Are M1 Garand Price Going Up?

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by JeffJ

Well apples to apples I have a Shlomo tuned M1 Garand that truely shoots sub moa with handloads, I also have a Arrington tuned M14 that shoots sub moa with handloads...just can't shoot them as far.

Yeah, my Ronnie Morris M1A wimps out around 1000 too just like my ARs do good thing we have the other ones in the rack ... really am considering selling that thing and getting out of the .308 business altogether, as it has occurred to me that there's nothing important a .308 does that a .223 doesn't do better.

b.

[shlomo]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

Occasionally I shoot garands and 03s off hand at 300-500, but my local desert shooting spot is only 100. And I'm satisfied with hitting a man-sized target. I don't trek down there to see where on the man sized target I hit.

Prolly no need to, is what I'm thinkin'.

[gunplumber]

Originally Posted by shlomo

Prolly no need to, is what I'm thinkin'.

Yep - 'cause dead is dead and it really makes no matter anyways where on the torso I killed him. The ringing of the steel plate is sufficient.

[shlomo]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

Yep - 'cause dead is dead and it really makes no matter anyways where on the torso I killed him. The ringing of the steel plate is sufficient.

Only a mighty warrior such as yourself can "kill" with a scratch hit.




Some of us in the slow class are restricted to prone at such distances, and shooting 'em in the heart.

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

Just pointing out in my subtle way that you have to customize your rifle and your ammo to obtain the results you want. I don't have a problem with that, but shouldn't it be relevant to the debate that the perceived benefits of the custom-loaded .30-06 don't happen without also customizing the rifle? And without doing so can damage your rifle?

You do not need to customize the rifle to accomodate .30-06 handloads which outperform .308 ball or, for that matter, Lake City M118 Long Range. In fact, the whole notion of modifying a Garand to fire .308 reliably requires other custom work unrelated to the chamber dimensions, most notably chopping a couple of coils off the ejector spring and modifying the extractor so that it doesn't toss the cases back in your face. Modifying the ejector spring in particular is a bad idea because as you probably know is is the part that holds the entire bolt assembly together and yes, I have seen modified .308 bolts come apart at the national matches. This and the issues inherent in feeding rounds which are a half inch shorter than the feeding system is designed to handle are the primary reason we discourage their use on the Team.

[gunplumber]

Originally Posted by shlomo

Some of us in the slow class

you said it, bro, not me!

[gunplumber]

Originally Posted by bubbagump

.308 reliably requires other custom work unrelated to the chamber dimensions, most notably chopping a couple of coils off the ejector spring and modifying the extractor so that it doesn't toss the cases back in your face. Modifying the ejector spring in particular is a bad idea because as you probably know is is the part that holds the entire bolt assembly together and yes, I have seen modified .308 bolts come apart at the national matches. This and the issues inherent in feeding rounds which are a half inch shorter than the feeding system is designed to handle are the primary reason we discourage their use on the Team.

Funny, as I heard about this and having never experienced it myself, nor seen it anywhere else, I brought it up with my neighbor, Phil Arrington. Phil is my go-to guy on the extremely rare occasion I have a Garand or M1A issue I cannot resolve. He laughed, as he'd never needed to do those things either.

As I do have some knowledge of spring technology, I assert that if a spring does not perform as needed, the solution is to replace the spring with one of a different wire diameter. Not reduce the length of the spring. A spring is a lever in spiral rotation. What happens when you shorten a lever. Yep.

[shlomo]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

you said it, bro, not me!

That's why I do not have the gravitas to post pictures of myself playing dress-up with guns.

I know my place.

[gunplumber]

Originally Posted by shlomo

That's why I do not have the gravitas to post pictures of myself playing dress-up with guns.

You should see my pirate costume . . . Arrgh!

[shlomo]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

You should see my pirate costume . . . Arrgh!

You're so butch!

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by gunplumber

Funny, as I heard about this and having never experienced it myself, nor seen it anywhere else, I brought it up with my neighbor, Phil Arrington. Phil is my go-to guy on the extremely rare occasion I have a Garand or M1A issue I cannot resolve. He laughed, as he'd never needed to do those things either.

As I do have some knowledge of spring technology, I assert that if a spring does not perform as needed, the solution is to replace the spring with one of a different wire diameter. Not reduce the length of the spring. A spring is a lever in spiral rotation. What happens when you shorten a lever. Yep.

It's pretty much a standard mod for those around here who rebarrel their M1s to .308, when you think about it there's a certain logic to it. It's very common for .308 guns to start tossing empties straight back as opposed to forward and right, almost certainly due to the shorter, lighter case.

The point is, if you reduce the tension on the spring in an effort to keep the ejected cases out of your face you'll be reducing the tension on the component that holds the bolt together, matters not if you cut the spring or replace it with a full length component with a smaller k factor. It's a bad thing either way.

I do agree, cutting a spring is a rather trailer-park approach to it and is NOT equivalent to swapping for a lighter one.

b.

[kotengu]

Originally Posted by bubbagump

Yeah, my Ronnie Morris M1A...
b.

Are you in TN? I used to shoot with Ronnie Morris. Haven't seen him in several years a

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by kotengu

Are you in TN? I used to shoot with Ronnie Morris. Haven't seen him in several years a

No. Georgia. Ronnie normally comes down for the Confederate National Matches, we cross paths occasionally at Oak Ridge and Perry. Great guy, haven't seen him in a year or so myself.

[Peconga]

Originally Posted by JeffJ

If the Garand was meant to be 308 they would have come that way originally.
I don't know anything the 308 can do that the 30-06 can't do better.

Well, actually the Garand rifle was meant to be a .276 until Gen. MacArthur intervened. Since the .276 Pedersen was a 7x51 case you argue that the original design was closer to a .308 (7.62x51) than a .30-06 (7.62x63).

The .276 also used a 10-round enbloc clip instead of an 8-rounder, but that is a different story.

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by Peconga

Well, actually the Garand rifle was meant to be a .276 until Gen. MacArthur intervened. Since the .276 Pedersen was a 7x51 case you argue that the original design was closer to a .308 (7.62x51) than a .30-06 (7.62x63).

The .276 also used a 10-round enbloc clip instead of an 8-rounder, but that is a different story.

There were quite a few mods made to the M1 between the time it fired a .276 and the time it was released for service in .30-06 chambering. 'Original Design' refers to design as originally put into service, not early experiments which incidently were failures in terms of being suitable for adoption by the military.

b.

[Peconga]

Originally Posted by bubbagump

There were quite a few mods made to the M1 between the time it fired a .276 and the time it was released for service in .30-06 chambering. 'Original Design' refers to design as originally put into service, not early experiments which incidently were failures in terms of being suitable for adoption by the military.

b.

You are correct that development of the M1 Garand took went through many evolutionary steps before going into full production. Hence the term "original design" is itself ambiguous; I used it to refer to the version of the Garand rifle selected by the Ordnance Committee as the "winner" of the original semi-automatic rifle trials in early 1932. This version was known as the Model T3E2 and was chambered for the .276 Pedersen cartridge.

The .30-06 version of this rifle (known as the Model T1E2) had shown a propensity for cracking bolt lugs during trials and was NOT recommended for further development. The Committee also noted additional reasons to prefer the .276 cartridge, including lighter recoil, lighter weight, greater magazine capacity, and lower production cost. However, their recommendation was famously overruled by Army Chief of Staff Gen. MacArthur on the grounds that it would be too expensive to change our primary military caliber during the midst of a depression.

[STGThndr]

The .30-06 is an upstart round, we need to go back to the big-bore designs. Never should have replaced the .45-70.