William J. Ricca Surplus Sales Government Surplus 1971-2018

History of the Carbine Winter Triggers Assembly, Carbine, Winter Trigger Original Wrap Original Instructions (Springfield Armory) On Line if you search for Carbine Winter Triggers, you will get almost all Garand Winter Triggers. That is all you will find. Many collectors have gone through Google and have received only this page for the Carbine Winter Trigger. I first purchased one of the Carbine Winter Triggers at a collectors gun show in Columbus Ohio in 1975, my first time I went there. The guy selling it had just one of his table. The next time I went there he had another one. I purchased that one. Each one was $25.00, which was very expensive in those days. The next show he had another one and I did not purchase it because he raised it to $40.00. I asked him about the Winter Triggers and he told me a lot of information about them. They were made for the Air Force circa 1968. Back then he was with the Air Force and worked on the Small Arms. The Air Force was using both M1 Carbines and M2 Carbines as security for the Air Planes in Alaska. Each Plane had a security guard, which made sure each individual was the flyer. He told me that the Air Force made sure that the local unit would allow the Winter Trigger to be used on the M2, only if the man in charge allowed it. That is on the original package. The one making them was Watervliet Arsenal. This man was the individual the installed them on the Carbines used for security. The mistake he made, in my opinion, was the other parts that came off were distroyed. In 1970 or 1971 the Air Force was bringing in the M16 Rifle for Security in he had to send all the Carbines to Rock Island Arsenal. Because he got rid of the old parts, he had to keep the Winter Triggers on the Carbines being sent in. That means he only had the ones left in the original case, which was not that many, and they were sent in too. He did not know how many were actually made, but he thought they must have been close to 1,000 and many hundreds were destoryed because they would never be used, due to the small number of Carbines being used. He had purchased the batch from a guy who bid on them circa 1973-75 at Red River. Circa 1993 I got a call from a Lawyer in Ohio. I went to his house and he was the son of that guy who had purchased the Winter Triggers. His father had died and left a message to sell them to me. I purchased something like 30 of them. They were very expensive in those days, but nobody else had them. Today I have about 8 left. Those guys in the gun shows that sold them for $250.00 each several years ago, got those from two indivuals that purchased them from me sometime in the 1990's and eventually sold off their carbines. There were many of these made in 1953 by Springfield Armory but none were like the ones made for the M1 Rifle. Both items were considered dangerous because somebody can accidentally fire a round due to the way the Winter Trigger is set up. The Army distroyed almost all the Carbine Winter Triggers. The M1 Rifle Winter Triggers were kept for service by most were never used. I heard it was close to 15,000 of them released on bid by the Goverment back in the early 1960's. I heard another bidder that was close to 60,000 all over the country. I traded some items wanted by one of the dealers who had several thousand of them circa early 1980's. I got 500 of them. That is why the M1 Garand Winter Triggers are still in the $15.00-$25.00 range. Some guys want a lot more. The Carbine Winter Triggers will always be very rare and very valuable. As time goes on they will be very more valuable and much highter prices.