M1 Garand

Steve012

Anyone lucky enough to own one?
original or copied, Interested to see if any of you guys have one, and if someone does, pics would be cool!

thinking of getting a reproduction one myself (hoping)!!

Witcher

Heard it said on here that a few lads in the VCRAI have them, they're restricted firearms so you don't see as many of them floating about as other rifles.

clivej

Steve012 wrote: »

Anyone lucky enough to own one?
original or copied, Interested to see if any of you guys have one, and if someone does, pics would be cool!

thinking of getting a reproduction one myself (hoping)!!

This rifle is on my wish list as my next rifle to buy. Fired one at the Midlands a few years back in 30 06 and great to shoot. Duffy's had them in .308 caliber @€;900.

Plenty of vids o n UTube.

Steve012

900!! not bad!, gorgeous rifles, will keep both eyes out for one !

packas

Springfiled M1A1 will definately be added to my collection as soon as funds allow it.

Longranger

clivej wrote: »

This rifle is on my wish list as my next rifle to buy. Fired one at the Midlands a few years back in 30 06 and great to shoot. Duffy's had them in .308 caliber @€;900.

Plenty of vids o n UTube.

I was looking at one in duffys but it was in 7.62 NATO rather than .308. He reckoned that they were interchangeable but as far as I know the SAAMI rating for the NATO round is lower than the .308,so I don't think I'd feel too safe firing the .308 from his M1 rifles. Open to correction on this....

tac foley

Longranger wrote: »

I was looking at one in duffys but it was in 7.62 NATO rather than .308. He reckoned that they were interchangeable but as far as I know the SAAMI rating for the NATO round is lower than the .308,so I don't think I'd feel too safe firing the .308 from his M1 rifles. Open to correction on this....

I shot only the issue stuff in my M1A1 Natl. Match, but then I had my own annual allocation to use up, being a minor unit [me and three others in the same mob, surrounded by light blue].

The argument is actually based on fact - due to the internal design of the 7.62x51 NATO cartridge case - it has a balloon-shaped base, called, oddly enough, a balloon-shaped base - it has a smaller internal volume for propellant than the civilian version, which is near-flat inside. There are also minute differences in the shoulder angle, which might affect placement in the chamber. It is also true that the civilian .308Win cartridge can often be found loaded to higher pressures than the military round.

In our club no .308Win bored TIKKA or SAKO rifle will chamber a 7.62x51 round, nor a 5.56x45 in a .223.

Note also that the 7.62x51 NATO cartridge has a 146/150gr bullet, and not the vast array of heavier bullets available to the commercial sector. On the odd occasion when I had to shoot mine with commercial stuff, I made sure that it was the lighter end of the weight - 155gr Lapua shot quite well I seem to remember.

If you DO go for the gun that you have seen, then to me the sensible thing would be to shoot the stuff it was meant to shoot.

tac

Longranger

tac foley wrote: »

If you DO go for the gun that you have seen, then to me the sensible thing would be to shoot the stuff it was meant to shoot.

tac

+1
If it aint written on the barrel then don't put in the chamber!

I wasn't considering buying it,but I had a look at it as he was showing it to someone else(got the grant letter this morning for my new CZ550 6.5x55,so won't have to buy anything for quite a while,:D:D:D:D:D)but I wouldn't have bought it anyway. The timber work was very poorly finished and I wasn't too impressed with the finish on the barrel either.

rowa

Longranger wrote: »

+1
If it aint written on the barrel then don't put in the chamber!

I wasn't considering buying it,but I had a look at it as he was showing it to someone else(got the grant letter this morning for my new CZ550 6.5x55,so won't have to buy anything for quite a while,:D:D:D:D:D)but I wouldn't have bought it anyway. The timber work was very poorly finished and I wasn't too impressed with the finish on the barrel either.

Most milsurp rifles are like that, the finish on the barrel is likely to be parkerising, it looks rough but is that way for a reason.

cw67irl

I saw one of these refinished on the Show American Guns and it turned out beautiful, Refinished the stock to take out dents and imperfections and got all the metals soaked in an acid bluing, Turned out beautifully!!!

cookimonster

clivej wrote: »

This rifle is on my wish list as my next rifle to buy. Fired one at the Midlands a few years back in 30 06 and great to shoot. Duffy's had them in .308 caliber @€;900.

Plenty of vids o n UTube.

