Plainfield M1 Carbine with “Paratrooper” Owen Wood Stock

Description

The first advertisement placed by Plainfield Machine appears in the May 1, 1962 issue of Shotgun News, using the name Plainfield Ordnance. Ads for this issue had to be submitted by April 1st, six weeks after the deadline for the last Millville Ordnance ad that offered the MOCO carbine. From this and the knowledge of Plainfield’s involvement with Millville Ordnance it is estimated the first Plainfield Machine Co. M1 Carbines were manufactured in approximately April of 1962. The Plainfield Ordnance name was soon dropped and not re-instituted until the 1970’s with the introduction of their small semi-auto pistol line (see below). The carbines continued production using the name of Plainfield Machine Company.

Gun Digest is a yearly publication devoted to firearms and hunting that lists new and current production firearms. Carbines manufactured by Plainfield first appear in the 1966 Edition. In the 1967 Edition (published in late 1966) (p. 237-242) is an article devoted to the M1 Carbine’s continued popularity. Plainfield is quoted as stating “It sells guns [carbines] to Formosa, Lebanon, the Philippines, and South Viet Nam in M-2 version, and stays busy furnishing complete rifles to a few mail order houses and barrel actions to several specialty carbineer’s making 22 wildcat versions”.   Among these variants was a Paratrooper version using a Owen telescoping stock.

This particular carbine is S/N 87852 which dates it to 1977/78.  This was right at the end of the Plainfield production as all of Plainfield’s equipment sold to Iver Johnson in 1978.  This rifle is comprised of GI parts assembled on the Plainfield Receiver.   Condition of the stock is excellent.  These stocks have become very collectible and are now sought after by collectors.

This rifle ships with 2 GI 30 rd magazines.