Three IHC Data Sheets

I keep the M1 Garand Honor Guard rifles serviced for the local VFW/Legion Club here in town and I decided to make data sheets on them. They have ten rifles, three IHCs, three H&Rs, and four SAs. When I was filling out the sheets on the IHCs I noticed the dates on two of the barrels were more than the normal three or so months difference from the estimated reciever manufacture dates. In fact one has a SA barrel that is dated quite a bit earlier than when the rifle was built, and I can't see anything physical on the rifle that indicates it wasn't installed at the IHC plant when the rifle was assembled. I know that sometimes material shortages and rejected parts made it necessary to aquire these items from one of the other factories but I have never seen a SA barrel on an IHC. Another thing that is interestng is how close the three serial numbers are, a span of 5,229 rifles, roughly ten days or so worth of production. According to production figures all three of these rifles should have been assembled in early 1955. Of the two with LMR barrels, the higher serial number rifle has a barrel dated one month earlier than the lowest serial numbered reciever. No wonder it's so difficult to figure out what is correct and what isn't.
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Scott Duff commented on this in his 1999 article " Barrel Usage on New M1 Rifle Production 1952 -1957, Part 2 - International Harvester " found in Vol. 14, Num. 1 of the GCA Journal. Scott states that for the "serial number range 5004047 through 5197931 it is found that barrel dates range from Dec. 1953 to April 1955. However, the barrel dates do not appear to run in serial number sequence. It is not possible to determine if the rifles were assembled far out of serial number order or the barrels were used out of date order. Quite a few original rifles in this serial number range have been observed with SA barrels. SA-barreled rifles appear throughout the serial number range. Dates range from March 1952 through March of 1954, with most dated in 1953. There appears to be no pattern to their usage. The reason behind the use of SA barrels is unknown as many LMR barrels were used in late HRA production and by Springfield Armory during rebuild. One would expect these LMR barrels to have gone to IHC and precluded the need for SA to furnish barrels. It's another IHC mystery." This article is now 12 years old but not a whole lot more is known about the operations at IHC than was known when this article was written.

Thanks for the information Joe. It's not often you see three IHCs in the same place with the serial numbers that close, it make for interesting comparisons.

About 3 years ago the Detachment of The Marine Corps League that I belong to in N.C. received 6 M1s from the Dept. of the Army for ceremonial use. Three were IHC, two of these three appeared all original.
5134151 had a 1-54 LMR barrel and an 1725 marked stock. 5149476 with a 2-54 barrel and 1585 marked stock. The other, 5101114 had a SA 8-53 barrel, IHC op-rod, the rest of this rifle was a mix of SA parts and a stock with a partial SHM cartouche. I believe the SA barrel was original to the build. I guess these were some of the last IHC rifles that the Army had on hand. About a year ago the MCL Detachment I belong to in Florida also got 6 M1's from the Dept. of the Army. These were all SA (WW2) and Danish returns. What was of interest to me was that the stocks on these rifles had the matching serial number stamped on them while most of the Danes received from CMP seemed to have mismatched serial numbers on the stocks.