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Project : SHEEPDOG
Weapon : Auto Ordnance M1 Carbine
Objective : Ultimate reliable and effective PDW personal defense weapon
Concept : Urban patrol and perimeter and personal defense, ranges under 200 yards

STAGE 1 FUNCTION / RELIABILITY OF THE ACTION

    Project Sheepdog is a pet project of mine to take a stray dog and turn it into a guardian work dog worthy of its lineage. The Auto Ordnance M1 is a good rifle in its own way, but for this project I will be doing modifications to make it better suited to my own purposes and more reliable than it comes from the factory. Bear in mind this is not a WWII veteran, no safe-queens were harmed in the making of this blog, and the Auto Ordnance is a good base to build from when you don't want to harm your sensibilities.
    The M1 Carbine was designed from its inception as a personal defense weapon with a range of around 300 yards, personally I feel that even though it can kill at that range the M1 is perfectly suited to around 200 yards max and even better at 180 and less, where it still has reasonable accuracy and punch. Contrary to popular belief the 30 Carbine round has more energy at the muzzle than some 44 magnum rounds from a 4" barrel, and about as much at 100 yards as a 357 magnum from a 6" barrel at the muzzle. With the right ammunition this gun will do the deed and do it well. I believe truly that if the ammunition had been named 30 magnum no one would have ever questioned its abilities and in all honesty that's exactly what this round is like, a 30 magnum handgun round.. with a slow burning powder to get the most velocity possible from an 18 inch barrel. With some good ammo like CORBON or GOLD DOT or even some good soft point ammo the Carbine truly comes into its own, and with the FMJ ammo armor piercing to level IIIA is not a problem, neither are car doors, walls, cinder block etc. I carry both kinds of ammo at all times really good soft points or bonded hollow points as well as a good selection of FMJ for barrier penetration, though I have found the CORBON to do a fine job of most barriers you may encounter in an urban situation where the ranges rarely exceed 100 yards, and were the Carbine truly shines as a weapon. This is the spirit of the project an urban sheepdog carbine, for the guardian who stands at the door so the wolves can nary enter in.
    The AOM130 can be picked up used for anywhere from $350.00 - $500.00 used from private sellers, and around $600.00 in most gun stores used. Personally I would not spend the full retail of $800.00 for this rifle any day of the week. I purchased mine used for a very good price and it is a fine specimen from the AO factory, not beat to death as a truck gun and it shoots every time I pull the trigger. To me reliability and accuracy within the scope of the weapons designated purpose are the two most important things, after that is weight and how much ammo I can carry.
    The AOM130 comes from the factory with no bayonet lug and a push type safety - just like the original M1's near the beginning of the war before that less than practical switch style safety was added. As you can see in the picture above the first thing I did was to add the Bayonet lug onto the front of the barrel for two reasons, one the barrel band that AO uses is quite simply not very good, and two I like having the option to mount a bayonet if needed. Another thing about the AO that I actually like is the addition of the M2 magazine catch which facilitates the use of 30 round magazines, something that purists don't like but that a practical user like myself finds very useful and more versatile than the original 15 round only catch. The M2 catch has the additional finger on the left side of the receiver to secure the detent on the 30 round magazine where the M1 catch does not.



M2 style magazine catch

    The AOM130 has a few areas that need some attention to make them reliable to the standards that I find acceptable, granted this particular M1 has not caused me any major issues however I have had at least one FTF in the many rounds I have sent downrange. This is not a major hiccup and it very well could have been an ammunition issue but when I started poking inside the receiver and the barrel I noticed some areas that I felt needed some attention and everyone that knows me understands that I can never let anything go unattended that can be made better or more useful. My number one goal in every situation is to make something useful the first question I always ask is "does it work?" something has to work to determine if it is then reliable or not, and that philosophy carries through everything I do in matters to do with tools, such as guns are. Looks are utterly unimportant to me in every aspect, and I could truly care less what anyone thinks about how something may look, guns, contrary to popular, modern, armchair warrior perception are tools not glamour contestants.
    The pussification of American men is not a subject I will delve into at this time, but needless to say there was a time when men were men and they stood for what was right and their tools were tools that could be banged around in a tool box or tossed into the mud dragged through the muck and mire and perform the intended purpose they were made to fulfill. The only modifications that make sense to me are the ones that either A - make it more reliable or B make it more useful.. everything else is just added weight or worthless nonsense to me and my way of thinking, that does not mean that my way is the only way and you are free to do whatever you wish with your weapons, just as I am free to do as I wish with mine.
    The first area of needed attention was the feed ramp and throat of the chamber, I took some serious time and polished the chamber, the throat and the feed ramp. This was a slow process that took a couple hours by hand but I did not want to remove material I just wanted to smooth out the areas to make loading and extraction easier, it is something I feel almost every gun can benefit from and something that is pretty much always useful in making a gun feed more kinds of ammo with more reliability. The first time I ever did this procedure was on an old 1911 .45 ACP pistol that at the time was having some issues feeding hollow point rounds, without major throating or feed ramp modification simply polishing the surfaces of the feed ramp the throat and the chamber - with a slight rounding of the transition between the feed ramp and throat made the old workhorse feed even the widest hollow point bullets without a hitch, and that is exactly the kind of thing that the M1 in almost every configuration can benefit from. The M1 was designed to feed FMJ ball ammo just as the old 1911 was - and no one has ever complained that the 1911 needed mods to make it feed modern ammunition and I didn't complain when I decided that the Auto Ordnance would benefit from this same treatment.
    Funny how perceptions about things change from weapon to weapon...

