David Marshall Williams David Marshall Williams ( November 13 , 1900 – January 8 , 1975 ) , also known as Carbine Williams was an American designer of the short - stroke piston used in the M1 Carbine as well as the floating chamber operating system for firearms . Early life . David Marshall Williams was born in Cumberland County , North Carolina . He was the eldest of seven children . As a young boy , he worked on his family ' s farm . He dropped out of school after eighth grade and began work in a blacksmith shop , served a short stint in the Navy , but was discharged because he lied about his age . In 1917 he spent a semester at Blackstone Military Academy before being expelled for the theft of government property including several rifles and 10 , 000 rounds of ammunition found in his trunk by Col . E . S . Ligon , owner of the academy , who found Williams had shipped the stocks from the rifles home and refused to return them . In 1918 , he married Margaret Cooke and they later had one child , David Marshall , Jr . Captain McNeill , section master for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad , employed Williams for two weeks . Williams came to work with his pistol and fired at a robin flying overhead , leading McNeill to form the opinion he was mentally imbalanced . Williams began operating illegal distillery near Godwin , North Carolina . During a raid on this still on July 22 , 1921 , a deputy sheriff named Alfred Jackson Pate was shot and killed , and Williams was charged with first degree murder . The trial ended in a hung jury , but Williams decided to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second degree murder . He was given a 20 to 30 year sentence . Prison years . While serving time at the Caledonia State Prison Farm in Halifax County , North Carolina , Williams ( who , up until then , spent his days working in the chain gang ) related that the superintendent , H . T . Peoples , noted his mechanical aptitude and allowed him access to the prison ’ s machine shop where he demonstrated a knack for fashioning replacement parts for the guards ’ firearms from pieces of scrap and automobile parts . In prison , he would save paper and pencils and stay up late at night drawing plans for various firearms . His skills in the machine shop permitted him to stay ahead of his assignments and allowed him time for his own hobby . He began building lathes and other tools , and then parts for guns . His mother sent him technical data on guns and also provided him with contacts with patent attorney s . While in prison , he developed ideas for self - loading firearms . Patents were subsequently filed for the floating chamber ( filed Aug . 26 , 1933 and published in 1937 ) and for a short - stroke piston ( filed Oct . 31 , 1941 and published in 1944 ) . The family started a campaign to commute his sentence and they were joined by the sheriff to whom he had surrendered and the widow of the man he was accused of killing . Governor Angus McLean reduced the sentence and in 1929 Williams went on parole and in 1931 he was released from prison . Firearms development . Back in Cumberland County , he set to work perfecting his inventions . After two years , he went to Washington , DC to show his work to the War Department . He got his first contract to modify the . 30 caliber Browning machine gun using the floating chamber system to fire . 22 caliber rimfire ammunition to facilitate inexpensive training . The Williams floating chamber was also applied to the . 45 ACP M1911A1 semi - automatic pistol to function with . 22 ammunition in the form of the Colt Ace pistol , and a conversion kit which could modify any Government Model pistol into an Ace . General Julian Hatcher was impressed by Williams ' work and recommended Williams to Winchester Repeating Arms in 1938 as showing the greatest native ability of anyone he knew of . Williams was employed by Winchester on 1 July 1939 , where he applied his design of a short - stroke tappet gas piston system to resolve loading problems of a Browning prototype . 30 - 06 M2 rifle . At the urging of Col . Rene Studler , a team at Winchester scaled down Williams ' M2 rifle design to produce the Winchester prototype for the M1 carbine . The M1 carbine was manufactured in greater numbers than any other United States small arm of World War II . Winchester entered a license agreement to use Williams ' designs during development of the M2 rifle prototype ; but disagreements between Williams and Winchester management continued until Williams left Winchester during the Korean War . From the start , Williams had disliked being bound to a team , and preferred to work on his own ( see Wikipedia article on the M1 Carbine ) . Several improvements he made on his own original design for the carbine were later determined to be excellent , but he presented them too late to the Army , which was in a hurry to get the finished weapon into use by the combat troops . Later in anticipation of a lawsuit by Williams , Winchester discovered what might have been an earlier patent for a short - stroke piston ; but Williams ' floating chamber appeared to be an original invention , and Winchester decided against litigation . After Winchester and Williams reached agreement , the floating chamber system was used in a popular 1950s series of Winchester shotguns , the first semi - automatic shotgun to have a fixed , non - recoiling barrel . The floating chamber and the short - stroke piston remain to this day Williams ' two very significant contributions to the improvement of firearms in particular . Movie fame . In 1952 , MGM released the film " Carbine Williams " loosely based on his life starring James Stewart and Jean Hagen as his wife Maggie ; The movie details Williams ' life from his discharge from the Navy to his release from prison . Williams served as a technical advisor . The movie brought Williams his widest fame ; and he became known by the nickname , " Carbine " Williams after release of the movie . He spent his last years in Godwin after some time in Connecticut . He died at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh , North Carolina , on 8 January 1975 . Legacy . Williams ' floating chamber , used in the military . 22 training versions of the Browning machinegun and Colt automatic pistol , was used in the Remington 550 - A , a popular . 22 semi - automatic sporting rifle ( the floating chamber allowed the Model 550 to function semi - automatically with . 22 Short as well as . 22 Long and . 22 Long Rifle ammunition ) . Later , in 1954 , the Winchester Model 50 Automatic shotgun was launched . This , too , featured the Williams Chamber , making it the first recoil operated semi - automatic shotgun with a non - recoiling barrel . The U . S . patents for the highly successful Benelli Shotgun ( ) reference Williams ' . Williams ' inventions went beyond firearms development . He invented a non - sagging clothesline , an electric can opener ( based on his floating chamber idea ) , and a mousetrap . He held over 50 patents for his ideas . See also . Carbine Williams ( Jimmy Stewart film , 1952 )