Let's See Those M1 Battle Rifles

[DragonGunner]

Had a 1903A3 2 groove from WWII I sold to some INGO member years ago. I still have a CMP 1903 made in 1932, lots of WWII parts and barrel pitted so I'm saying it was at Gaudacanal battle in my mind. Keeping it to hand down to my son who wants it. Old picture from around 2010.

 

[92FSTech]

Since we've now drifted the thread to 03's, here's my Remington 03A3. I bought it sporterized, and had to replace the front sight, stock, and a bunch of stock hardware.
(Garand in the photo to keep it thread-relevant!)

 

[musketjon]

View attachment 297090
This is the Winchester with new furniture I sold here on INGO a while back. Most of the parts were Winchester. You can tell Winchester parts from across the room as they look like they were hewn with an ax. Such a good gun manufacturer and such poor attention to detail. Don't get me wrong they have great tolerances and shoot great but there are so many milling marks on them they look like they were drug across concrete on the inside.

View attachment 297093
This is what I mean, it doesn't affect function but if you compare the visual of this to say an H&R it is like night and day.

Winchester was only in it for the money. Their hearts weren't in it. They didn't keep up with all the upgrades either.

 

[92FSTech]

You can tell Winchester parts from across the room as they look like they were hewn with an ax.

You aren't kidding! Both of my rifles have SA receivers, but one has an IHC bolt and the other a Winchester. The IHC bolt is beautiful with clean milling lines and a nice finish. The Winchester bolt looks like it was machined with an angle grinder! Works just fine, though.

 

[Mongo59]

Winchester was only in it for the money. Their hearts weren't in it. They didn't keep up with all the upgrades either.

Way back during WWI when the gov was having trouble with the brittle receivers on the '03 they entered into negotiations with Winchester to purchase the right to use their proprietary formula for steel. Winchester offered to help make the Model 1917 for the war effort and the gov contracted for them to make them for $12.25 each to sweeten the deal while the other manufacturers were contracted for $12 each.

The repercussions were other manufacturers threatening to stop their assembly lines and bickering went on way past the end of the war. Meanwhile, about the same time, Westinghouse had acquired Stevens and were making Mosins for the Czar of Russia. His demise meant there was no one to pay for the contracted weapons. They cried on the shoulders of the gov and that was how we ended up with US marked Mosins. We never used them and the Russians never got them but the gov bought them and the stipulation was US had to be on what the gov owned. After Westinghouse had their buns pulled back out of the fire with our tax dollars the Stevens company went up for sale and was bought by Savage. The gov brought charges against Stevens for war profiteering which came to nothing as they had a mysterious fire in their records department that wiped out all of the records, war time and others. That is why, to this day, the age of Stevens firearms are a estimation by the address and name of the manufacturer because all records ceased to exist.

Springfield and Rock Island later found out that on cloudy days the metallurgist were accurately estimating the temp of the steel but on bright shinny days they were over heating the steel and cooking the carbon out of it resulting in brittle receivers. They installed pyrometers and the problem was resolved and the gov never used Winchester's proprietary formula for steel. So, the gov has been chasing it's own tail and creating problems they solved with our tax dollars for a long long time and what we see today is nothing new just a much larger less hidden version of it's old self.

If you want to see how they handled bickering back then research how FDR kept the bickering to a whisper during the war, I think Stalin used his playbook...

 

[Mongo59]

This is a 5.8 million SA that is a Correct Grade from the CMP. The only reason it was not a Collectors grade are the few chigger bites on the right side of the stock. I got this one from a fellow INGOer that entrusted it to me for stewardship to future generations. It is beautiful, tight, original and well made from nearing the end of the run. My local M1 guru can find no evidence it has ever been taken apart. The left side of the stock is immaculate with a strong cartouche. It will not be shot while I am in possession of it...

