Aw Maaan…. Talk About Being Desperate For Friday.

Greetings and Salutations!
Gretchen’s kind of pissed at me…
More frustrated and bummed than anything else.
Mea Culpa on this one…

I was sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor as it’s been a minute, and the dog had made a BIG drooly mess of the water bowl, splashing the stuff all over. Now back in the day as soon as I got separated from the X, one of the very first purchases I got for the house back then was a ‘proper’ mop and bucket.

A quick aside: The X had those cheap Chineseum mop(s) and Bucket(s). She utterly refused to get or use anything other than that. Even when I was making six figures, she kept using these shitty Ronco Spin-Mops that just didn’t fucking work. No idea why, but all right…believe it or not we used to get in serious arguments about this kind of stuff… so after she and I were done, I finally got the BIG yellow Rubbermaid Mop and Bucket that I first used as a kid working in McDonalds, then in Army.

The right tool for the right job.
Use what you know Aye?

So as I was getting the floor prep done, well, while picking up the Water and Food Bowls, I slipped in the drool and I hit the bakers rack we have in the kitchen. Well, the rack has a bunch of ‘cooking stuff’ on there, as well as a few of Gretchen’s “kitchen tchotchkes”. To include some 50’s Classic Touristy “Mermaid” Salt and Pepper Shakers…
One of which ‘took a dive’…

Shit.
That’s the Pepper Shaker.
The porcelain really detonated on impact.
LOTS of itty-bitty pieces parts that’re for the most part nonrecoverable dammit.

I’m now working on recovering that.
Haven’t had any success in finding a replacement as of now but hope springs eternal. eBay is my fren on this one. (Provided it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg).

So yeah, I want the weekend to come sooner, rather than later.

Now, I haven’t forgotten you guys who’ve done DotMil genealogy research. I’ve gathered some of the ‘stuff’ and started. I’ll be sending out updates when the cray-cray slows. That being said I did have a ‘rush job’ that I got from one of my Best Army Bros out there.

He recently became the Chief of Police in a small-ish town in Pennsylvania. About 6 full timers, 4 part timers, and himself. The demographics lean towards heavy-white, so he’s happy.

Well happy in that it’s a good job, but he’s got a lot of things to do… one of the things he’s started was cleaning up the weapons and drugs… seems the last 2-3 dudes who were “in charge” were reeeeally lax on getting rid of ‘stuff’.

Now mind you, there’s zero evidence of anything other than a lack of institutional inertia in these ‘issues’. A lot of complacency, which I can dig what being a small town/low crime sort of place… His issue is having to do the paperwork and/or worse chase the paperwork from long-done cases where the evidence, say a couple of bags of weed or some blow that was confiscated and entered into evidence like years ago… This shit that should have been disposed of, but due to (my guess) laziness, it just never got handled. Nothing is missing (that he can tell) but just ooooold and stale AF… In fact he joked that the Italian Seasoning in his mini-kitchen has a stronger smell than this stale ass weed…

Now then, to fix this?
This’s where he’s a bit peeved
As well he should be…

ALL the ‘drug duckies gotta be in the right row’ to do a disposal of such things. Seems his predecessors were comfortable in kicking the can down the road Aye? He’s gotta line everything up (paperwork with ALL the details and whatnot) to do a burn on it in the near future… a real pain in the ass.

However, there is some ‘fun’ to be had: The weapons issues are primarily weapons that are either missing tags, or not properly logged into the vault. There’s a bunch in there that seem to be ‘turn ins’ that weren’t logged correctly when “Grandpa” died, and his out-of-town Hoplophobe relations turned his icky and unsafe guns over to the Local PoPo. There hasn’t been like any gun crime there in eons (I hope it stays that way for him) so the majority of things are turn ins, or BB Guns confiscated from the local hoodlum-wannabees. That being said, in the turn in weapons?

There’s only one of interest to him. And now of interest to me. He, knowing my proclivities with firearms and history contacted me to find out what I could about this particular weapon.

