At first blush, the Fulton carbine looked like an expensive proposition. However, let’s see what you get, borrowing the description from that company’s website, www.fulton-armory.com:
“The Fulton Armory Service Grade M1 Carbines are as close to new as you can get … Because we hand-build them one at a time, they easily surpass the beauty and reliability of the mass-produced carbines of the 1940s. Sure, you can buy one elsewhere for less, but by the time you replace the awful wood, replace the worn or excessively headspaced barrel, replace the unserviceable parts and pay somebody to get it working, you will have spent far more [than ours costs].”
What does Fulton put into a carbine? How about: Original USGI receivers; all USGI parts, all checked with applicable gauges; an excellent-condition (refinished) original USGI stock and hand guard; a period sling and oiler; plus “The M1 Carbine Owner’s Guide,” a 140-page book by Ruth & Duff (autographed by Duff). This book was so filled with intensive details about the M1 Carbine that after reading portions of it, we had to rewrite portions of this report. Also in the Fulton package was one 10-round magazine. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, which gives you ample time to fall in love with your new purchase, or to find some good reason to reject it, which we don’t think you will.
The sample we had looked absolutely new. The metal had crisp edges everywhere, as though the parts had been machined last week and Parkerized yesterday. The metal finish was close to black, and evenly applied. The wood was good walnut, with a smooth finish that smelled like linseed oil. The wood pores were somewhat open, much as they were on original-issue carbines. The barrel was like rifled glass inside.
It had an Underwood-marked barrel, and beneath that was the date, 1-44, and beneath that was a winged-bomb ordnance mark. The receiver was by Standard Products Co. (STD.PRO.). The sling was original, as was evident from the old green corrosion on the brass snap. Unfortunately, the sling snap had slightly marred the forend wood during shipping, but this didn’t detract from the overall totally authentic look of this remanufactured carbine. We’re sure many “new” carbines had slight packing damage on their stocks as well. If anyone were offended by this, it could easily be fixed with sandpaper and linseed oil. This stock had the later “pot-bellied” forend, and you can see the difference by comparing its profile with that of the Winchester, with its flatter, earlier, stock-forend profile.
Some of the details we discovered in the “The M1 Carbine Owner’s Guide” were that Standard Products Co. was the third rarest manufacturer of carbines, producing just a few more than Rock-Ola and Irwin-Pedersen. Also, Underwood barrels were considered to be the finest of all, even better than Winchesters. So our Fulton carbine was, in many respects, a doozy. The barrel interior was one of the finest we’ve seen, including the latest, most modern match-rifle barrels that have come our way.
The sights were just like those on our test Winchester, and like those on the two IAI rifles. The trigger pull was creepy and broke at a consistent 6.4 pounds. At the range, the first round was reluctant to chamber. We tried it again and from then on it was all smooth sailing with never a bobble, no further malfunctions whatsoever. The Fulton struck the center of point of aim at 50 yards. It did its best with mil-surplus ball, averaging 1.2-inch groups. It didn’t like the American Eagle ball as well, and averages were over 2 inches. Caveat ammo!
We made one other test with both the Winchester and Fulton, based on a failure by the IAI carbine reviewed below. The IAI failed to fire several rounds of military ball, though we dropped the IAI hammer repeatedly on the rounds. We thought they were faulty rounds. We put these “faulty” rounds into the Winchester and Fulton rifles, and all fired perfectly. The reason, we felt, is that the Winchester and Fulton were set up exactly as originally intended, to fire ALL rounds no matter how hard the primer material happened to be.
