Garand 19SA bolt - when was it introduced?

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Originally Posted by bob seijas

Springfield M1 serial 2742717 was recovered by Jo (Joseph) Gentil from the body of an American GI who had been killed on the morning of August 27, 1944 during the capture of the village of Plousané in western France. He also took the cartridge belt and left his German Mauser rifle next to the fallen GI. The American soldier was a member of the 29th Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment, and had been killed in combat in the cemetery around the church in Plousané. Gentil was from the village and was part of the Free French resistance group of Saint Renan about five miles to the north. These partisans fought alongside the US 29th Infantry Division for the liberation of Le Conquet peninsula that includes the city of Brest.
Attachment 123043

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Wow, what an incredible story, thank you for the reply! Is it known what eventually became of this rifle? Did it return to the United States or does it still remain in Europe?

Furthermore, it is sufficient to say that a -19SA bolt on an April-May 1944 is not as uncommon as I believed? I see that this rifle 2742717 has a bolt -19SA A-5<>. My receiver, 2769xxx, is -19SA A-4<>. Would the heat lots follow a numerical sequence?

The identifiers followed a numerical order: the sequence of lots received from that supplier. Letters indicate multiple lots from the same batch. However, they were used in random order, and more than one was used at the same time. They are a clue but not a fool-proof indicator.

Scott Duff's WW2 Book on the M1 rifle states that the revision 19 bolt was not used until early 1945.

The first M1 rifle in his data that shows a revision 19 bolt is serial number 3,354,523

I recall that there was a bad heat lot code in the 19 bolts but don't remember the heat lot

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Originally Posted by RCS

Scott Duff's WW2 Book on the M1 rifle states that the revision 19 bolt was not used until early 1945.

The first M1 rifle in his data that shows a revision 19 bolt is serial number 3,354,523

I recall that there was a bad heat lot code in the 19 bolts but don't remember the heat lot

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I believe it was the O-16 heat lot that was removed. I know this because of my endeavor to figure out the mystery of these -19SA bolts. But yes, the revision 19 bolt according to Scott Duff does not show until 3,354,523, putting it at December '44, which is also what Bruce Canfield says. However, his graph in Chapter 6 says April 1944, putting it around the 2.7 million mark, which would give credence to this rifle 2,742,717 which was found on an American in August 1944. I apologize for being a broken record, but this topic seems fascinatingly confusing.

I looked my rifle over today, and in fact, it has the A-5<> bolt, not the A-4<> as I falsely believed it did. I may as well post pictures of my rifle for others if they wish to view it.

Pictures here for the curious: Garand - Album on Imgur