Auto Ordnance M1A1 Quality

BobFox

I'm looking at the Auto Ordance M1A1 Paratrooper (AOM150) version carbine and wondering how they've panned out? Are they a reliable little shooter?

gunnut505

Auto Ordinance was making guns for a lot longer than most of the "original" manufacturers of these carbines. They also made 1911s, "Tommy" guns, and other military arms for civilians before they were either bought out or merged with Numrich Gun Parts a few years ago. I had heard that they were in turn bought out by Kahr Arms a while back, and then they started making and selling M1 carbines for about $800 each.
I've had some AO 1911s, and they were solid guns, good shooters, nothing collectible at all about them. The semiauto Tommy Guns were fun to shoot, and well-made.
When you talk about how well a newly-made version of a 60-year old gun will last, or how well it works; seems a new one would be MUCH better than one that's been shot, abused, and refurbished for the last 60 years.

nmyers

Kahr did have problems with the first M1 carbines they produced. Hopefully, they have fixed the problems. I haven't heard any recent reports.

I can see the reason for wanting a repro M1A1; the originals start at $1,500.

I would prefer an original "standard" USGI M1 carbine with all critical parts that are forged & milled, as opposed to a modern repro where most parts are cast & CNC milled.

Neal

beantownshootah

I would say that its not safe to assume that a recent-manufacture gun is necessarily better than an older one made 40+ years ago. That might be true. . it might not. Depends on the gun and manufacturers in question.

In some cases the older guns will be built from all forged parts and have their parts hand-fitted by gunsmiths, something that is unlikely to be true today.

That said, I can't comment on the quality of current manufacture auto-ordnance M1 carbines compared to the older ones. I know the Auto-Ordnance guns are mil-spec so parts should interchange between their guns and older ones. I'd also imagine that by this point AO has worked out any kinks in the guns they might have experienced after introduction.

What I will say that Auto-Ordinance (and Kahr arms) are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Seilo group, itself a subsidiary of the Tongil group, which is the Korean business group of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon Reunification church. The CEO of Seilo is Justin Moon, Sun's son, and the founder of Kahr arms.

To put it more simply, right now the "Moonies" completely own and run Auto-Ordnance. For me that's enough reason not to purchase Kahr or Auto-Ordnance guns, regardless of their intrinsic quality.

mark christian

The AO carbines had a lot of problems, especially feeding problems and USGI magazines didn't work well in these rifles. The magazines that did work were those supplied by AO which interestingly enough were all made in Korea! Improvements are supposed to have been made but I still feel these little rifles are too pricey for their quality.