 

[Mongo59]

This is my mostly Winchester. All the internals are correct but it wears a SA/GAW stock. Some day I might find someone who is need of this stock and has a Winchester one laying around. Hey, I can dream can't I?

 

[Mongo59]

This is my shooter. SA 3.69 million WWII. Someone slicked down the stock and put some super shinny finish on it and I was going to strip it and make it look more natural but it shoots so well I am afraid I will loose some of it's MoJo. I rebarreled it with an OEM 1964 that was unused and this thing as it sits is doped in for 300y and will put all 8 rounds in the bottom of a coke bottle. So, this is my mandatory Frankenrifle that everyone needs...

 

[Mongo59]

This is the least original M1 that I own, more so than my shooter. This is my 5 digit serial numbered SA. He would have left the factory as a 'gas trap' and later converted to a 'gas port'. It has been through CMP and they dressed it up. A buddy ordered CMP special and they sent him this sight unseen. I ended up with it and I just love the history. Being a prewar it had to be in the thick of things and who knows what it has seen. CMP put it's new furniture on it and my plans are to leave it just as it sits.

 

[Winamac]

Just some "gee whiz" IHC Garand trivia. Not all IHC Garands were made here in Indiana. According to Duffs book on the Post WWII Garands. IHC experienced major tooling issues during the Korean war and had trouble fulfilling the orders for rifles. SA had to step in and build Garands for them. They were still IHC marked though. There is a way to delineate between Indiana built and SA built IHC Garands, but I do not recall the details. Just some FYI.

 

[Mongo59]

Just some "gee whiz" IHC Garand trivia. Not all IHC Garands were made here in Indiana. According to Duffs book on the Post WWII Garands. IHC experienced major tooling issues during the Korean war and had trouble fulfilling the orders for rifles. SA had to step in and build Garands for them. They were still IHC marked though. There is a way to delineate between Indiana built and SA built IHC Garands, but I do not recall the details. Just some FYI.

Yes, IHC had numerous problems getting off the ground. For a while they had to use receivers made by either H&R or SA with IHC's name on them. This is how they got the different receivers like postage stamp and arrow head, ect. They never did make their own barrels.

They paid the workers by the piece and docked them on oopses. The building was large with an inner wall that only went up 10 feet or so and the workers would give them the sky hook over the inner wall as to not be docked. Years later when the building was torn down the parking lot was strewn with Garand parts.

 

[TheJoker]

The "Line Material Corporation" produced M1 rifle barrels, made in the Birmingham, Al. plant, used on the IHC Garands are among the best barrels.

 

[CodeBlue]

My Springfield M1A with new cheek riser, this should be fun!

 

[BigMoose]

Just some "gee whiz" IHC Garand trivia. Not all IHC Garands were made here in Indiana. According to Duffs book on the Post WWII Garands. IHC experienced major tooling issues during the Korean war and had trouble fulfilling the orders for rifles. SA had to step in and build Garands for them. They were still IHC marked though. There is a way to delineate between Indiana built and SA built IHC Garands, but I do not recall the details. Just some FYI.

Yeah IHC got sorta hosed on that deal. And a lot of it was outright sabotaged plans sent from SA

When SA sent the plans out for HRA and IHC to begin rifle production. They left some trip ups in the plans. It was the sort of thing most gunmakers would be able to catch, and HRA did. IHC didn't and it ended with issues that really tripped up IHC.

IHC never did tool up for Barrels. So they contracted with LMR for barrels. They are good barrels.

By the end of the contract, IHC was so put out with ordinance that they bought out the contract and didn't produce the last batch of rifles they were contracted for. They just wanted out. Receiver production ended early, and the last IHC garands came on HRA contracted receivers.

One quirk with Winchester, is despite not having made Garand parts in decades, they made some replacement barrels for the M1 in the very late 60s. These are some of the best barrels ever made for the Garand, you will know you have one as they are labeled with the Winchester script logo. So not all Winchester garand parts will show the rough finish.

