swapping M1 parts

[DaveN]

after receiving several HRA and SA garands from CMP i noticed the op rods, trigger groups and some bolts were mixed. wanting to learn how to take down the garand anyway I swaped the rods and tgs and now the rifles are all correct, and the parts are all correct to the period of mftd. do you think someone does this on purpose for someone who orders 1 M1 has a mix master
but I now have 6 rifles that are correct. Though I would not upon sale claim they came that way.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Calif-Steve]

Most likely the rifles were received in Greece and inspected by them. The rifles were heavily coated in thick grease and were cleaned by dropping parts in a solvent tank. As they were reassembled it was "first come first served". No regard to manufacturer. Got it?

[DaveN]

oh yea i knew it was simple. but its fun to take them apart and play with them when you cant shoot them very often.

[Akulahawk]

Just make sure that they all headspace correctly. They were designed to be pretty much interchangeable, but once you start swapping bolts out...

[AlReiter]

+1 on the headspace check. If you swapped any bolts, the rifles should be headspace checked before shooting.

[DaveN]

thank you i had thought about that and will have h spc checked for sure or swap back as it is easy to do and i kept records of all parts swapped.

[Redleg]

Yes, they paid the people to do the work, either here or over there.
They paid the armorers no premium to keep things original. That would have defeated the purpose of interchangibility anyway. The concept has been proven to be a success.
Now we can put them back.

[bearhunter]

I seem to be missing something here. When these rifles were originally built, there was very little chance that all of the parts would be matching from inception. The components came from different contractors and they were shipped back and forth as need arose. This is normal. The same thing happened with many rifles, Mausers, Lee Enfields etc. Savage and Long Branch traded parts on a regular basis and shipped parts to the UK as well to speed up their production lines.

I really suspect an "all matching" Garand. That is usually the first tell tale sign that someone has been "upgrading" it. Now, that being said, I'm not saying the rifle isn't correct but it is suspect right off the bat.

Please enlighten me if I'm wrong on this but I saw several hundred Garands that were unmessed with and looke as new in a shop in Vancouver. They came in nice plastic bags inside of cardboard boxes and were destined for sale out of the country. None of them were matching. All were NIB and covered in a light coat of cosmolene.

[Charlie59]

I seem to be missing something here. When these rifles were originally built, there was very little chance that all of the parts would be matching from inception. The components came from different contractors and they were shipped back and forth as need arose. This is normal. The same thing happened with many rifles, Mausers, Lee Enfields etc. Savage and Long Branch traded parts on a regular basis and shipped parts to the UK as well to speed up their production lines.

I really suspect an "all matching" Garand. That is usually the first tell tale sign that someone has been "upgrading" it. Now, that being said, I'm not saying the rifle isn't correct but it is suspect right off the bat.

Please enlighten me if I'm wrong on this but I saw several hundred Garands that were unmessed with and looke as new in a shop in Vancouver. They came in nice plastic bags inside of cardboard boxes and were destined for sale out of the country. None of them were matching. All were NIB and covered in a light coat of cosmolene.

I suspect matched Garands as well, and ones with all the parkerizing the same shade.
Charlie

[Redleg]

During WWII, the methods of production and assembly were 1930's level technology. Winchester parts on SA guns does not seem to have happened much.

Imagining what went on at SA is not hard.

Assembly area "bins" at SA were likely kept stocked with parts from a central parts collecting area and distributed by entry level, "parts boys".
The constant "rush basis" was worst at the beginning of a shift. End of shift is always the same everywhere and the next shift got to bust their *** to catch up for their shift, and "out of order" parts delivery happended naturally.

As the boys caught up, they went back to an existing inventory distribution basis, always keeping a backup supply of each part for "just in case we run short", days.

Also , repair parts had to be produced for field or depot level repairs and that mixed things up real well, as parts produced went to packaging and went out the door, never to the assembly area.

That central inventory pile that went to the assembly parts bins was replenished on an as needed basis and could have parts months old, or new.

Receivers being produced were kept on boxes on dollies and last in first out each day was likely the procedure. The barrel date rule of +1 to -3 months around receiver date seems to have been generally ok, with some receivers stuck in a corner, and extra barrels stored too until the chance of rusting came up, and a rack of whatever was sent to assembly.

One to three months date variance on barrels/receivers tells the whole tale! Madhouse!!

Receivers and barrels were kept as a backup reserve and changing the reserve each day was likley not done so much as augmentation and rotation by supervisors, to prevent rusting.
A real Garand in 1943 could be a real mixmaster of parts produced within the 4 months and more likely 2-3 months on either side of the receiver production date, at the mean. Statistics rules apply here.
Guns that did not meet inspection and sent back into internal repair or rebuild as new also affects what came out to finally get a Cartouche. Later cartouches on earlier guns would be expected on a small percentage.

I suspect also that every third or fourth gun off the line was sent to storage for domestic emergency use. That would be about a 750,000 new guns that went to a strategic inventory.
That would explain the new condition I have seen on demilled receivers from 1943-44, including winchesters, and the new 1943 barrels that keep showing up.
I'll bet that this inventory came from the Carter and Clinton era destruction programs.

There are really very few original guns left and the temptation to improve and restore guns has been strong.

With prices dropping on everything garand, we may end up with Krag values as the AR15 crowd bypasses the garand altogether.

But there is no worse investment than a new $45,000 truck.