So I got a call from the local shop today - they were all excited.  They grabbed an Inland General Motors carbine for $300 from an old lady.

The guys at the shop know what I buy - so they said they would hold it for me and let me have it for $350

I was like

Until I went to take a peek...

Warning:  Some Images may be too graphic and or disturbing



So far so good...  



Sweet custom bayonet mounting system... friction.   Detachable through removal of the front sight.



Nice looking Enfield Bayonet - No 9 mk1...  Sadly, more valuable than the rest of the package...



Handguard has some slight modifications...  as well as the super cool double dovetail tapped screw holes.



Don't worry about that rear sight... no one wanted that there anyway...  and that factory dovetail was just too hideous to be left alone on this gorgeous gun.



Williams Sight... Must be a sniper variant.  



Nice simulated tiger stripe burned and sanded to oblivion.



Glad they didn't ruin this part...


Needless to say - I turned it down...  They offered it to me at cost...  hard to walk away, but I think I can.  


Edit -

What do you guys think - would there be enough meat left to re-dovetail the rear sight...  I could throw it into some cheap wood and cover up the barrel dovetails...  Fill the receiver sight holes and they would be half covered by unaltered wood...  

I dunno...  say when they get frustrated and take $100.  Though that might be a little steep.  

that poor rifle

I'd say it's toast.

All the other things I have to say can be expressed by this emoticon:



And regarding that bayonet setup:

Only thing its worth is a parts rifle

Oy.  Poor thing.

What the F is the matter with some bubbas?

so, so sad.

Ouch.

I would offer way less than $300. I'm not sure how easy it would be to rebuild the rear sight dove tail. I guess you could weld it up and reshape it but I would be worried about the receiver heat treating. All the other bubba mods can be fixed or hidden.

I have a soft spot for undoing Bubba butchering so I would at least try. If not than sadly part it out.

Maybe an all early parts carbine or paratrooper clone is in order. If you can restore it I think it would make a great truck gun, home defense or property defense rifle.

Oh, the horror.

Aw man a vintage zombie gun for the new world.

For $300.00 I think I would have had to get it if the bore is good,and the rifle is functional that is,so it would have to be test fired.Knock that bayonet off there and plug the hole in the handguard followed by some 220 grit and linseed oil to get rid of the bling.The rear sight would just have to do.That would at least be a good attempt to somewhat restore to something you wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with and save some face for the old war horse.Heck you may just be the last hope for the poor little thing.
Never know might be a good range gun to play with.Gota remember some .22lr's cost that much nowadays.

Did the shop see the gun before agreeing to $300 . someone will buy it for parts. You look at this sad carbine and remember they used to be cheap

Why did they hate that carbine so much.

It's a parts gun at this point

Is there hope yet?

I was dropping off paperwork at our local police department and saw an old-timer in the parking lot with an M1 carbine. I chatted him up. Turns out he was a Navy Corpsman on Iwo Jima. He had picked the carbine up from a dead Marine on the first day and carried it the whole time he was there. He smuggled it home and it had been wrapped in oiled paper since then. He was turning it in to be destroyed because his kids wanted him to get it out of the house. I told him I was a retired Marine and practically begged him to sell it to me, but he wouldn't. It kills me to think of a weapon with that provenance being cut up. I hope some cop took it home.

I have an IBM receiver that needs all the other bits.  That's not a bad deal for a parts gun.  Receiver heat treat shouldn't be bothered by re-welding the rear sight - that's not a structural part of the receiver.  Would love have to have seen the scope mount on that.  It's an ideal candidate for a proper scope mount.

Walk away, unless you think modernizing it with a rail to make into a HD gun. You can find commercial carbines for that price and have something that likes GI.

This is like a M1 carbine snuff film. I'm physically ill.

That's brutal. I think it's one of those guns where I would take it if it was given to me
but I don't know if I would buy it even for $100. If it was my gun I would pick up a barreled receiver and stock set from
Fulton Armory and have the headspace checked with the donor rifles bolt.  This would give you a
Good shooter but the rifle will still have no collector value.

Now that is real sad . . .

The carbine posted by the OP might be a nice shooter.

Shhhh.  The anointed ones are having their post-'68 official mourning party.

