adjustment for subcontractors — 4.49

Unit price — 63.00

Inasmuch as these rifles are wanted so fast and in such quantities, the urgency of the need has been reflected in the price, which is admittedly high.

It has been necessary to step the production up with a number of relatively new facilities. These facilities, have of necessity, had to subcontract parts, many of which represented a new production item. The costs have naturally increased both with the prime contractor and the subcontractor.

It is entirely reasonable and logical to expect that with time and the release of pressure by the development of adequate and experienced production facilities, this price will be lowered.

…

Mr. MAHON. What do you pay for the Garand? What do you actually pay for one rifle?

General CAMPBELL. About $60.

Mr. MAHON. General, is that a reasonably fair price?

General CAMPBELL. Yes; I think it is a good price.

(Discussion off the record.)

And then another representative raises the same point again:

Mr. ENGEL. I notice that you have here “the Garand rifle, M-1, and the cost is reduced to $35. I notice on the same page you have the 30-caliber carbine, the M-1, at $54. It is a smaller gun. Why does that smaller gun cost more? Is it because of quantity producion?

General CAMPBELL. It may be that the spare parts cost more at this time. It may be because of smaller quantity production. There is less experience back of it. The tooling is not as complete as for the Garand.

Mr. ENGEL. These unit costs you have here include the spare parts?

General CAMPBELL. Yes.

Elsewhere it's presented that M1 rifle actually cost $70 (presumably with all the spare parts, but without the bayonet and its scabbard, which cost additional $5.40), and that in 1938 it used to cost whopping $130.

Therefore I believe the current discussion is inaccurate: while the carbine was only early into production, the rifle was already technologically optimized and used the economy benefit of scale, so that in 1943—1944 they cost more or less the same (and the subsequent cost decrease in 1945 was arguably irrelevant for the WW2). Ain92 (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Experimental .224 caliber carbine

In or about 1953, the U.S. Army developed and tested a modified M2 Carbine that was refit to accept a necked-down .30 carbine cartridge, as well as having a compensator and BAR bipod added. I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning in the article, or where it should go (variants/Korean War usage/ etc.)

Rsemmes92 (talk) 14:40, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect Barrel Length

From: FM 23-7 ( Basic Field Manual U.S. Carbine Caliber .30 M1 ) Page 1, Section 1, Length of barrel ______________-inches_ - 17.75.

This is one of the reasons the NFA definition of a SBR is 16", rather than the former 18". 70.182.246.174 (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2023 (UTC)