Ordinance treated the IHC rifles in the system, like red headed stepchildren. While IHCs did get issued to the regular army, preference was given to issuing SA,HRA, and WRA first. IHC rifles always seemed to be the first grabbed and sent into the MAP program to be sent to allies across the globe. To the point that some of IHCs later production was sent directly to MAP. It is why IHCs in the US were much rarer than they should have been. It wasn't until batches of IHCs came back from Turkey that an IHC rifle became attainable by most of us. They are still rarer then they should be, and its theorized that Persia/Iran was directly shipped much of IHC's new later production.

 

[TheJoker]

I've got one of the HRAs that came with a LMR barrel. It was my first trip the the CMP South Store back in '11. They had a two racks of what looked like brand new HRA rifles that were rumored to have had their stocks scavenged before being returned by Greece. The CMP put them in those "Pumpkinwood" stocks. I knew zero about M1s. I picked one and brought it to the counter. Ole Leon looked it over, handed it back to me and said: "That's a nice one; but, I want you to put it back and find one with just a little better TE/ME." So, I went back to racks and studied tags until I found one with ME 1/TE 1. Brought it to the counter. Leon looked at it, smiled and said: "Oooh, LMR barrel. good choice!"

I paid $695 and they shipped it home for free!

I ended up putting that almost perfect HRA metal into a DGR Stock. She's a beauty!

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I've got one of the HRAs that came with a LMR barrel. It was my first trip the the CMP South Store back in '11. They had a two racks of what looked like brand new HRA rifles that were rumored to have had their stocks scavenged before being returned by Greece. The CMP put them in those "Pumpkinwood" stocks. I knew zero about M1s. I picked one and brought it to the counter. Ole Leon looked it over, handed it back to me and said: "That's a nice one; but, I want you to put it back and find one with just a little better TE/ME." So, I went back to racks and studied tags until I found one with ME 1/TE 1. Brought it to the counter. Leon looked at it, smiled and said: "Oooh, LMR barrel. good choice!"

I paid $695 and they shipped it home for free!

I ended up putting that almost perfect HRA metal into a DGR Stock. She's a beauty!

Was Leon the armorer down there? I can't remember for sure, but I got to be on a first name basis with the armorer. I ask because I had to send a WWII era SA rifle back to them twice because of "premature ejection" issues. The first time they sent it back they said it had been fixed, but it turned out they were only using special 2 round clips. It would eject the still partially full 8 round clip after 4 or 5 shots. Eventually they sent me a much nicer Korean War era "Special Grade" rifle with a new stock and a National Match barrel.

This is what the SA was doing.

 

[TheJoker]

Yeah. He ran the South store for years. Last I knew, he was running the big range at TMP.

 

[knutty]

Was Leon the armorer down there? I can't remember for sure, but I got to be on a first name basis with the armorer. I ask because I had to send a WWII era SA rifle back to them twice because of "premature ejection" issues. The first time they sent it back they said it had been fixed, but it turned out they were only using special 2 round clips. It would eject the still partially full 8 round clip after 4 or 5 shots. Eventually they sent me a much nicer Korean War era "Special Grade" rifle with a new stock and a National Match barrel.

This is what the SA was doing.

Did you replace the clip latch spring?

Every Garand I've owned and shot gets a new clip latch spring and recoil spring at a minimum. On one's I shoot alot, I replace every spring. Orion 7 is the go to for new springs.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Did you replace the clip latch spring?

Every Garand I've owned and shot gets a new clip latch spring and recoil spring at a minimum. On one's I shoot alot, I replace every spring. Orion 7 is the go to for new springs.

I want to say they did the first time I sent it back. The second time I sent it back, they said it was a "timing issue" and that's when they replaced the rifle.

 

[223 Gunner]

Any room for an M1A in this thread? Of course we all know the M14 saw limited combat in Vietnam, so maybe not a "true" battle rifle.