M1 Garand commercial ammo
Every now and then someone has a question about suitable commercial .30-'06 ammo for the Garand. I checked this topic on the well-known US site CSP GUN TALK with Gus Fisher, who is a retired USMC armourer and currently services rifles for the National Match competitions at Camp Perry, Ohio. Gus's advice was to use the American Eagle FMJ 150-gr. load, which he has used frequently with no problems. His other preferred load was the Federal Gold Match 168-gr. FMJBT load, which was designed for the Garand but is very expensive. He had no opinion on the Remington-UMC or Winchester 150-gr. loads.
The crux of the matter here is the burning speed of the powder. I still have some PMC M2, which is an exact copy of the US military load for the Garand. The American Eagle, as well as the Winchester and UMC loads, equals the ballistics for those companies' 150-gr. hunting loads, which seem to use powder of the wrong burning speed for the Garand. However, Gus Fisher acknowledged that the American Eagle was a bit hotter than the military loads, but still caused no problems such as bent op rods, etc. He was unsure about this problem re the Winchester or UMC loads.
I would like to hear opinions on this question from other Garand shooters out there, especially non-reloaders like myself. Many people feel that there is no problem with any standard commercial 150-gr. load, but I prefer to err on the side of caution and stick with the American Eagle and Federal loads, and my dwindling stock of PMC.
All answers appreciated, and Merry Christmas from Alberta!
I've shot a lot of the Federal American Eagle
The US Civilian Marksmanship Program used to have it made up in special boxes just for their yearly Garand Match. I bought a lot of it so I could get really good zeros before leaving for Camp Perry. It was not particularly accurate, but I heard no complaints about it. It was much more accurate than late 1960's US GI Ball, and had no problems with duds. Comparing different lots produced in different years, my Garands put it within an inch or two of other years. I also shot it through several 1903 Springfield rifles, with no difficulty extracting it.
I saw this advertisement from Hornady yesterday:
Hornady
I am wondering if the US Civilian Marksmanship Program is going to use the Hornady stuff, instead of the Greek-made M2 ball that they have been using the past several years. The Greek stuff shot about the same as the Federal stuff, but I had severe trouble extracting the Greek stuff from manually-operated 1903 rifles. I had no extraction troubles in Garands with the Greek stuff, and no torn rims either.
Years ago I shot some commercial .30-'06 through a Garand. The ammo companies are trying for better ballistics than the cartridge gave in 1938, because this is a selling point. The only way to do that is to use powders that produce a longer pressure curve, which results in higher pressures at the gas port near the muzzle. It clearly did not like it: operation of the action was much more violent, brass thrown much harder & further. I won't do that again.
I have no experience with the PMC.