The rifle in question:

It’s a late model M1 Carbine in .30
I checked the serial number on the receiver (all matching BTW) and as it says

It’s an Underwood Elliot-Fisher made carbine, manufactured between January and February of 1944. I found that by going to the U.S. .30 Caliber Carbine website HERE. It also has a really nice example of the ‘Flaming Ordinance’ ball just behind where I blanked out the Serial Number.

It has the Type 3 Low Wooden Walnut stock, but lacks the sling and sling-keeper/oiler that normally ‘notches’ in the cutout to the rear of the stock. You can also see the closeup of the stock stamp:

This is, according to my research a really great example of a Ordinance Acceptance Stamp. The initials “GHD” stamped on the top indicate that the rifle was accepted by the government and manufactured by Winchester, with GHD standing for the initials of the Chief of Ordnance, while the UEF below stands for the Subcontractor, in this case Underwood Elliot-Fisher. Winchester was the overall ‘manufacturer’ but there were several subs, with Underwood (best known for typewriters back then) being the one that built this particular rifle/carbine

The patina is also proper for it’s age. In fact I did a really deep dive and found the reason that so many of the weapons at the time had that light-greenish patina was found in an article published waaay back in the day:

“In an in-house newsletter published by Inland during the war there is a picture of a factory worker dunking assembled barreled receivers into a tank of sealer. The sealer would have been the Chromic Acid Solution. Too long of an exposure time or too high of a concentrate of H2CrO4 (Chromic Acid)  imparts the green tint to the phosphate coating.”

Painter777 M1 Carbine Forum Nov 2021

This was part of a discussion of how to recreate the -exact- NIB patina like this Carbine has. Another thing worth noting, is that this one lacks the bayonet mount found on later models.

After my research and our discussing it, we’re about 90% sure this was a “Grandad Bring Back” that someone just ‘dropped off’ and left in the care of the Local Popo. My Fren is trying to find out who dropped it off, so he can try and find next-of-kin, so as to do all the paperwork proper and legal. If one can be found, then we may be able to save this as well as a couple of others from the grinder. I’ll keep you up to date.

So on that note, I got to get to my Supergluing.
Wish Me Luck
More Later
Big Country

24 thoughts on “Aw Maaan…. Talk About Being Desperate For Friday.”

  3. Ditto what Cedereq said… I dunno about the AO your friend is in, but here in God Bless Tennessee, the po-po often have auctions of un-claimed property, frequently including guns they’ve collected for one reason or another (I don’t _think_ they re-sell murder weapons). It’s an FFL transfer through the police dept. (b/g check and all that), but all the same, a safe, legal way of disposing of that property taking up space in the safe-room, and they make a few bucks? He should look into it, as it’s a simple auction (local co. handles the affair, collects their 15%).

      1. You would be stunned by how many guys I get wanting to sell a gun between buddies that want me to run it through my books, do the 4473 and background check, even though that is not required in Indiana. I have almost always talked them out of it.

  5. I gave up on using a mop years ago. Hands and knees on the floor with a bucket and a couple old towels. Wash and dry and move on.

    1. THIS. best way to clean anything is with your hands.. always…… done well the first time everytime. move along

    2. Brings back memories of the old karate dojo I used to train at there . . . We used to mop the floor after the last class of the day with old cloths & a squirt of detergent in a bucket on our hands & knees. 20 or so blokes & the odd sheila, scrubbing away. Funny enough- we didn’t care & just got it done as quick as we could.

  6. I put the Swiffer cloth under the shoe for mop and get exercise as well.
    Homie Harold the Brain had the paratrooper .30 with the collapsible stock and spare mag storage.
    Then sold it after moving to Pineland… to the neighbor with Tommy Guns and more.
    Their neighbor’s dog looks like some grizzly snow behemoth and was growling not too far off in the woods so I let Pietro B rip into some dirt mounds, they were pissed AF but got over it and the dog got quiet.
    I love a good stay gold Pony tchotchke rack for morale, mine has Kubelwagen, Tiger, Panzer IV, Focke-Wulf, diecast still NIB.

