M1 Garand Blue Sky Imports....questions???

[sigman2]

Back when the Blue Sky Garands first hit the market I ordered 12 for various friends. IIRC they were from S.O.G. Since I was doing this as a favor and was making no profit it was agreed that I would get the pick of the litter. All were present when the cartons were opened.

When we opened them my wife got upset and made us move them to the garage. Most had a fuzzy mold growing all over the wood and looked like they had been taken out of a landfill. All had worn out muzzles from improper cleaning. Needless to say, everyone was disappointed but decided to keep them to rebuild. All had the Bule Sky Productions heavily stamped on the barrels.

I ended up picking out a 6 digit SA that had grown one hell of a culture on the wood. After stripping and cleaning it the metal didn't look too bad. The bore looked pretty good except for the muzzle wear. I killed and removed the culture and soaked in oil from the wood with Easy Off oven cleaner and had to sand some soft wood off the stock. I rubbed in a couple of coats of Tru Oil and it didn't look bad. Of course the lock-up was now loose so I glass bedded the action.

When I test fired it at 100 yds. I got a nice tight 12" group. lol So I was prepared to re-barrel. The rifle ended up as a wall hanger for a couple of years.

I then got the idea of counter boring but didn't have the correct equipment. After some thought on this I decided to use a chamber reamer in the muzzle. I figured what the hell, it was toast anyway. I ran the reamer in as far as I could till the reamer shoulder started to cut the crown. It looked much better. I then lapped the cut shoulder with some fine grit lapping compound on a tight patch to remove any burrs. Success! When I have a good day she will now group just under 3" at 100 yds. with my handloads. Not a match rifle but acceptable accuracy.

I now have 9 Garands but due to its lower value this one has become my main shooter. She still has that ugly stamp though.

One plus was that it had an HRA bolt, op rod and trigger housing. Last year I swapped them with a CMP HRA field grade that had SA parts.

So my suggestion is... if you have a barrel that gauges bad try counter boring before rebarreling. Unless you're dead set on a new barrel.