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The first issue of the Gun Digest to show .30 Carbine was 1964, by no coincidence the year after the Army released thousands of carbines for sale through DCM. (Of course, due to publication delay, anything in the GD is at least 6-8 months prior to publication date, so .30 Carbine would have been available in 1963.) But at that time, commercial ammo was a drop in the bucket, and sold mainly to provide hunting ammo for those who didn't reload. Hundreds of tons of surplus .30 Carbine ammo was available at a cent a round or less, as was .30 M2 Ball. (The ammo production figures in WWII and Korea were staggering. For example, from late 1941 to late 1945, Frankford Arsenal was producing 1.2 million rounds of .30-'06 ammo a day.)
Jim
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