Anyone here ever owned or shot one of these? Were they any good? I found one article from a few years back, but I don't know if that was vaporware or not. Did a search on that broker board to see if any were for sale just to check for existance. Nothing shows up.

The only non GI receiver 30 carbine I know of is made by Auto-Ordinance, Kahr.

A UK based gun firm makes/supplies AR's in .30-carbine cal

The unigue feature of them (as we cannot own semi-auto full-bores here) is that to cock the action the pistol grip has a hange-type arrangement

Supposed to be quite fast in operation. I dont know how easy it would be for you to get an upper from them or a complete rifle then have it made into a "normal" AR  - gas or piston operated

Another UK firm makes .30-carbine cal Enfield based bolt action carbines (also in 9mm, .45ACP, etc.)
They are supposed to be quite good shooters & IIRC use Ruger pistol mags....or something like that...

Pre-1988 Ban here my Ivor Johnson M1 carbine was one of my favourites

If I remember correctly, wont a 30 carbine round drop into a 223 chamber? if so, having a AR chambered in 30 carbine would just be a ticking time bomb for someone stupid to come along and then blame the manufacturer.

Martini,

I assume you're referring to the 30 carbine AR15 upper made by Olympic Arms back in the day. They do run and use the standard AR gas system. A drop in mag block was supplied that allowed the use of standard M1 carbine mags, but the mag catch needed to be replaced with one having a hole for a screw to work the mag catch gizmo in the block.

Low recoil and seems to work well.

Supposedly they were made for somebody in particular (the rumor is a foreign government).

A few folks on here claim to own them, I've asked for pictures of the magazine adapter repeatedly and haven't seen one yet.

Olympic isn't supporting them with service parts and apparently has no interest in reintroducing them.

I've contacted the place in the UK a time or two in an attempt to purchase the magazine adapter to no avail.

I had the good fortune to handle one a few years back, it appeared quite well made, the magazine adapter was VERY nicely executed in machining, but did not explore any changes needed to the release button.  There were a few customizations that made it less than perfect in terms of commercial attractiveness:  The magazine adapter was inserted from the top and rested on the lower with a lip.  This required material from the upper to be milled away to make room for this lip, which meant a pretty much dedicated system.  Also, due to the slightly smaller rim size, it was my understanding that Oly was making custom bolts (or modifying .223 versions to fill the extra space...).  Either way, a time and money intensive ordeal.

A certain foreign government used the M1 Carbine extensively, along with some of the "extension" services (armed citizenry).  Several projects were undertaken to give the M1C a "face lift" or otherwise make it more suitable for modern applications.  Why?  I dunno, seems that with a nice MRD and a folding stock, these are some sublime pack/truck carbines...

I read once that Isreal supplied the M-1 30 carbine chambered AR to the Arab police in the occupied territories (west bank & Gaza).   I never could understand this unless they were trying to give them a cartridge not readily available or usable to their enemies?  Seems like the Philipines or another Asian country bought a few but I'd be surprised if more than a couple hundred were sold to the public in the US.