New Garand Day!! 12-1941 - Lend lease?

[Joe W]

Wow. I thought I knew a few things about Garands before this thread. I am blown away--both by the condition of that rifle and by the complexity of British LL rifles. Before this all I knew of the LL rifles was that 1.) many were in original configuration 2.) their time at the CMP pre-dated mine by a good bit and 3.) they are way beyond my means. The only ones that I have ever seen for sale run around $2.5k--without rudely asking specifics of this very nice example, is that about the going rate?

Check out the 3rd page, 4th rifle down in this list. Click on Rifle

[Tom Doniphon]

Did anyone else notice that the Lend Lease rifle for sale at Ohio Ord. has a grooved elevation knob instead of a checkered one? Several of the Lend Lease Garands in this serial number range have grooved elevation knobs. Now I know that some collectors believe the Lend Lease rifles were broken down for cleaning and the knobs replaced w/o regard to the type (grooved vs. checkered). But others believe that the use of the grooved elevation knob may have started earlier than had been thought. What do you guys think?

[browningautorifle]

Mine is 328219, and I thought that either the part had been changed without regard or just the small difference in the serial of the one pictured (463972)was the change to grooves.

[Ramboueille]

Did anyone else notice that the Lend Lease rifle for sale at Ohio Ord. has a grooved elevation knob instead of a checkered one? Several of the Lend Lease Garands in this serial number range have grooved elevation knobs. Now I know that some collectors believe the Lend Lease rifles were broken down for cleaning and the knobs replaced w/o regard to the type (grooved vs. checkered). But others believe that the use of the grooved elevation knob may have started earlier than had been thought. What do you guys think?

The straight knurled (grooved) begins to appear in the ~8 - 9-41 serial range but since a few books don't have them "carved in stone" that early, why dispute the written word? Perhaps some discrepancy occurs in the descriptions of "knurling" to the layman:

1. "Fine" checkered vs "coarse" checkered.

2. Straight grooved vs. straight knurl to me means the same thing. The machining principal is still the same whether the knurl is a a 45 degree diamond pattern, straight pattern (grooved), or a parallel 90 degree diamond pattern. Regardless, the grooved (straight line) pattern appears randomly in the 8 to 9-41 range and continues with increasing regularity after that.

[campperrykid]

Thanks for the learning experience.