Hi, from Puerto Rico!

Welcome to the forum. You can read all about universals in the link below.

Hi Ruben and welcome to the forum from New Mexico!

It looks like you might have the "Model 1000" described at the bottom of this web page.

http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_universal4.html

Welcome Crusader_6

What you have is a carbine Universal Firearms was contracted to manufacture with the parts that are on it. Versus their standard hybrid carbine they were making during that time.

Years back I communicated with their tool and die man about a number of things that included carbines such as yours. They were made to order for a government or government agency who didn't want the hybrid. They wanted something their personnel were familiar with. Usually meaning they already had .30 cal. carbines made during WWII. Also usually meaning they wanted carbines with parts interchangeable with what they already had. But, being a custom order, there were variations based on what the customer wanted.

For a number of years I kept track of the serial numbers, markings, and features used by Universal and others. 355628 is another special order Universal like yours. As is 357016. I have no info for carbines between 355628 and 357016. Obviously 628 was probably part of the same contract. 016 may or may not have been. I have no info on which government or agency purchased these.

The photo of the one that had the US stamped on the right side of the receiver was a carbine I owned for evaluation, 308241. Universal stopped marking their carbines with "U.S. CARBINE" on top of the receiver (in front of the bolt) about 1967. I have info on hundreds of Universals and none above 88000, except 308241, have had "U.S." markings anywhere. 308241 is also the earliest special order carbine I've seen so far. It may have been for the one order only. It may have been part of the order contract. It may have been just something Universal did for some unknown in-house reason. The tool and die guy had never seen one with U.S. markings anywhere. He hired on well after Universal had stopped using the U.S. markings.

From the special order/contract carbines I've been able to lay hands on and get info on I don't think the absence of the U.S. had anything to do with GI parts compatibility. Parts used on the special order carbines were made to order but most I've seen the only parts different than the hybrid version were related to the slide, twin recoil springs, and/or machining of the receiver that accommodated the slide and twin recoil springs. So the slide and single recoil spring have been interchangeable with their GI counterparts, not with those used on the hybrids. Everything else was interchangeable with the hybrid parts. With some of the hybrid parts being interchangeable with GI, some not.

308241 had the hybrid Universal Firearms bolt with the internal firing pin. The receiver had not been machined to work with the tang at the rear of the GI firing pins. This original safety feature was simply changed to a strong spring holding the firing pin in the rear of the bolt until it was hit by the hammer. But, a receiver not machined to work with the GI firing pins means it wasn't machined to work with a GI bolt. If this makes sense. Keep reading, for a possible reason yours is what it is.

Really need to try exchanging GI parts with those on yours to know what will work and what won't. It was a built to order carbine.

Now for a possibility of why yours is what it is. Your slide appears to have been cast. Meaning it's not a GI slide. May or may not have been made by Universal. It has some of the features of an M2 slide but hard to tell if it has the cut that channeled the M2 disconnect lever where the M2 needed it to go.

Universal was never licensed to make select-fire carbines. This wouldn't stop an end user, like a police department, from converting them to select-fire with full auto capability. But to do so with the GI conversion kits they'd need the slide and receiver with the single recoil spring design. Though they would also need a trigger housing machined to work with the selector switch spring and the disconnector arm. I'm kind of thinking "out loud" here.

This may have been a reason some like yours are what they are. It would provide that option if the agency chose to do it at some point. They'd also need to swap the trigger housing. I haven't checked these special order carbines to see if the hole for the trigger housing pin, width of their single forward lug, and space between the two lugs at the bottom rear of the receiver were made to accept a GI trigger housing. Universal's hybrid receivers require slight modifications in these 3 areas to accommodate the GI trigger housings.


The tool and die guy didn't mention this. But he may not have known. He was a line worker, not management. Something I need to look into further.

Several Universal hybrid carbines with serial numbers slightly lower than yours were being sold retail in the USA in late 1976. Those I have the purchase dates on were bought after they had been distributed to retailers. Based on these and a few other much longer stories, yours was probably assembled and sold in 1976. Early 1977 at the latest.

Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing your pics and info. Made my brain work a bit and come up with the thought of conversions to select-fire.

