What if: M1 Carbine were chambered for .30 Remington?

[gjs238]

What if the M1 Carbine was originally designed for the .30 Remington?

Maybe a nice 20 or 30 round magazine.
Little longer barrel.
Cutts Compensator.
Why not throw in a pistol grip stock.

[Shortround6]

Then it wouldn't be a .30 carbine.

Carbine was designed to replace the .45 pistol for troops whose main job (artillerymen, signalers, drivers,etc) made carring a full sized rifle too difficult. There was a definite weight limit and length limit in the original specification.

No .30 Remington rifle would meet the specifiaction.

[gjs238]

Yes, I know.
But what if................

[timshatz]

We talking a 30-06 round or something smaller? 30 Cal covers so much and the .30 Rem is deceiving.

But an M1 Carb rechambered to 30-06 would be a monster to handle. Little gun and a big round.

[gjs238]

No no no...
Not rechambering an M1 Carbine with a full power battle round.
What if the firearm was originally designed for .30 Remington
.30 Remington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It would be a larger, heavier firearm.

The operating mechanism, scaled up, could very well have formed the basis of the first "assault rifle."

[Doughboy]

Originally Posted by gjs238

What if the M1 Carbine was originally designed for the .30 Remington?

Maybe a nice 20 or 30 round magazine.
Little longer barrel.
Cutts Compensator.
Why not throw in a pistol grip stock.

It would have had the power of a .30-30 and it would've been more lethal.

[diddyriddick]

Originally Posted by gjs238

No no no...
Not rechambering an M1 Carbine with a full power battle round.
What if the firearm was originally designed for .30 Remington
.30 Remington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It would be a larger, heavier firearm.

The operating mechanism, scaled up, could very well have formed the basis of the first "assault rifle."

The point is that it is redundant. We already had heavy battle rifles, so why? Chambered for .30 Carbine filled a definite niche, but the heavier round was superfluous.

[gjs238]

There are a lot of fun "what if" posts in the aircraft section, I ASSumed one would be appropriate here too.
Guess not.

The point is to explore the possibility if the operating mechanism design that developed into what was to be called the M1 carbine could have formed the basis of what came to be called an assault rifle.

Perhaps there is no way, regardless of how it was scaled up, the mechanism could have fulfilled this roll.
Or perhaps yes.

[davebender]

The U.S. Army did not want an assault rifle during the WWII era. Otherwise they would have procured something similiar to the Mini 14 rather then the historical M1 Garand.

[gjs238]

OK, forget it, this obviously won't work here

[fibus]

Bigger rounds within reason are welcome. I don't mean 416 Rigby as an upper limit.
But carbines and firepower was answered by men i have known that would discard anything they were carrying to pick up m2 carbines on the battlefield whenever they could.

[Matt308]

Originally Posted by gjs238

OK, forget it, this obviously won't work here

Perhaps a bit more enthusiasm in the defense of the "what if" and it might bait folks. Whatcha think?

You are talking about a round with half again as much energy. The intent of the M1 carbine was to give a rifle to an untrained user. Size was very important. So as soon as you start increasing barrel length, adding compensators, and beefing up the breach/bolt area to handle the extra stress... you are quickly creating a different animal that likely would not have matched the original premise.

Also of note is that the 30 Remington was yet another cartridge whose deveopment was made for lever action carbines where round nose bullets were required. Therefore, you are buying additional power, but not much range. Sure you can put a pointy thing in the case, but you can't exceed OAL. For if you did it wouldn't be a .30 Remington now would it. Thus you would have to load fairly light FMJBT and with the need to keep them short in length, ballistic coefficient would similarly suffer.

[davebender]

The M1 carbine was issued to people who in other armies would likely be carrying a SMG or pistol. You cannot make either the weapon or the ammunition much heavier.

Personally I'm surprised the U.S. Army didn't chamber the M1 carbine for the .45cal pistol cartridge.

[Amsel]

Or even the .44 Mag was a good carbine cartridge.

[davebender]

I agree. However it introduces a new ammunition type into the army supply system. The .45cal round is already the standard SMG and pistol round. Might as well use it for the new carbine also.