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

i have a friend that has one, but i don't think he would sell it.
other than that, no.
if my memory serves me correct beretta got the equipment for garands from winchester, after the war.
i got a few of the danish garands with i think called the val barrels. what i wanted and didn't get was one with the navy markings.

thats actually pretty good advice, particularly if you don't know the ends and outs of them and how to evaluate what you are looking at.

the ones i got had the wood on them. they were complete rifles.
you could also get cases of 30.06ball in bandoliers. really good stuff.

cmp only gets guns that were lend lease, they don't buy at least i think they don't buy those SOLD to various countries.
some of it is kind of murky tho. few years ago cmp sold some m1carbine barrels recievers, nothing else attached. barrels were shot out. One of the ones they sold was eith a universal or a plainsfield, not U.S. military. came from south america. i think that commercial reciever was from some black arts program

DCM as i remember was under the department of the army. That changed with the handover to CMP.

i think i can see that grey repark on the metal, typical of some arsonal rebuilds.

one of the issues with garands, carbines, 1911's, victory revolvers is that most people have not had the chance or have the knowlege to see one that hasn't been dragged to death behind a tank.
They aren't all like that however.
I have seen any number of all the above that for most purposes are brand new, including 1903 and 1903A3's with a muzzle gage of 1 for those that know what that means.
but you don't generally find them at cabella's and they cost money if the seller knows what they are. but they are out there.
I know of one bought by a guy that was friends with the director of the cmp circa mid 1950's. It's about 100miles from me and i got to handle it. Not chance of buying it, basically a new gun.

at the end of WWII i think in new jersey the ships were coming in and they were off loading small arms. moving them around in stacks with fork lifts. you could buy one as a memento for ten bucks. As told to me buy a guy that worked there that ran out of ten dollar bills.

Ron;, the Danish came with VAR barrels. very good shooters. I have a Springfield Dane with such a barrel that my son bedded and accurized. tackdrivers for Garands. can't use it in an as issued match, but that's not what its for.

there use to be a guy with a gunshop a few miles from my house. Some of his guns are/were used in illustrations in books on garands. frequently going into that shop cost me money. He had at one time winchester ser 1000 in a garand.
I use to frequent there some times when i got stumped on parts identification etc.

This ^^

kwg

My woodless Dane had the navel crest of the sight spring/cover. And a brand spanking new Marlin barrel. lol That was a surprise and somewhat of a disappointment after hearing so much about the great VAR barrels.


I passed on a Breda some years back and regretted it for a long time. Now I don't, interests come and go.

Thanks for the replies and wealth of knowledge. I ended up talking them down from $1300 to $750. It does need the op spring replaced. Otherwise it seems ready to go. It’s all Springfield except for the NM RA op rod. Here’s some pics including numbers.






[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/alb...-B681-E5C44F21F7D1_zpspsuxjkoj.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/alb...-A990-FB16598F05CF_zpsowntpxzj.jpg[/img]

Nice! You really beat them up on price! I think $750 is around where it should be.

By the looks of it, it hasn't been fired much if at all since the last rebuild. Probably a new barrel. I don't think they would have parkered that barrel if it didn't meet spec.

Looks like it came from S Korea.

surgeon, you did well. have fun with it.

How did the muzzle turn out to be?

Well, went to a gun show tonight and had Don Kemps from the Garand collectors society look it over. He was extremely impressed by it. Said it was worth about double what I paid for it. Barrel has a zero for ME, and around a 1 for TE. Every part is correct except the ihc front sight.

in today's market, i think you ripped them on price.
as to that marlin barrel comment, i wouldn't be too upset about it. A guy i know that had access to many many garands chose one with a marlin barrel, they were replacements, but suppose to be pretty good.

Fantastic!

I bet that barrel will be a good shooter. All those M1 barrels were broach cut. The things that made the bad ones were mostly rust and use. You have a new one, so scratch those possibilities.

hornsurgeon,

GOOD DEAL imVho.

LMR barrels were the NORMAL replacement in USA arsenals & NUMEROUS foreign arsenals, too. = Marlin made MANY great barrels & small parts for the USA & for foreign governments for over 2 decades.
(I once had a post WWII Garand that was re-arsenaled in Japan, by HOWA, in 1958. = It wasn't pretty but shot like new.)

I'd bet that the "mixmaster" shoots FINE.

yours, tex

What???? From the limited pictures I can see stock , barrel and rear sights aren't correct. Not sure what smoke hes blowing up your *** but rifle clearly is not correct. Its worth what you paid but not double
I have been collecting, building garands for over 20 years

you can see that from the pictures, eh?