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

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M1911 pistol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
When fired from the 5" barrel of a M1911 pistol the .45 ACP round has a muzzel velocity of 830 fps.

Thompson submachine gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
When fired from the 10.5" barrel of a Thompson SMG the .45ACP round has a muzzel velocity of 920 fps.

M1 carbine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The M1 carbine has an 18" barrel. I expect that would push the .45ACP round to at least 1,000 fps. Not exactly an elephant gun. But you could probably hit man size targets at least 100 meters away. About 10x as far as I can hit anything with a government issue M1911 pistol.
 
I don't know why my post about it disappeared, maybe my computer ate it. Anyway, I said that the US Army could have adopted the Model 8 Autoloader chambered for the 30 Remington and had an assault rifle years before the Germans came up with the Stg-44. The 30 Remington is a rimless 30-30, only slightly more powerful than the 7.62x39 that the AK fires. It would have been a great weapon.

The Model 8 was invented by John Moses Browning and was (still is) a very tough, robust, accurate gun.

Here is a pic of one with an extended mag, as it might have been deployed.

 
Perhaps a better alternative would have been the 276 Pederson. A carbine chambered for it would have been a little larger and heavier but if the Pederson round had had a 130 grain spitzer bullet at about 2200 feet per second, it may have been suitable for full auto fire. As it was the M1 Carbine in it's full auto version could be classified as an assault rifle.
 
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Wait a minute...
Remington Model 8 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Firearm Model History - Remington Model 8

John Browning was granted U.S. Patent 659,786 on October 16, 1900 for this rifle.
Production started 1906.
Calibers were what today we would call intermediate cartridges.
The website mentions a 20 round box magazine.

Was the martial utility of this rifle ever looked into?
 
Hello Folks,

The issue here is the degree of modification to the basic M1 Carbine to make it accept the alternative ammunition. For those that have never seen a M1 Carbine up close, the bolt is very small diameter with a small bolt face. The round is also very short. The spent cases bear a great resemblance to used cigarette butts. As such, to make it capable of shooting a .45 ACP round or a .276 Pederson round or a .30-30 length round would require a complete re-design from the ground up. Suggesting these rounds is like saying the M16 would make a great rifle if it were rechambered for a .45-70 or a .50 cal Browning.

What-ifs are fine, and I have nothing against a bit of fantasy here and there, but just be sure to recognise such flights from reality.

Now I guess I should get off my soap box.
- Ivan.
 

The what-if wasn't for modifying an M1 Carbine for a different caliber.
It asks if the operating principle/design could be scaled up for an intermediate power cartridge.
 

Yes it was, it was judged not suitable.
Weither the reasons were real or imagianed I can't say. It did use a recoiling barrel in a full length jacket which some peaple were worried could becomeve bent, dented or damaged and jam the rifle. It did not use full power ammuntion. It actually wasn't that light in weight less than 1/2 pound lighter than a 1903 Springfield and that is with the 5 round magazine.

ANd only the 25 caliber is what we would really call an intermediate cartridge. A 170 grain bullet even at 2200fps is going to have about the same kick as a 123 grain at around 3000fps if we disregard the recoil effect of the propellent.
 
If you think a 30-30 recoils like a 30-06 I have to wonder at whether you contrasted them very well.

The reason it was judged unsuitable (IMHO) is for the same reason Hitler fought the Stg44 idea so insistently they had to label it a submachinegun during development so he wouldn't shoot the idea down. "Conventional Wisdom" was not ready for an assault rifle concept, they wouldn't be ready for one in America until the 1960s!
 

I am not contrasting a 30-30 to a 30-06. I am contrasting a 30-30 to a 7.62 x39.
Recoil is much more proportinal to momentum (mass times velocity) than it is to energy (mass times velocity squared).
I have read that the Remington Model 8 was used as a control weapon in tests of semi-automatic rifles by the US Military in the 1920s. IF true it means that they had already rejected the Model at as a military weapon but not rejected the IDEA of a semi-autometic battle rifle.
 

