(Wiki photo.)
Living where we do, we need to have a rifle behind the door. One day, a pack of wild dogs showed up, headed for our goats. And coyotes occasionally come too close. These are real threats we never had to deal with when we lived in the city. If we’re going to keep animals, we must be prepared to protect them.
Because I travel, we need a rifle my wife can handle. The small rifles we’ve tried didn’t fit her relatively tall, slight frame, so she’s been using the 30-30, a lever action rifle of the style they use in cowboy movies. It’s a nice rifle, very reliable, but it’s too long and heavy for her. She’s accurate to about 50 yards– not really good enough in case of a threat to our livestock.
Last week, I pulled an old World War II M-1 Carbine out of the safe. It was made in 1943 by General Motors Inland Manufacturing Division– companies as diverse as IBM, National Postal Meter, and Underwood (the typewriter company) made them. As a friend of mine commented, “In those days, if Uncle Sam asked, you made rifles.”
I bought the rifle as an investment. The M-1 doesn’t have a particularly good reputation as an assault rifle. (Despite its lack of a pistol grip and other “assault rifle” characteristics, the M-1 is by definition an assault rifle.) But one author makes a good case that the M-1 is unfairly maligned:
“With proper ammunition, the M1 carbine can easily compete in effectiveness with .223-chambered weapons out to at least 150 yards, and few police or civilians have any business shooting at anybody farther away than that.”
For reference, I can hit a target at 200 yards with the 30-30, and I’m pretty close with an AK-47 at 300 yards. My WWI Swedish Mauser with a scope is on target at 500 yards. A marksman with good rifle, ammunition, and scope can hit a target at 1,000 yards or more. (I can’t.) But realistically, 150 yards is all the accuracy a ranch rifle needs to have.
The M-1′s 30 caliber bullet is big enough to be effective, but it doesn’t have the kick of a high powered rifle like a Mauser, .270, or 30-06. Best of all, the M-1 Carbine fits my wife better than anything else we’ve tried. So, 65 years old or not, the old M-1 has become our new ranch rifle.
Like anything else, accurate shooting requires practice. Weather permitting, we’ll be out in the backyard shooting at plastic bottles on Sunday afternoons.
