Don't know for sure exactly when my Dad got his M1 Carbine or when they began selling to the public but it was early 60's when he got his, he started teaching me how to shoot it when I was six years old in 1964.So, does anybody know the year that the DCM (alone or with an NRA partnership) began selling M1 Carbines to the public?
This quote from a 1978 article in the NRA's American Rifleman magazine lists several models of guns the Army began selling their surplus quantities of, starting in the late 1950s, but it doesn't specifically which guns started being sold in which years.
"Between 1958 and 1967, when all sales were terminated, Americans purchased 12,000 M1903 rifles, 279,000 M1903A3 rifles, 3600 National Match rifles, 1600 service grade M1 rifles, 3200 NM and 145,600 service grade M1911 and 1911A1 pistols, 8,800 12-ga. shotguns and 207,000 M1 carbines."