Chamber, feed ramp and throat polish

    I usually start with about 220 grit and work my way to 400, after this I grab some lapping compound and finish everything off as smooth as possible. The entire process takes about an hour and a half and is probably the best hour and a half you can spend on any gun. In terms of reliable feed and extraction there is nothing as important as this process, except maybe the return spring on the charging handle, in my opinion the charging handle spring on most M1s is weak at best and this can contribute to many a FTE or FTF in a variety of conditions and so it is usually the very first aftermarket piece I replace on any M1. I like Wolf springs and use them exclusively in my M1s, the return spring is the only one I use, the others are stored along with the original return spring in an emergency spring replacement kit that I keep handy at all times.
    The next area that I saw needing attention was inside the receiver in the bolt well. The area inside this particular AOM130 was covered in casting marks and though they were not directly impeding the operation of the bolt, I made the decision not to let it ever become and issue and so out came the papers and lapping compound once more.

Polishing inside the receiver

    The trick here is only to remove the high spots, we aren't trying to get it down to perfectly flat or remove that much material, the bolt is designed to run at a specific height and we don't want to change the geometry just smooth the high spots. In the above picture you can see the casting marks after smoothing, the bolt slides through like glass now and the "low spots" actually help hold oil, again remember looks aren't everything function over form every time. basically this kind of "wear" is the kind of thing that makes some older guns shoot better, it is not really wear at all it is simply removing the things that can at times cause the bolt to hang up in the receiver, even if it is only slight I would rather remove all points of stress from the system, and after testing this simple mod I would suggest everyone who owns one of these carbines takes some time to do this. If you do it correctly and don't remove a bunch of material you will thank me for the smoothness of your action.
    I simply used a rod the same size as the bolt wrapped in wet dry sand paper to begin the process working my way from 220 to 400 and finishing up with some lapping compound to smooth everything out. I did not apply any pressure up or down and you have to be sure you keep your rod perfectly straight so as not to change the inner geometry of the receiver.
    The third area that needed a little attention was the bottom of the bolt itself, it is ridged like corduroy, and there was evidence of brass being left behind on the bolt itself as though the ridges were actually grinding away the brass from the bullets in the magazine! Now this has never caused me an issue in the past but again there is no need for this kind of friction in the function of the action. Remember the goal here is to make this thing shoot every time no matter what, we cannot control everything in the equation so we concentrate on the things we can control like the function of the action itself and just like a race engine, all those hours in the machine shop are usually spent making things move more efficiently than they do from the factory. The bottom of the bolt took only about 5 minutes to smooth and it made a big difference in the function of the slide when loaded with a full magazine.

 

Polished Bolt

     Again we aren't going for perfectly flat metal here, the object is to smooth the surface enough that it feels like glass when you run your finger over it. You can see by the light shine in the above picture that even though some areas of dark parkerized metal still seem to strip through the bottom of the bolt it is smooth as can be. Just as previously mentioned we aren't removing metal here we are simply smoothing things out, it may seem pointless but every one of these small modifications work in concert to make the action run like a champ. This one simple mod by itself will save you some headaches when you really need the gun to function, as I stated before we can't control every aspect of every situation, ammunition, weather, stress, fate whatever they all can put a damper in your day, but we can control how the gun functions aside from those things so we choose the best ammunition we can get and we make the action run like a well tuned Ferrari, that doesn't mean things cant go wrong, but the more cards we stack in our favor the better in any given situation.
     All of that being said, this particular gun function pretty much flawlessly to start with a slight stutter when using really big hollow point hand loads, but now after these few modifications it will utterly devour everything I feed it, without a single stutter hiccup or anything. in fact I would say this little M1 is now as reliable as my AK 47, which is really saying a lot.
     Field testing has shown that these improvements have made this weapon a real shooter and truly reliable, these are things that have been worked on over the years on many other weapon systems to function with modern ammunition and to make them more reliable and adds a huge peace of mind factor to the equation, knowing your gun is going to function like a finely tuned machine every time you need it too is quite a boost of confidence and this gun is one I would reach for in a heartbeat now.

Total cost of Stage 1 - sand paper - lapping compound and 3 hours time + Wolf return spring upgrade = 20 dollars.
The peace of mind knowing that this weapon will function flawlessly every time = Priceless

    Next post we will be working on some other areas and looking at functional accessories that add to the weapon system and make the Carbine more useful for its intended purpose.