The SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trades) Show is the annual firearms industry trade show, and I have attended it for several years. There is generally not very much there of direct relevance to the sort of historical firearms that we typically cover here, but it is an excellent opportunity to meet up with folks and there are sometimes a few interesting guns to see.
A few of the interesting items from this year…
The Polish FB Radom factory brought several different firearms which they would like to release on the American market. These include their Beryl AK, the BRS-99 submachine gun and PR-15 handgun, and their MSBS combat rifle. The MSBS is significant in being the first Polish military rifle actually designed in Poland in many decades – Poland’s army has used the AK and Mauser for most of a hundred years. The MSBS is a short stroke, rotating bolt design that looks pretty nice. It has the interesting feature of being configurable as either a standard rifle or a bullpen with the same receiver. The practical application for such a conversion is limited, but still interesting.
There are two different companies making new-production M1 Carbines right now, and I was able to speak with both of them (James River Armory and MKS Supply/Inland). I had a chance to do a bit of shooting with the Inland gun, and it seemed good (with the exception of some sketchy aftermarket magazines that caused problems). I should be getting review examples of both guns to do a bunch more shooting with, and some side by side comparison will be fun and interesting. Inland is offering a standard rifle and a paratrooper version, while James River has a slightly different standard gun (with the improved lever safety) and a T3 version with a scope mount.
And, of course, the most exciting product to me was the Sturmgewehr from HMG. Last year at the show I first spoke to Hill and Mac, and their claim of having the rifle ready in a year seemed really optimistic. But lo and behold, they arrived this year with 4 complete guns. The guns are not ready to shoot yet, as they are still in need of final tweaking and finalizing, but the progress is remarkable and the final product is definitely in sight. I stopped by their booth several times, and it usually several people deep in interested buyers. I think this rifle will be really successful. They are projecting a ship date of June, which will provide a few more months to get everything polished and finalized.
I was able to meet a lot of very cool folks who rear the web site and follow my YouTube and Full30 channels, and that was a real pleasure. Thanks to everyone who introduced themselves!
So does Kahr/Auto Ordnance still make a M1 carbine?
The M1 Carbine is still in the Auto Ordinance catalog.
Note also, that AO/Kahr and MKS/Inland are both using cast receivers, whereas JRA/Rockola is machining receivers from billets.
What kind of finish is on the Sturmgewehr?
My lefty Dad served in the U.S. Navy during WWII, and was issued M1 Carbines. Since I have been diagnosed as “ambilateral” as opposed to “ambidextrous” I can shoot as well or badly either way, as long as hot brass doesn’t go down into my shirt. If a third of the population are “south paws”, one would have thought the firearms makers would have made both, same as uniform makers.
“If a third of the population are “south paws”, one would have thought the firearms makers would have made both, same as uniform makers”
But notice that many soldiers don’t use rifle as default weapon: truck-drivers, MG-gunner, mortar-men, artillery-men, tankers, pilots, navigators…
I don’t know how many of soldiers were/are riflemen in %? Say in WW1, WW2, Korean War etc?
In basic training we had M16s and when we went to the range the lefties would get hot brass down their shirts. They were finally issued and allowed to wear camo scarves only at the range to stop the brass. The only out-of-uniform cases allowed in basic.
“The MSBS is significant in being the first Polish military rifle actually designed in Poland in many decades – Poland’s army has used the AK and Mauser for most of a hundred years.”
However it does developed indigenous self-loading rifle – Maroszek self-loading rifle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kbsp_wz._1938M
but it don’t enter mass production before outbreak of World War 2.
“It has the interesting feature of being configurable as either a standard rifle or a bullpen with the same receiver”
Shouldn’t be bull-pup instead of bullpen?
MSBS-5,56 is acronym for Modular Firearm System 5.56mm Calibre
I suspect the ability of the MSBS to be configured as conventional or bullpup has less to do with giving customers the ability to change a rifle after they’ve bought it, and more to do with flexibility in manufacturing. The Polish army apparently wants both bullpup and conventional rifles. This design lets both be produced on the same assembly line using a lot of the same tooling, and without major product change over work required. Overall, this should reduce the capital investment required and let both rifles be produced in smaller batches.
Nice to see the M1 Carbine back in production. My dad has two both folding stock.
Were you able to check out Inlands Ithaca Model 37 Trench Gun? There was a short clip of it in an overview video. They said it was made by Ithaca.
Would really love to see somebody come out with an M1 carbine in .22 Spitfire/5.7 Johnson, even if it was a limited production run. Had one for a while, had to let it go due to more pressing needs, but it was one of the most fun little toys I’ve ever owned. But I’m sure there wouldn’t be enough market interest for any company to produce at enough profit to be worthwhile.
I remember the .22 Spitfire cartridge quite fondly. It was a great modification for the M1 carbine. The only problem was that surplus GI 30 carbine ammo was so increadibly cheap at the time, all were non-corossive, that it was hard to justify not keeping it in the original caliber.
When you do your review of M1 carbines, please include fulton and auto ordnance I believe that there are at lease four companies making M 1 carbines.
The sucess of stg44 repro would also depend heavily on the quality of the end product, so rushing it on the market while it’s not yet full tweaked and mastered could doom the whole project.