Jim

Welcome to the forum.  Look's like Jim has provided some great info.

Crusader 6,

I went back over all my material, ex employee interviews, and photos on the "redux" carbines made by Universal. Then rewrote that section on the web page.

http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_universal4.html

I started the M1CarbinesInc.com website in March 2008. As you can see it has been a fairly massive project. Now with 92 web pages on about 2 1/2 dozen commercial carbine manufacturers. Add to this the research time and work that was needed for the info on those web pages. I was still working on the research and web pages for BavarianM1Carbines.com, currently 148 web pages. Over time the opportunity for a club website opened up and I started USCarbinesCal30.com, now with 93 web pages and growing. I'm a researcher that knows the value of sharing research. Not a web page techie or web guru.

You can see the problems with trying to do too much by myself. One of those problems has been trying to keep up with corrections and additions. One result was the piecemeal updates to the "redux" carbine section. My apologies.

Of all of the commercial carbine manufacturers Universal Firearms was and still is unique. For a variety of reasons. One person could devote years of full time work and author an entire book on Universal Firearms and their carbines. I'm simply not that person. I chose to research them all and present a history of each. We do what we can do. If I had just stayed with the commercial carbines Universal's history would have much more detail. I haven't given up on it.

Back to your carbine. Have a look at the updated web page.

Your slide should be interchangeable with any GI surplus slide. Ditto the recoil spring and recoil spring guide. It would be of help to see a few pics of your bolt and the bottom of the receiver showing the machining of the receiver bridge midway on the bottom. Your barrel is probably interchangeable with a GI barrel but it would require close examination of the barrel by itself before this could be confirmed.

You have the Universal Firearms trigger group with their rectangular aluminum trigger housing. The trigger, trigger spring, sear, sear spring, safety, mag catch, and their springs are interchangeable with GI parts. The trigger pin, hammer pin, and trigger housing pin are not interchangeable with GI parts. The trigger housing could be but you would probably want to also replace the stock because of the rectangular cutout for their trigger housing.

The hammer has the same dimensions as the late GI hammer, but. The hammers and bolts used by Universal were hardened to work with one another. As was done and is still done by every other commercial manufacturer. And Ordnance with the GI carbines. The but ... only 2 commercial manufacturers have hardened their bolts to GI specs when they couldn't get GI bolts (Fulton Armory & James River). What this means is a GI hammer and GI bolt will beat the commercial bolts and hammers to an early death over time. Not a problem short term but something to be monitored when GI parts are used with commercial parts.

If your carbine receiver is machined for a GI bolt and firing pin and you decide to use them you should also use a GI hammer. Not a good idea to use a GI hammer with any commercial bolt. The design of the rear of all the .30 carbine bolts, GI and commercial, includes a safety feature. A GI hammer will lessen the lifespan of that feature. Hope this makes sense.

Your carbine may have been sold by a law enforcement agency as surplus when they changed to different weapons. Or, it may have been from a canceled contract or contract overrun and sold retail by Universal.

Hope this helps. It would help the work I do to see a few pics of your bolt and receiver, as indicated above.

Jim

i just noticed that my receiver does not have the “half Heart shape”. Is this an issue? What doe sthis means regarding getting replacement bolts? 

i did read it but my receiver isn’t like the one’s pictured here. Maybe I didnt understand what I was reading but there is not one picture with a receiver like mine. 

Thanks Voigt and Jim for taking of your time to reply. Now my question is can I switch to usgi bolt and hammer... guess Ill keep reading. Just that, as Jim points out in his website, this is budget prohibitive lol It may take some time to get it up to Mil-Spec standard. Not that I want to make it a franken gun, just want it to have reliable parts for regular use in the range and home defense. 

Thanks Jim for your input. As always, each post is a good new source of information. Sorry If I gave the impression of wanting to build something new out of the Carbine, but I wanted to know if needed a replacement due to use of it, I want to be sure what can be used as a replacement and what can’t. Also, I hope this carbine does not have the out of battery issue haha. I haven’t got a chance to go to the range due to the hard time I’m having getting ammunition for it. I had to order bulk to get some cuz the gun shops here didn’t have any. Again, thanks for your time and valuable information.