Re-welded Garands?

I am new to the group. Looking for a Garand. I keep hearing about re-welded Garands.
Are they OK, how do you tell?
Thank you for any information
Phiil

Those receivers were cut in half and scrap dealers welded the fronts and rears together. There are ways to tell by appearance and by comparing the serial numbers on the rear half and the drawing numbers on the front half. Some good photos are the best way to learn about them.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...iver1png-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...iver2png-1.jpg

Thanks Rock, that's about as clear as it gets. It should be mentioned that some are not that easy to distinguish...

The welded (not re-welded) rifles fall into "good, better, best" categories according to the care taken in welding the halves together and the clean up milling. One early welder got a large batch of halves and even made some effort to match s/ns with drawing numbers. Some of his best work is amost indistinguishable with intact receivers. Others, like the ones shown above, jump out at you. Clues to look for are interuptions in milling/machining patterns; any dispalcement of lines or profiles; voids or bubbles and differences in the color of the finish.

It seems especially common with old match rifles. Many have shot thousands of rounds in competition. Generally these welds are quite good. And may be almost impossible to distinguish without a teardown. (Which isn't lightly undertaken with a bedded, etc. rifle in good nick!)

Many are very well done and will fool you.
You must look very carefully and then they can be hard to see
Just matching drawing numbers with serial isnt enough as it is possible that the right halves were welded together, you need to also do a close visual inspection.

Hi Phil ...

Welcome to the forums .. :)

You might want to try our Google CSE custom search engine located in the top right corner below the words "Advanced Search". It only searches our site using Google techniques and can be quite efficient. For example, in your case, type in the words welded garand and see what happens .. ;)

There are dozens of old threads about welded garands, many with pictures. You might also want to try variants on the search terms as well, such as weld garand and welded receiver etc... ;)

Regards,
Doug

Phil:

Consider a CMP Garand. The various Service Grades are top quality and the CMP has never sold a welded receiver. Buy with no fear!

Rifle Sales - M1 Garand

Right or wrong, alot of collectors still use the term "re weld". I got 1150 hits on this term using the "Google CSE" as pointed out by Badger. Nice feature.

It reminds me of people who say" I axed him a question. It is clearly "asked" but a bunch of folks will argue tooth and nail it is "axed" and they are wrong. You can not "re"weld something that was never welded previously . :) Rick B