My CMP Special Grade Springfield Armory Garand. Feb 1944 Manufacture. The Bayonet is marked 1943. My wife gave me the Garand as a Wedding Present. She's a keeper.
I need to get it out and shoot it some more.
Be Aware-Stay Safe. Gunfighting Is A Thinking Man's Game. So We Might Want To Bring Thinking Back Into It.
Man that's purdy. I had an M1A I bought once upon a time when I came home off deployment, rolled out from Springfield in Dec 1988. Gunsmith told me I effectively had an early 70's H&R M14, right down to the USGI fiberglass stock with notch for the auto selector lever. I needed a horse more than that rifle a few years later after I got married. I still don't regret selling the thing, but I always said I'd get another.
Now this, this is making me thinking about that again. I know believe the Garand and M14 were overrated or somehow inferior, but I've always had a soft spot for the old M14, and I'm developing a fast love for the Garand, too.
Don't forget this:
https://youtu.be/kgHhnPhv2bU
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
As a teenager, I found a .308 Garand advertised as a retired Navy gun on a gun show table. I found my Dad and excitedly dragged him to that table, the shop that had the table wanted $550 if memory serves. It went home with us, and I was over the moon with excitement. We took it to the range soon after and discovered the hard way that it was one of those awful conversions that used a chamber insert to convert to 7.62 NATO.
Thankfully that gun show table belonged to a prominent local gun store, and the owner knew my Dad from years of business, and he took the rifle back and refunded my Dad, and had it rebuilt by his gunsmith to .30-06.
Still, giving it up broke my heart as a teenager and now I'm in my late 30's and I still dream of finding a properly built .308 Garand for a not-insane price.
Similarly, I've lusted for an M1A SFC Shughart set up with an Aimpoint ever since the first time I watched Black Hawk Down.
@Trooper224, that is one hell of a trio of rifles, sir. I am genuinely envious.
I grew up occasionally shooting my Dad's National Match M-1, so they've always had a place in my heart.
The insider secret is that the Garand will chamber and fire any 30-06 cartridge but it was built to use M-2 Ball, which is 150-grain bullet at 2,805 fps over IMR 4895. That's a fairly fast powder for the 30-06, but using a slower powder changes the pressure curve and will damage the operating rod. You can use heavier bullets but you have to keep velocities fairly mild. If you think of the Garand as basically a long-cased 308, then you'll be fine.
Also, beware milsurp 30-06 ammo. You can still find it with corrosive priming and not all of it was loaded with due care or stored properly over the decades. At the club where I shoot, a guy blew up an M-1 a few weeks ago with milsurp ammo. I looked at some of the brass but couldn't figure out where it was from. I hear that older Korean milsurp ammo is particularly bad in this respect.
Several manufacturers load FMJ 30-06 specifically for the Garand (like Federal AE3006M1, PPU PP3006G, etc.). If you can afford an M-1, then you can afford decent ammo. Get a bolt gun if you feel the need to run a 180-grain Nosler Partition up to 2,800 fps.
Okie John
“The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
"Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's