The Linda Carbine

I first saw the Linda Carbine in an article about two years ago. To me, it was a neat retro design with a high "coolness" factor. I wasn’t interested in a pistol caliber carbine at the time as there were higher priority guns on my wish list. I did keep the article for future reference and when I came across it again about six months ago, I thought it was time.

Unfortunately, the Linda was on back order so I put my name on the Wilkinson Arms website (Wilkinson Arms. com, Recently, I was notified that the carbine was available and I confirmed the order. I received it in a week. The Linda Carbine is a direct blowback design chambered in 9mm Luger and fires from a closed bolt. The bolt "telescopes" over the breech end of the barrel and has a hole in its center that the barrel fits through.

When the bolt is closed, the front of the bolt is about 5.5" forward of the breech instead of being just behind it. The Uzi uses the same type of design, which shortens the overall length of the carbine. Having the magazine well in the pistol grip also makes things more compact; the barrel extends only 10" past the front of the receiver. The Linda, like the Uzi, attaches the barrel to the receiver with a large nut.

The barrel has a slot that indexes it on a pin in the barrel support sleeve that in turn is threaded into the receiver. The receiver, trigger housing, and barrel shroud assembly are aluminum. The bolt and barrel are steel. The Linda looks like a submachine gun with the cylindrical receiver, barrel shroud, stamped steel sights, and tube stock. It has elements of the Thompson, Sten, Uzi, and M3 SMGs. The walnut butt plate and foregrip area nice contrast to the black powder coat finish.

The "old school" design aspect shows up in other places. The bolt does not lock open on an empty magazine and the bolt cannot be locked in the open position. The magazine does not drop free and must be pulled from the mag well. The sights are attached with screws to the receiver with no provisions for adjustment. The Linda ships with a 31 round magazine and an 18 round mag is available. The Linda weighs 6.1 pounds empty and is 32" long. The 16.5" barrel has a 1 in 10" twist with six grooves.

It has 1/2×28 threads on the muzzle with a cap. The trigger is single stage, with 0.25" of travel and breaking at 7.3 pounds, averaged over ten pulls. It has an internal hammer. The length of pull is 15". With the stock removed, the carbine is only 21" long. The top rail on the Linda receiver does not have slots. The two LE (limited edition) versions do have slots and are available with either an under-folding AK style stock or a M4-type stock.

I wanted the slots so I ordered my Linda with the LE receiver at extra cost. The LE versions have a Picatinny rail in place of the walnut foregrip and a vertical handgrip can be installed if desired. History The Linda has its origins in the 1960s. Ray Wilkinson designed a prototype carbine and went into business with Bob Penney, forming J&R Engineering. Their first product was the M-68 carbine, a 9mm blowback carbine with a telescoping bolt that fired in the closed position.

It had a wooden stock and the charging handle was on the top of the receiver. The carbine sold

well, mainly by mail order. The Gun Control Act of and J&R went out of business shortly thereafter. The remaining parts and tooling were acquired by Bob Penney who continued to sell the M-68 under introduced with design changes that moved the charging handle to the left side of the receiver and added a dust cover on the ejection port. After several years, Ray Wilkinson and the newly formed Wilkinson Arms introduced the Terry Carbine (named after his daughter) which improved upon the M-80 carbines.

The changes included a relocated mag release (from the bottom of the mag well to the left side grip) and improvements to the feed ramp and other components. The Wilkinson Arms Linda Carbine was introduced in the the PJK name. Anew model, the M-80, was early 1980s. The Linda receiver was shorter than that of the Terry but the carbine retained much of the design and components of the original M-68. Unfortunately, after several years, sales diminished and production ended.

In the mid 2000s, Northwest Arms started producing the Linda Carbine again. Ray Wilkinson had passed away by then. In 2015, Patrick The 18 and 31 round magazines are below the stock. Mc Farland obtained the rights, parts, and tooling to bring back the Wilkinson Arms name in honor of its originator. Disassembly The Linda Carbine is a simple design with relatively few parts. Remove the magazine and make sure the chamber is empty.

Remove the muzzle cap and loosen the set screw on the bottom of the barrel shroud end cap. The barrel nut, barrel shroud, and end cap are an assembly and this screw prevents the barrel nut from loosening during operation. Unscrew the barrel nut and remove the shroud assembly. The barrel is pulled from the receiver. This makes it very easy to clean. Inspection of the bore with a digital scope did not show any tooling marks or other issues. The barrel support sleeve is unscrewed from the receiver.

