M1 Garand, Rate Them from Good to Bad manuf.

W

Westicle

New member
Looking to Buy an M1 Garand, all the ones up here would be Mil. Surplus. Usually I find the Following Makes in Stock,

1) Breda
2) Beretta

Sometimes you see the odd Springfield or other make ?Whinchester? but I am looking for a good shooter that has good steel and is rebuilable by Fulton Armory.

With the import/Export Laws I would rather ship a Firearm to fulton and have it rebuilt rather then going thru the hassle of importing a new one from fulton.

Thanks for the Help Guys....
 
Springfield. Good base gun, lots of them around. Winchesters are the best, and as such have a serious collector value.
 
Most Garand Nuts would agree that when considering just fit, function, and quality of materials the best rack grade M1s are the late production Harrison & Richardsons. These rifles were made after Korean under peacetime quality control standards by a manufacturer that knew firearms and the rifles benefited from all the modifications, metallurgy improvements, and learnings that came from 15 years of Garand production that preceded H&R's contact. The H&R Garands were the peak of M1 evolution. After H&R I'd rank the peacetime Springfields as the best, then wartime SAs, then Winchester, and lastly International Harvester.

Now, collector interest is almost the complete opposite - it's based more on production scarcity and buyer sentiment. The IH Garand is highly collectable because it has the lowest production numbers and numerous sub-variations within it's production run. Winchesters are always in demand because of their use in WWII and commercial name recognition. Wartime Springfields are very common but still have some sentimental cache, postwar Springfields are the best rifles the Armory ever made but lack the history of being used in the "Big One." If your interested in sentimental/collector value the HRA is dead last because the production runs were very uniform (which is boring to collectors) and they were never used in a major war.

Don't know that much about Italian Garands, except they were made on US tooling after WWII by two of Italy's best arms makers. I think most would say the Beretta is more desirable, probably due to name recognition more than anything else.

Peoples' opinions vary but that's my take. -- Kernel
 
I'd bump the IHC's a little hogher on your scale. From an exterior finish standpoint they are relatively rough when compared to the IHC and late Springfields, but from a shooting standpoint, the IHC's with LMR barrels are some of the best. Of course, some of the WWII production weapons that went to Denmark came back with VAR barrels and those have a very good rep. I would put Winchesters lower on the scale. Good guns for WWII and collecting, but spares are a bit tough to find.
 
I thought the Winchesters were the best, because they were chosen as the bases for the M1C and D?
 
Westicle --

At my club, we just finished a match using club-owned Beretta M1 Garands. All functioned perfectly. I personally fired many rounds in the X ring from 200 yards. In the states, you can get one from the CMP for 400 for a Danish/Beretta or 500 for US Service rifle from various makers.

By the way, the Glock mags work great.
 
HouTex, The best place I know to get a good H&R Garand (or any Garand) is from the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

BB, the M1C & M1D (scoped sniper versions) were all made by Springfield, as were all the National Match target rifles. If you ever see a Winchester sniper Garand I guarantee it's a fake. Winchester only made plain-jane Garands, no prototypes, no sniper rifles, or anything special. I bet you're thinking of the M1 Carbine that was issued with a night vision scope in the closing days of WWII. Those Carbines were all made by Winchester.

From what I've read it seems that during WWII the guys in charge at Springfield Armory were not to happy that Winchester was making their Garand rifle. It was Washington's idea in the first place. There's a lot of documentation (gathered by SA) showing all the deficiencies at Winchester: how the rifles were not to spec, they had higher failure rates, they wasted raw materials, they didn't keep their revision numbers up to date, they didn't follow all the rules and count their beans the right way, etc, etc. It was for the most part a lot of petty BS, but there was some truth to it. I guess what mattered was that Winchester rifles worked, we were in a war and needed all the rifles we could get.

Throughout WWII Garands made at "The Armory" were continually evolving and being improved. The Garands made by Winchester are for the most part all basically the same, once Winchester got them working right they didn't want to mess with any changes. In manufacturing you see this all the time even today. Subvendors just want to crank out parts. They hate it when you keep changing the drawings and redesigning every little detail.

Winchester Garands command a premium nowadays for two reasons. 1. Scarcity - Winchester made fewer wartime Garands than SA. 2. Name recognition - the Winchester name has a romantic cache with the buying public. Fit & function wise a Winchester Garand is not any better than a SA, if anything it's probably a step or two behind.

Bottom line is any of the GI Garands are good rifles, including the Italians. If it's just for shooting get whatever is cheapest, especially if you plan to send it to Fulton to have it rebuilt. However, I would strongly urge staying away from any of the civilian manufactured Garand receivers (i.e.. CAI). I've heard to many bad things about them and they just aren't worth it when real milspec Garands are so plentiful and affordable. -- Kernel
 
Before the CMP got really behind on "select" rifle shipments, I got a mint H&R from them as a "select". The wood was a bit odd, two-tone, but everything else about the gun was like brand new.
 
I went through 4 NM M-1's when I was in the service and all were SA. Even though they were tighter than a service grade we never had any function problems with them. All they knew was shoot shoot shoot. To this day, if TSHTF, a man can do a hell of a lot worse than to grab a Garand.
 
I concur with Kernel on the CMP. I got a SA 5 digit serial reciever and a VAR barrel with a few mixed parts, but the gun was in great shape, functions well, and is more accurate than I ever expected it to be. CMP is still the best deal going in Garands.
 
IHC Garands: here is a bit of info on the IHC that has come to my knowledge-IHC recievers were not made by IHC but by Springfield Armory. Due to IHC's inability to maintain the Defense Dept. contracts timliness Sprigfield Armory sent IHC most if not all of their recievers used. Meaning that most if not all of their recievers are actually S.A. but stamped IHC. As for barrel makers none of the companies that made the full rifles made the best barrels only one independant contractor made the best barrels that were (when possible) snarfed up by all the services' Marksmanship Units (Army,Marines,etc.) because of the superior accuracy of these bbls. I will have to check as to the name of the manufacturer on the bbls'. Winchester Garands were well behind in quality control from most others but still functionable none the less. I have heard but I am not sure that Springfield and then H&R then IHC and finally Winchester for Q.C. For sell ability the Winchesters are king (my brother just recently sold his all matching Win. (vet bring-back)for $1000 and no haggling by the buyer-I told him he could have gotten at least $1300 (no haggling)for the piece- probably closer to $1600 or more.
 
I have an early WWII production Winchester with a '52 SA barrel that's in excellent shape. I want to get it rebarreled in .308. Anyone interested in a nice '52 Springfield barrel? I haven't had it throat-gauged, but it the bore is bright and the muzzle appears nearly perfect. You guys should invade and annex us up here;) We get Garands for under $200 Canadian. That's about $130 US right now. That's for specimens similar to the ones you guys get from the CMP.
Clead.
 
Springfield and IHC

IHC did make receivers. Springfield also supplied them with receivers due to lagging production and QC issues. See Scott Duff's book on the Post World War II Garands for the details.
 
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