Take that abortion of a bayonet mount off and it would be a nice knock around truck gun. I'd offer about $250 for it assuming the barrel looked decent.

True.  No collectors' value, but it could still be of some use.  With the barrel, handguard, and rear sight ruined, it would be a good candidate for an Ultimak rail and a red dot.

Super sad - because I guarantee that didn't happen.  

I saw a lot of guns come in while I was working the road - I wanted a lot of them - but it doesn't happen that way.  

Well, it's certainly creative.  I can understand everything but the bayonet.  That is truly a WTF idea.  

Much as I hate the term, it would make a nice truck gun.  I'd give them $100 for it.

A potential heirloom raped down to a truck gun. What a way to go!

Repairable but not for $300.



Rear sight fix would be milling the new dovetail and TIG welding it on, using plenty of heat stop to protect the rest of the receiver. Dovetail cuts could have dovetail keys brazed or peened in and sanded to match the profile.



At most I'd go 200 on it, because you're looking at several hundred in labor to fix it.

That was a common carbine "upgrade" years ago when they cost $25-40.

Anointed ones my ass. Anyone with the slightest appreciation of weapons or anything else of historical military significance should be disgusted. This abomination is the gun equivalent of airbrushing tattoos on the mona lisa. Carbine Williams is doing chimp flips in his grave.

That's actually a pretty good idea.

That's very sad. Myself, though, as long as the barrel was good, I think I'd pay $300 for it for a truck gun. I love M1 Carbines, though, and have a real weak spot for them. Sadly, all I own is an Iver Johnson copy. It works well but certainly isn't GI. I always wanted a GI carbine and thought they'd be around forever and never bought one when they were affordable. Now, I can't afford a good one.

Its really sad what was done to some of them back in the day. At the PD I work for, we have an M2 in the safe. It is stamped M1 and the cut in the stock for the selector switch and auto sear parts is kinda crude, so I suspect that it was assembled from an M1 sometime in the '50's. The carbine was presented to the PD from a local sporting good distributor in the late '50's/early '60's. Unfortunately, before they presented it, the buffed the shit out of it and blued it, so it at least started out with a high gloss blue finish and now has a brownish/purplish patina. It was buffed so heavily that part of the serial number is pretty much obliterated and what's left is very light. Legible, but very light. They also sanded the shit out of the stock and high gloss varnished it, in addition to nailing a brass presentation plaque on the right side of the butt, completely obliterating any markings that may have been on it. No, no pics because it isn't mine.

The really sad thing is that it shoots great, at least in semi auto. In full auto, it fails to feed regularly, although the mags the PD have are 30 rounders of dubious quality. For a while, I seriously considered calling the ATF to see if it was on the NFA registry. If it wasn't, I thought about stripping out the FA parts and seeing if the Chief would let me buy it and then using it as a trunk gun or strictly a shooter. On further consideration, given the partially obliterated serial number, I gave up on the idea. With my luck, I'd end up having to use it and, when it was found out that the serial number is partially obliterated, I'd get hung for it. Too bad because, even though it looks bad, it still shoots well. I take it out once in a while so it still gets some love, but it is destined to probably be destroyed someday soon or to remain a permanent safe queen.

Bub75

I appreciate military weapons quite a bit, and collect them as I can.  I suspect the sight base was cut off so the formerly mounted scope would clear, lowering the scope's bore closer to the bbl, and thus extending the range the former owner could take an ethical shot on deer or yotes.  It's not unrepairable given a good welder and a decent machinist, as it's not a structural part of the receiver, but it's not cost effective to repair at this time.  So it's a parts gun or a truck gun now, and perfectly usable either way.  When carbines reach insane prices, this receiver will be snagged up and rewelded, and end up as a restored example.  It'll show up in the Retro section, and someone will bemoan they can only get Iver Johnson handguards for it, even though it looks stock.

Given sound mechanical condition/good bore I would have bought it for $300.00 OTD in a heart-beat.

Leave the sight as is or maybe get a screw-in aperture for it. No use stressing about what's not there.

Remove/sell the bayonet if you have no use for it. (Re-coup some of your money)

Toss the HG and get a metal "cheese grater" hand-guard. Black matches everything.....I'd replace the whole stock set but I have a extra one.