Does anyone know when the Browning BAR was patented and entered production?
Browning BAR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Talking about the semi-auto rifle, not the M1918.
Wondering if that entered production early enough to be relevant to this discussion.
 

Well, I recon the U.S. Army wanted to "what if" a bit too: if they just got something using the .45, they would end up with something like a Tommy gun, or any other current SMGs...
 
obviously they didn't reject the idea of a semi-auto battle rifle, but they did reject an intermediate cartridge. They wanted the 30-06 and eventually the .308, not an assault rifle capable cartridge.
 
it wasn't the semi-auto part that bugged them, it was the intermediate cartridge. They didn't accept less than a full battle rifle until McNamara jammed an early malfunctioning version of the M16 down their throats.
 
The .276 was hard on barrels....So, that wouldn't have been a good choice.
 
"A 170 grain bullet even at 2200fps is going to have about the same kick as a 123 grain at around 3000fps if we disregard the recoil effect of the propellent. "


You can't figure that out mathematically because every gun has a different weight.....
 
this gets me to wondering, what if the Garand had been chambered for the .30 Remington? Shorten it to the length of the "Tanker Carbine" Garand and load 12 rounds instead of 8. Definitely would have been better for city/hedgerow fighting.
 
Clay_Allison said:
this gets me to wondering, what if the Garand had been chambered for the .30 Remington? Shorten it to the length of the "Tanker Carbine" Garand and load 12 rounds instead of 8. Definitely would have been better for city/hedgerow fighting.
Click to expand...
The .30 Remington would've had minimal armor peircing ability and limited range!.... We would've been at a major disadvantage..
 
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Doughboy said:
The .30 Remington would've had minimal armor peircing ability and limited range!.... We would've been at a major disadvantage..
Click to expand...
For the same reason we use assault rifles today, they are lighter, handier and they fight very well at the ranges that combat actually takes place. a 1000 meter cartridge on a non-sniper rifle is pointless. Rifles are not called upon to pierce armor anyway. The M1 Carbine kept finding its way into front line use because soldiers wanted a light, handy quick-shooting gun for the small towns, forests, mountains, and hedgerows that kept the fighting close quarters through much of the war.

Kalashnikov very quickly realized that the Germans were on to something with the Stg44 and created the AK-47. The soviets realized that a single designated marksman with a scoped rifle could make up any potential range disparity issues and free up the rest of the squad to be more mobile. We use this system today in Iraq and Afghanistan with M-16s being supported by an M-14 (eventually to be replaced by SR-25s)

I can't believe you don't understand that the last 60 years of improvements we've made in weapons somehow put people at a disadvantage versus 10 pound Garands. Those rifles were very good compared with the bolt action weapons our allies and enemies were still using, but a lighter, more nimble weapon is much more important than toting a cannon.
 
Yes they were called upon to Pierce armor! Soldiers fired their firearms at planes, light-armored tanks and vehicles.
Why do war rifles of the time have adjustable sights that go up to 1,000 meters?

Are you trying to recreate the Spanish-American war situation again? The Spanish were killing us (with there 7MM Mauser's) at ranges that our 30-40 Krags were not effective at...You can't tell me the Germans wouldn't have taken advantage of that.

It was still a war of Battlefields, that's why we used men's cartridges, instead of the Poodle-shooters we use today.

Sorry, for the grammar.
 
I guess the US ought to get with the times and go back to the 45/70! We should probably wear a "man's uniform" (bright red) and march in a "man's formation".

Shooting at tanks? Are you serious? That's just stupid. The 30-06 ball round won't pierce an inch of mild steel, much less rolled steel armor. You're going to keep a rifle design based on the insane hope you accidental shoot down a plane with it? The job of a rifle is to kill the enemy soldier. Piercing light cover and (nowadays) body armor is all it should be concerned with. You load your troops down with a ton of excessive gear and immobilize them before marching them into the jungle, see how it works.

There is a place for big bad cartridges, in machine guns and sniper rifles. Nothing makes me happier than a Marine sniper engaging a target with .50 BMG sniper rifle from 1200 meters, but giving one each to every marine would be absurd.
 
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