Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Any M1 Garand experts in here?

I couldn’t find anywhere else to put this, as it’s not an ar/tactical or one of the other categories.
I’m eyeballing my first Garand at a local shop. Looking for opinions and any info you can provide. Receiver is a Springfield 1.95million serial. Barrel is SA 3-52. Bolt reads D28287-12SA RE5B. Barrel has import mark EXCEL/GARDNER MA. Op rod is marked NM. Stock has been replaced. From what I can tell it’s one that has been lent to Korea then imported back into the country. Originally built in 43, rearsenaled around 52-53, then possibly rebuilt again when imported. Finish is great on it, and the bore looks mint and crisp rifling. Anything I should look for? Anything seem sketchy?

If it has a good price on it, grab it if you want a shooter. It doesn't sound like it has a lot of "collector's value", but that's a plus in my book because you can have fun shooting it and not worry. Any Garand that works is fine in my book. Check the prices around the country and you can judge if it's a decent price. A lot of folks want a WW2 date, so you can always get your money back.

Do you know if it was a CMP gun?

it's not a lend lease gun with that import stamp on it. number of years ago some of the guns korea bought were sold back here, this would be one. if you don't have guages stick a 30.06 round in the muzzle and see how far down the muzzle the bullet goes that is an indication of how much wear.
it sounds like it was rebarreled after the war.
typically even junk garands are probably bringing 800 to 1000 around here if thats any indication.
op rod national match
it was not a cmp gun

IMHO Garand ownership is all about enjoyment. Make sure the gun is made from mil spec parts to insure quality...and shoot the hell out of it!

It was the hard fist of democracy until the FN FAL came about and kept the red tide at bay!

They are fun to shoot. Mine is an all correct H&R. It shoots real well for my son, my eyes suck!

Buy.

That is a CMP gun I think.Typically they get them in,strip them all down and refurbish to a serviceable grade They put them all back together with no thought of matching mfgr or S/N.Sounds like someone has refinished the stock as they don't do anything with the wood.Even if sent to Korea, more than likely it still went thru the CMP (DCM) before being sold.

It's probably a shooter,but if you buy it, get some specs on the gas cylinder and end of operating rod. That wears and sometimes CMP doesn't replace that if it is still within specs.

There are a lot of places you can buy Garand replacement parts.

Get on the CMP website and check the price of service grade M1's to get an idea of pricing

I don’t believe any CMP guns had import stamps. CMP rifles were returned to the Army from other countries (Greece, Italy, etc) and then transferred to the CMP. Looks like a good shooter.

Bought one very similar to the one you're describing at Scheel's old location. It's one of my favorite rifles. The guy to talk to about Garands in our area would be Dick. He's almost always at the Fondy show.

sorry, didn't work that way. lend lease guns if returned went to the army, then to dcm or cmp.
guns with the import stamp were BOUGHT by the country and then SOLD back here.
i have sat in a warehouse a time or two with thousands of them that were reimported typically from south korea stamped blue sky, or arlington arms, or other importers.
dcm or cmp only dealt with lend lease, not the ones they bought.
a number of years ago the danish garands started coming back in. lend lease guns ended up being sold by cmp. the ones they the danes bought were not allowed to come back in with intact guns. The receivers went to canada, the rest of the gun was sold as a parts kit.
i saw hundreds of them too. the big game at the time was in those parts kits. to tear them apart separating the parts by manufacturer and revision number. The idea was to assemble a correct garand assuming you had the reciever. I ended up getting a kit put together with all winchester parts, and finding a Win13 reciever. The win 13's were only made for a few months in 1945, as winchester was cleaning out their parts bin. So a correct one is a mixture of winchester parts in no date order. Nice rifle.

Would not the CMP then have final sale of it? For it to have all different S/N's it would have had to go thru CMP at one time or another,even if it was back when it was DCM

as to mix and match, they were doing that in the field in WWII, they were intentionally made that way.

the danish garands often had beretta replacement parts/ or barrels in them. berretta was a parts supplier to the danes. nobody cared about keeping them intact as to the parts numbers, just that they worked.

Ron, know of any source for Beretta/Breda M1 receivers?

At some point the Danish rifles were sold through the CMP as complete rifles minus the wood. They were referred to as "naked Danes".

I had several back before that boating disaster.

It was free game to import Garands from other countries in the 1980s. Then there was a halt on imports. The CMP (private organization) weaseled the politicians into granting exclusive import rights. So the price went up by 100s of %, and the CMP guys got new boats.
In the 1980s I shot qualification for a one in a lifetime M1 Garand from the DCM. It cost 125.00, and it was rebuilt to new by Letterkenny Army Depot (Pennsylvania).

I bought a DCM Garand for $168. It was awhile ago.
Our gun club decided to have a Garand Only 200 yd match.
I shot 1st place using 168 gr Ballistic Tips.
It is a Freedom Fighter as far as I am concerned.
whelennut

You can run the serial # by the CMP and they'll tell you if they sold it.

If the barrel looks good and the oprod doesn't pull out of the track I'd say it's *probably* fine for a shooter. Depends on how close you have the opportunity to inspect it too. It would be nice to try a "field" gauge in it to make sure the headspace isn't loose to the point of rejection. There are still parts around, so it can be fixed if you have minor probs.

As already stated this IS NOT A CMP RIFLE !
It is stamped EXCEL/GARDNER MA which is the Importers stamp. CMP does not import rifles, none of CMP rifles will have Import stamps. Many Imported rifles were pretty well worn so were refinished by the importer. I would not purchase it without gaging the bore at a minimum as many barrels were also worn. You are better off purchasing a service grade from CMP which will be delivered to your door for $750