m 1 carbine national postal meter serial numbers

On the main body of the stock there should be markings called a cartouche on the right side of the portion of the stock between the hand grip and the butt plate that will tell you the primary contractor and there should be a crossed cannon cartouche there as well.

The S is for the Primary contractor, Standard Products, and the HB marks the sub-contractor who actually made the piece. The stock markings (S-HB) was, I'm guessing, marked on the inside of the handguard. The S/N though was originally assigned to Inland and would have been used, probibly sometime in 1942. They did, however, make thousands of barrels for other primary contractors. Underwood actually stopped production of complete M1 carbines in May 1944. I have difficulty understanding how a Inland receiver from an early run came to be lined out and matched with a 7-44 Underwood barrel, except during a refurbish, which yours certainly went through. You stated you could read the lower 1/3 of some of the lined-out letters.what are they?Īside from the interesting line out receiver it appears you have a classic 'mixmaster'. The only way to know for sure is to attempt to identify the lined-out manufacturers name. My best guess from researching this, the receiver was produced by Saginaw Gear and is a serial number duplicated by SG in the Inland serial number range. So although your carbine was produced by Underwood the receiver was produced by someone other than Underwood.this will explain the serial number of the receiver not matching Underwood's production serial number blocks.

The government required these contractors to identify receivers made by or transferred from others by codeistamps or line-outs of the original manufacturers name' Many receivers were sub-contracted to fulfill production needs.

'Due to material shortages, production delays and contract requirements, many receivers changed hands between manufacturers. Here is a excerpt from M1 Carbine by R C Larson. What you describe sounds like a line-out receiver.

M 1 carbine national postal meter serial numbers