  8. And ANOTHER thing. As a former Ordnance officer (40+ years ago), that’s NOT a flaming Ordnance ball, it’s a flaming piss pot. Just thought you’d like to know….

  9. Biggy, your chief friend can petition the court to turn the weapon over to his dept. he can then work with his city hall bosses, and with proper paper trail sell the carbine.

    My friend it’s done a lot. I have my old departments Armalite AR a 26 in with bull barrel their first Sniper rifle. from the 80s, for 1200.00. An old friend who built a bunch of custom 308 700 Remingtons for the FBI, pet named as Buzz Tail! rich Goolsby built me my first Buzz Tail in 1987, for 2400.00. I still have it, don’t shoot it. Rich went on to be the gunsmith for the barrel making company in Brookings Oregon. Rich passed a few years ago, great guy. I’m sorry I’m having a brain fart as to which barrel maker it is. Very well known though. Don’t matter I have always used Krieger barrels for my builds

    Anyway court, city hall then a gun store in town our county,,,, with you waiting in line when it arrives and posted for sale to the general public.

    Biggy hope you score that it’s amazing quality. My Wife’s M1 Carbine is her second favorite survival gun, she prefers the AKM in the 233 bore, but russian decent. Again another brain fart.

    Dirk

  10. Stupid popo’s across the howard frankenstein bridge take their turned in/evidence guns, load them on a boat, run them out into the Gulf, and dump them. . . . Strong is the stupid there.

    1. So they lose them in boating accidents as well…Bet they’re in someone’s gun safe or back on the streets…

  11. I think they but those cheap assed mops because they never intend to use them.

    My ex would use a swiffer wet jet or some idiotic steamer mop without realizing that if you don’t mop properly first, the steam just gunks up the pad.

  12. I have never been a big one for older used guns except double barreled shotguns but that is a pretty nice rifle. Now if I could find a good quality Mauser with the naughty hockey-sticks markings, I might give that a go but those things are ridiculously expensive.

  13. I’ve told the story here before but in the 1990s at an estate sale I bought an M1 carbine from a WWII vet who served in the 82nd Airborne. He came home, put his M1 carbine in his workshop in the basement and there it sat for 50 years. It required a lot of cleaning but it is good as new with all original parts. It had the sling and I bought a bayonet for it at a gun show later.
    I LOVE it !!
    It is hands down my favorite weapon in my collection and if SHTF it will be my go to gun for medium to short range stuff. The M1 carbine was designed to be better than the 45 pistol and it is, it WASN’T ever supposed to replace a rifle like the M1 Garand.
    I kick myself all of the damn time that I didn’t buy an M1 Garand in the 1990s like I wanted to and now they’re crazy expensive.

    1. Oh and BCE, have Wifey fire the M1 carbine … I’ll bet she really likes it.

      My wife is only 5 feet tall and petite, so many guns are too much for her.
      Her pistol is a 38 revolver that she likes and for bigger she really likes the M1 carbine because it has fairly low recoil, is easy to shoot and at medium to short distances fairly accurate.

  14. I scrounged around in my parts box and came up with :
    oiler, 2 of what I believe are recoil spring guides, a tool for disassembly/
    reassembly of the bolt, and an unopened “made in India” sling.
    If you want I’ll send you this stuff as I have no use for it. If you want a pic shoot me yer e-mail.
    T

  16. Back in for early eighties the gov’t. Sold M1 Carbines to police departments for cheap. Just send in a purchase order on department letterhead and for about$250.00 or so they could buy a limited number of Arsenal “refreshed” carbines. The local Police Chief ordered a few. There were no strings attached to them, so they could “disappear “ with no problem. I may know where are three of them, iykwim. ;.)

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