It has two large slots to allow the use of an Allen wrench or screwdriver to apply torque. Pulling the bolt back slightly takes the spring force off the support sleeve and makes it easier to unscrew initially. The charging handle is removed from the bolt and the bolt is removed from the receiver. Pushing the bolt rearward slightly (through the front of the receiver) makes it easier to remove and reinstall the charging handle. The recoil spring is on the OD of the bolt.

The large diameter of the spring reduces the stresses in it and increases its fatigue life. It is retained by a snap ring. There is a recoil buffer pad at the rear of the receiver. This covers the field strip procedure. The trigger housing is attached to the receiver with two screws on the bottom of the receiver and is easily removed. The trigger group is a simple, easilycleaned design. The polymer grip panels and back strap are retained by a screw in the back strap.

Reassembly is the reverse of the disassembly, as normal.

Far At the Range I started shooting at 25 yards to check the steel sight’s accuracy. The front sight is a blade and the rear sight is a simple peep, both protected by ears. The sight radius is only 8" so my expectations weren’t high. The elevation was dead on but the windage was off by 3.5". The sights are not adjustable although there is room on the rear sight to slot the screw holes to zero the windage. I had planned on adding a scope to measure the accuracy so I wasn’t too concerned about the steel sights.

To honestly assess the accuracy of the Linda, I needed magnification for my aging eyes. When I tried to install the scope rings, however, I found an issue with the top rail. The rings were loose in the slots, even with the screws torqued to spec. The top rail on the Linda is 0.800" wide, which is 0.035" narrower than the Weaver and Picatinny rail spec. I’m assuming that the rail is a carryover from the original carbine and is a dovetail style that hasn’t been updated for modern optics.

The slot width and spacing are Picatinny spec, 0.206" and 0.395", respectively. The depth of the slot is 0.105" which is a little shy of the Picatinny 0.118". There is no spec for the number of slots or their spacing for the Weaver rail, just the rail width and the 0.180" slot width. That’s why the Picatinny (MIL-STD -1913) rail was developed and is widely used today. Weaver rings will generally fit in Picatinny slots because the crossrail is narrower to fit the Weaver slot width.

The typical Picatinny cross-rail may not fit in the Weaver slot unless the manufacturer chooses to make it narrow enough to do so. I measured the inside width of the scope ring mounting flanges (screws tightened) and found they were 0.815". To take up the clearance between the rail and the ring flanges, I added two small pieces of 0.010" thick aluminum sheet to the inside of the flanges The thin aluminum was easy to form to the required shape and allowed the rings to fit securely on the rail.

I checked the ring alignment and installed a scope. With the scope zeroed, I began shooting for accuracy at 50 yards from a bench rest. I used three brands of 115 grain FMJ round nose ammo that I typically shoot in 9mm handguns. The smallest groups were right at 1.0" and the average of each ammo ranged from 1.57 to 1.95". These groups are typical for 9mm carbines. The overall results are in the accuracy table.

The added shims were not an elegant solution and if I were to keep a scope on the carbine, I would try the 1" scope mounts that Wilkinson Arms offers. I guess I should have looked on their website first, but hey, making stuff work is half the fun, right? I installed ared dot and zeroed it. The red dot (1X) is more appropriate for shooting at 25 and 50 yards and I was able to put all of the rounds in a 3" target at 50 yards using a bench rest. I then shot offhand at a 10" steel plate at 50 yards and couldn’t miss!

Side note: I discovered what a lot of other people already knew—PC carbines are fun to shoot! Low recoil Far

and noise, it’s like shooting 22 LR carbines, just plain and simple fun, only with more expensive ammo but considerably more downrange energy. I fired 250 rounds and had no issues with feeding, firing, or ejecting. The Linda was 100% reliable. Top Center Bottom One aspect that affects the ability to shoot accurately is that the tube stock does not allow for a good cheek weld when looking through a scope or red dot. It’s more of a chin weld.

I have an idea on how to address that and will work on it when time permits. One more thing, the rear scope mount proved to be a real knuckle buster if I wasn’t careful when pulling the charging handle rearward. That’s why I mounted the red dot in front of the charging handle. There are many pistol caliber carbines available on the market today. Hi- Point, Ruger, SIG, H&K, and several AR-15 platform versions, among others. PC carbine competitions have become very popular. The Linda is light and handy.

The trigger is a little heavy but that can probably be improved. Quick reloads are not possible but the 31 round mag may be adequate for each stage. It would not be the first choice for a serious competitor but it would certainly stand out in the crowd and be a lot of fun. AG American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.