Plainfield M1 Carbines

[Smokehouse69]

Back in the early 70's I had a Plainfield M1 Carbine, I paid about $125.00 brand new. It was not much of a rifle and in no way compared to the WWII Saginaw carbine I used to own. It jammed constantly, would pop off 3 rounds in full automatic occassionally (then jam.)
I only had it for about 3 months and traded it for something else (I can't even remember what.)
A couple a days ago I found one in a gun shop the dealer wanted 750.00 for it. At that price I thought it must be one of the new reproductions from Auto-Ordinance or Fulton Armory. That is an insane price for a Plainfield!
Were they as bad as I remembered or did I just have a lemon?

[nevada]

I had one back then, very unreliable. Took it back to the store and got another one which was also no good. That dealer is nuts.

[Planning]

just before plainsfield went bankrupt they started building m-2 carbines for law enforcement. they seam to be very good FA weapons. the semi-auto's did not seam to be as well made.

in the last few month iver johnson bought them out of all there parts and use them to build semi-auto rifles. the last 2-3years (89-91) most of the I.J. m-1 carbines had m-2 parts in them. only missing 3-4 parts that would have made them full auto's. I bought 32 of the WWII commerative rifles built in 1991 ( 1941-1991) 5 had beechwood stocks and 26 had walnut stocks with the U.S. flag in the stock. beautiful rifles. ( i still have a few of them somewhere)

the plainsfield early rifles has many new surplus GI military parts in them and were considered to be good rifles.

the main cause of the jamming on m-1 carbines is the mags are not made of a thick metal and people will insert the mag and slam the bottom to seat it. this causes the mag lip to bend in and will cause stove piping. usually on the third round. this did not seam to be as much a problem with the 15 round mags as it did with the 30 round mags.

over the years i have had good luck with the plainsfield and iver johnson rifles, but IMHO they are not as good as the U.S. made GI military rifles.

[WildBillCody]

I had one years ago that was a beauty, all the parts were USGI except the barrel was about 3/4" longer then a GI. It was one accurate rifle, one day at the range I was hitting tennis ball size rocks at 100 yards. I think it a very early production.

[pidaster]

I've got a plainfield that is excellant. It has GI parts in it and I constantly shoot swinging gongs at 100 yards. I even shot a deer with it last season. Only problem I've ever had with it was some cheap, crappy ammo that wouldn't even always fire.

[amd65]

One of my first buys was a plainfield. Like planning said, it was 90% M2. The FA parts would have just dropped in. Even the stock was relieved for the disconnector lever. As I remember, the three parts needed cost about $18! Wish I would have registered it back then and converted it, it would be worth a bundle now.
Anyway, mine was accurate and reliable. Used to be able to buy GI ammo in spam cans. It came on stripper clips with a built in mag guide, and you could load a mag quicker than it takes to write this.
At the time I owned mine, you could walk into any discount store, and they had them for sale, not even behind the counter, but right out in the aisle where you could pick them up and look them over. One store was called Giant Tiger, the other was Uncle Bills. Store like a smaller version of Walmart. The gun banners who say guns are more available now don't want you to remember the days when you could walk into a discount store and walk out with an M1 carbine with no NICS check or anything. If you stood in the middle of a store aisle, no one looked askance at a father showing his son an M1 carbine.
My friend bought an Iver Johnson. His suffered premature wear of the camming surface in the op rod hump. Not sure if it was improper heat treat, or his lack of lubrication, or both. IJ fixed it under warranty, and it worked fine, then. His had the wierd "paratrooper" stock with the sliding wire stock and the vertical fore grip.
When I worked at Camp Perry National Matches in 1980, I brought my Plainfield, thinking I might get a chance to shoot it. Surpisingly, it caused quite a stir amongst my NRA bosses when they found out I had a carbine--they were surprisingly shocked that a college intern would bring a weapon to the National Matches. After alot of wrangling, they allowed me to test fire it on the funtion testing range...not even aiming at a target, and holding it at a raised angle to put the bullets in Lake Erie, loading one by one, and not using the mag.

[Herzo]

I just bought a Plainfield for my son. I gave $300 for it with 5 mags and a hundred rounds of ammo. It seems to shoot well, fit and finish are up to but not the same as military (blued vs parkerizing). I am curious as to when it might have been built, a search of the net does not give any info on the Plainfield S/N's This one is W6xx.

It was either buy this one for him or give him my GI Saginaw for which I paid $85.00 (FAT CHANCE)!!!

[97th Signalman]

One of my first buys was a plainfield. Like planning said, it was 90% M2. The FA parts would have just dropped in. Even the stock was relieved for the disconnector lever. As I remember, the three parts needed cost about $18! Wish I would have registered it back then and converted it, it would be worth a bundle now.
Anyway, mine was accurate and reliable. Used to be able to buy GI ammo in spam cans. It came on stripper clips with a built in mag guide, and you could load a mag quicker than it takes to write this.
At the time I owned mine, you could walk into any discount store, and they had them for sale, not even behind the counter, but right out in the aisle where you could pick them up and look them over. One store was called Giant Tiger, the other was Uncle Bills. Store like a smaller version of Walmart. The gun banners who say guns are more available now don't want you to remember the days when you could walk into a discount store and walk out with an M1 carbine with no NICS check or anything. If you stood in the middle of a store aisle, no one looked askance at a father showing his son an M1 carbine.
My friend bought an Iver Johnson. His suffered premature wear of the camming surface in the op rod hump. Not sure if it was improper heat treat, or his lack of lubrication, or both. IJ fixed it under warranty, and it worked fine, then. His had the wierd "paratrooper" stock with the sliding wire stock and the vertical fore grip.
When I worked at Camp Perry National Matches in 1980, I brought my Plainfield, thinking I might get a chance to shoot it. Surpisingly, it caused quite a stir amongst my NRA bosses when they found out I had a carbine--they were surprisingly shocked that a college intern would bring a weapon to the National Matches. After alot of wrangling, they allowed me to test fire it on the funtion testing range...not even aiming at a target, and holding it at a raised angle to put the bullets in Lake Erie, loading one by one, and not using the mag.

I bought my first shotgun at Uncle Bills in 1964. It was a 12 ga SBS sold by Noble and made in Eibar, Spain.

[okie shooter]

I imagine the problem with folks registureing these as FA weapons, was the cost of the tax stamp, was well in excess of what they cost in the day. Hard to spend two hundred bucks on the stamp on a rifle that cost just more than half that or even less.

Remember in the day what Mac-9's and other cheap fa stuff cost, heck I remember looking at shotgun news, wondering why a fa, ar-15/m-16 cost less than ten precent more than a semi auto one, but forgetting the tax stamp on top of that.