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Old 11-28-2012, 04:25 PM   #66
ChrisBlair
Buick 455 Fan
 
Drives: 1970 Buick, 2012 1SS LS3
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Boston MA
Posts: 5,957
Well, don't be too impressed with the M1A1 and the 1903A4, lol. I'm not out to fool anybody

The book is really the star of my collection and the 'wow' item

The M1A1 paratrooper carbine is an Inland, like the originals, and it is in the right s/n block to be 'second run'. But no records of exact s/ns were kept, because they are identical to standard M1 carbines except for the stock. So you can't say for example s/ns 300,000 to 305,000 were all M1A1s. nobody (so far) has found a record of which ones were made into M1A1s. That's why the prices are so high- the "real" ones all have very good documents that back them up. I have no such docs, it's a repro stock. What makes it rare is that in Massachusetts, you can't buy the folding stock. Plus it's has a pistol grip AND a bayonet lug. Big no-nos. Mine's legal because it was here before the ban and could be transferred. It's cool but with that stock it's a losuy shooter. I have a nice M2 carbine stock that makes it a great shooter

The 1903A4 is a forgery; can't afford the real thing, and if I could I wouldn't fire it much. Nuts to that. A fairly good fake but if you know 03A4s you can spot it as a fake in about .001 second! I built it from a 1943 Remington 03A3 that had been sporterized, so it was sort of a reclamation project

The stock is an original USGI stock. I know this because it has the "K" stamped in the cut-off well, plus the person that gave it to me is my Father. he had it in storage since 1962. At the time, there were no repro stocks- no need, you could get surplus stocks cheap. He bought three C- stocks total, out of a barrel of stocks that being one of them. One's on his Smith-Corona 1903A3. That rifle is rare, it's a 6-groove Savage barreled S-C 03A3. All three stocks cost him 15 bucks all together!
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