Handled one in Duffy's earlier this year, but he was holding it for someone. He hasn't had them on his website for a long time, he ran into problems due to them being semi auto center fire. They where unissued military stock from Belgium (I think), the one I handled was in great nick. One of my dream guns from boyhood

EWQuinn

Below are pics of mine with benched 200-yd groups. I had a fancy stock put on with a tight fit for accuracy. Its a '43 Springfield Armory receiver & '52 GI barrel w/ low throat & muzzle wear. Its a "Greek". That is - a lend lease to Greece in the 60's, this one hardly shot after a factory park & rebuild. They sent them back to Uncle Sam in recent years and are sold to qualified buyers thru the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP). The rifle was designed to shoot "M2 ball" ammo, milspec Cal .30 - i.e. .30-06 with 150 gr bullets going about 2,700 fps. (Although much of the ammo shot in WWII by GIs was 165 gr black tip AP.)

The ammo I use is surplus M2 ball made in Greece from their HXP factory in 60's & 70's. It has superior quality bullets and is known for excellent accuracy. The Greeks sold it to the CMP for sales along with the rifles. (They also made good quality .303 ammo too.)

Most of the .30-06 factory ammo available is not designed for Garands. If the powder used has a slow burn rate, the powder volume can be too high, then gas volume and pressure will exceed gas port specs and overstress the operating rod. Rather than worry about which ammo to use, get one of these Schuster adjustable gas plugs you can shoot almost any ammo: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/412046/schuster-dcm-adjustable-gas-plug-with-wrench-wwii-style-m1-garand-steel-parkerized

Or see if you can find this ammo: http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/product/2-FEAE3006M1BX The Serbs also make the Prvi Partisan version of M2 ball that works fine as well. Not sure if any of this stuff is available in ROI, but maybe a shop could order it.

BTW, in practice the main diff bet .308 and 7.62 is the rifle chamber dimension. 7.62 milspec chambers are longer to be more forgiving in combat, and 7.62 milspec brass is thicker. So if you shoot commerical .308 with lighter brass in a 7.62 chamber, you can get excessive stretch and possibly failure. (Beyond that I'll not engage any endless arguments about diff bet .308 and 7.62.)

The rifle is great fun to shoot, especially enjoyable in the standing position. In prone it can be a little rough on shoulder, but the action absorbs much of the recoil pretty well. I sure hope you can get a license and get one someday. They are a great piece of history and excellent for target shooting (and hunting too). I call them the "Band of Brothers" rifle. Oh, don't forget it takes the famous 8 rd enbloc clips, and you have to keep Mr. Thumb safely out of the way when loading.

juice1304

Beautiful rifle:)

Steve012

+1 Gorgeous rifle!! cheers for the pics!

EWQuinn

http://www.shoot.ie/shooting/centerfire-rifles/lee-enfield-no4-mk1.html

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/311304/aggressive-engineering-m1-garand-clip-2-round-steel-parkerized

http://www.fulton-armory.com/M1-Garand-Rifles.aspx

Duffy's has no Garands on the web page, but they do have Enfields. Lower capacity 2 and 5 rd enbloc clips are available for the Garand (for competition and hunting). Some rifles can be a little finicky, but mine digests them fine.

The modern commercial firm "Springfield Armory" sold a version of the Garand with cast receivers in .308 and .30-06, they got mixed reviews but seemed ok to me. There are several other sellers in the US including Fulton Armory selling rifles with GI receivers. If Duffy's had one marked 7.62, no telling where it was from. There were well known Navy rifles rebarreled for 7.62, and I could certainly see NATO countries perhaps doing that. Its not unheard of to have rifles marked 7.62 but chambers reamed to .308, and they are ok. (A set of gages or a chamber cast may be necessary to tell.)

juice1304

They were from israel i think i remember someone saying that anyway.

EWQuinn

That would make sense, periodically we see surplus Mausers from Israel, all converted to 7.62.

meathstevie

Just a question, and some will consider it an unthinkable crime, but what if you convert an M1 to straightpull ? It seized to be a restricted firearm doesn't it ?

EWQuinn

I suppose you could weld a plug and block the gas port somehow. Question is would they recognize the modification? Given the significant historic aspect, target shooting applications, and the relatively low magazine capacity one would like to hope it would be possible to get one licensed.

tac foley

EWQuinn wrote: »

I suppose you could weld a plug and block the gas port somehow. Question is would they recognize the modification? Given the significant historic aspect, target shooting applications, and the relatively low magazine capacity one would like to hope it would be possible to get one licensed.

And therein lies the problem, Mr Quinn - you see, there already ARE legal Garands in the RoI, correctly licensed by some enlightened police authorities.

What there is NOT is any form of level playing field interpretation of the firearms laws - every CS makes up his own mind about them, depending on which way the stars appear, or the wind blows, or if he is just feeling hissy about something totally unrelated.

At least, that's how it seems.

tac