Any experts on here?
I may have accidentally (on their part) stumbled upon a gem.

Other than I've always wanted one...no.  One of the coolest and fun to shoot of the surplus market.  

So give us the scoop!

I bought a beat to crap Ethiopian supposed to be a Inland and it's all Winchester except the pot belly high wood stock and the Quality/Rock Ola handguard.
Kinda at a fork about which road to take.

It seems you know quite a bit now. I believe the story with carbines is a lot of parts were shipped around from factory to factory to meet shipments. If they are of the same period it's close enough.

Is it the earlier or later style parts?

If it has a good bore I'd just shoot it.

I think Royal Tiger just randomly stuck a action in a messed up stock and sold it.
The action appears to be all original even the barrel.
The lands are not real sharp and it almost eats a .30 bullet as a muzzle wear test but I don't care
It's unshootable as is, the action is just flopping in the stock, and I've got shooters.
Serial # is in the 5.6M range and the internals point to '44/'45 production.(late)

My turmoil is keep it as is all bare metal and rust or refinish everything, make it look new.
Other than the waist of the stock being uncleanable black from ????? hands holding it, it's got no "coolness", no "story to tell".
I made the mistake of using our vapor blaster on the slide because the brass brush wasn't doing anything, so I think I'm committed.

I don't know anything about that stuff.  I always wanted a Rockola Garand and an M1 carbine just because I love the guns and the jukeboxes.

Back in the early 70's a Texas gunsmith got hold of a Winchester action like you described but a 22" shilllen barrel on it with Williams sights a a custom Fajen mannlicher stock on it. I thought it was beautiful.

The barrel is what would be most expensive I think. But to me there's a certain cool factor.