Heck, even Universals are bringing $400.00 to 475.00+.....I'll bet you could easily get $500.00 for it once it's fixed cosmetically. Warts and all it's a GI Carbine.

Sorry Hoss, you left money on the table.

Then you worked for the wrong department. Every time someone turned in a gun to the first PD I worked for, I would get a call to pick it up if I wanted it. I've got a nice S&W 5" Target Model 1905, Colt "357" (pre-Python), and a few other nice guns. Then there's the crap, like this one, but I have to take the good with the bad to keep the flow of good guns coming:

I don't even work for that PD anymore, but the chief still calls me to pick up anything I want that's turned in. He does a check to ensure they aren't stolen, then they are fair game for me if I want them.

Then there's the M1 Carbine I was called about. A vet brought it back from WWII and didn't want to be caught with the firearm issued to him, so he ground the SN off! But all the other parts were still in excellent mechanical but wartime used condition. The receiver was crap, obviously, so I stripped everything down and, not caring about the defaced receiver, I clamped it in the vise on the back of my truck to remove the barrel. I salvaged everything but the receiver then used an Oxy-Acetylene torch and cut it into three parts to destroy it. I posted a WTB ad on Gunboards.com for a USGI M1 Carbine receiver and ended up with an Inland barrelled receiver fairly inexpensively. Now I have an M1 Carbine with the Paratrooper folding stock in my M1 Caebine collection!

I'd offer the shop $250 for the Carbine and see if they will take it. If not, I'd probably still pay the $300, depending on my mood that day. It is possible to TIG weld the rear sight mount on, but finding a donor receiver to use for the parts would be a problem. I'm not a total purist when it comes to my guns. I'll NEVER be the one to butcher an original, but if I come across something like this one, I'll modify it, modernize it, and make it more useable than the original. I agree it could make a good trunk gun.

If you aren't going to pick it up, please PM me the name of the shop. It might be worth a road trip for me.

Actually, the two Arminius I have shoot well.  RG out of Germany was total crap.

POF No. 9 bayonets are very common (worth $20 if in excellent condiiton), but most of them are without their scabbards. (The scabbards work with No. 5, No. 7, and No. 9 bayonets.) So the scabbard is worth $30-40 on its own. The bayonet with scabbard therefore is worth at least $50. That's assuming it wasn't altered in fitting it to the carbine.

As for the carbine, it's usable only as a parts gun, and there aren't many salvagable parts there anyway. The receiver, barrel, and handguard are fit to be trashed. Maybe the stock also.

I would offer $100, tops, for the whole outfit.

so, they did all that to add glass to the top of it?

Looks like it.  PIty OP didn't get the mount, rings, & scope - we'd probably find the rear bell just a whisker over the rear receiver, which is probably why they shaved off the sight dovetail.

holy shit....

It's still on the shelf if you guys want the phone # to the shop...  I'm passing on it for sure.

So I picked the damn thing up in a package deal tonight...

Now what?

Who should I contact about rebuilding the rear dove-tail?  Anyone have any suggestions?

Yeah - figure out how to put a decent scope on it @ the lowest possible height from the bore, which is why the rear dove tail was cut off in the 1st place.  Or - strip it & send me the parts; I have an IBM receiver I have to build...

I was looking at M1 Carbine snipers - but can't seem to find a repro mount...

You need to look for the M3 or T3 infra red scope and mount.  

There was an M1 Carbine at a local shop here a few months ago with the EXACT same modifications. However, they wanted $600 for it. Weird.

You're telling me there's two horrible butchers out there...  Oh dear God.  

B/c it's a common mod to get decent glass as low as possible over the bore of a rifle shooting more like a howitzer.  On the T3/M3, was the rear sight boss retained?

I don't see evidence that a scope was ever actually mounted...  Just that a mess was made.  

They dovetailed the barrel and hammered two nuts into the dovetails instead of drilling and tapping holes...  

Butcher is the nice way of describing whoever did this "damage.".

There isn't any rear attachment point (tapped holes, etc) -
For a scope mount.

Out of curiosity - I'd love to see the completed project...  I just want to try to understand WHY?

Thought there was some sort of scout mount through the forend?

Not cheap, but here you go.