The Lend Lease Garand came today

[GUTS]

I saw it on GunBroker. It came from Reedsville PA.
WWII Springfield Brit Proof M1 Garand .30-06 : Curios & Relics at GunBroker.com

[RCS]

I bought my Lend Lease rifle in 1959 and still have it, the serial number is 380931, it has the original stock and buttplate. My buttplate has a different checkering pattern then your rifle and the Reedsville Pa auction rifle. I did some quick checking and saw that RCArms had s/n 323430 and s/n 538192 for sale, they also had the same buttplate as my rifle. There is another collector Joe W. that often will post on this forum, he has an original non Lend Lease rifle in the 422xxx range also with what I call the "early" buttplate like mine.

There is also a four page article with photos of each buttplate variation in Tony Pucci's "Garand Times" Volume 5 number 3 that shows the SA WW2 buttplates. The early pre war and early war buttplates in the Garand Times photos look like mine and the other early buttplates listed above. Maybe there was another buttplate variation available ? I do not know.

[GUTS]

I appreciate the information Sir. I took the plate off last night and I can't see any signs of any other plate being on the rifle, there is no other tell marks on the stock and it looks very old under there. I would say the fact remains that unless the rifle was put in a time machine there is no way a later style plate could have been on it originally. It's always something. Maybe I should ask for my money back.

[browningautorifle]

Please don't get too out of round with what's said here. I have found what RCS says to be a font of knowledge and one of the few here I won't contradict. My point is, I pulled out my LL for a look and the buttplate is exactly as he describes. Screws too. Upper narrower than lower. Then I checked my 3 mil shooter and the butt plate is the same as the pre war. So, this came out of a bin I guess. The stock on that one is an IH I think, as it came from a dealer as a take off. It has the small DAS mark. The buttplate came off the Danish return wood.

My whole point is I guess, before I knew what I learned here, I would have changed a worn buttplate for a good one without concern. Specially if it improved the look of things. If you get a rifle second hand, who knows what's been done before you have it. I cringe to think the lower stock group may not be original to this rifle, but apparently when the came to North America they were stripped in mass and de-greased and some swapping took place. At least they were all about the same serial range. Mine has GHS and a large ordnace wheel which apparently is not common. Most were small I guess. But, this stock has been with this one since forever too. Maybe it's the first one, I can't say. Mine has never had any traces of red paint either. I didn't even know about that until much later.

Your pics have been excellent, I didn't notice the inspectors mark on the op rod handle until now. Mine looks like a stylized E I think. I'll have to look closer later. Most of the other marks match mine for location except the one on the top of the bolt, center, front. One thing I noticed on mine when I was just young, was the file marks breaking the edges of the receiver. This would have been done during first inspection I guess before finishing. Very fine and hand done. One more thing that shows these were done with care.

[EdG]

GUTS, could you post a pic of the butt plate straight on so we can get a really good look at the checkering, especially around the lower screw as noted by RCS?
Thanks.

[GUTS]

I a little upset right now because I was taking pictures of the plate and my rifle fell over, bounced off the steel leg of my loading bench and landed on the wood floor, leaving a dime sized mark in the stock and scratching the barrel and putting a dent in the handguard. Because I let some trivial, nitpicky, anal thing bug me, my rifle is now banged up, I feel like I could puke. Anyway, here is the pictures.

[RCS]

I should have never said anything - few would have known nor noticed a difference in the checkering pattern or the top buttplate screw. This can all be corrected if you to change it.

[GUTS]

I'm not changing anything. I bought this rifle as an original, that's what bothers me, it will stay as it is. I can't hardly look at it right now because I feel so frickin stupid. By the way, it's nobody's fault but mine. I'm the idiot that left the rifle leaning against the bench instead of laying it down while I changed batteries in the camera. Let's put it this way, if my wife would have leaned my rifle like that and walked away, I would have thought it was crazy, but then I did it.



There, I've had time to cool off from my "here's your sign" move earlier. I just want you fellows to know that I am very appreciative of the information we share here on this forum, that is why most of us are here. I can't help but be a little dissapointed that the butt plate on my rifle is incorrect, I paid decent money for what I thought was an untouched original. It's good to learn about the minute differences in Garand parts, and what may or may not be correct(except in this case because we know it's not correct)it just sucks when it's my rifle we find this stuff out on. I appologize for my earlier outburst.

[Joe W]

Guts, it's a great example of a lend lease and I think you got it at a very fair price. I truely can understand your being upset with yourself but most of us have been in your shoes at one time or other. I know I have. Don't be too hard on yourself, life is to short.
As to the stock, not easy to find a decent GHS so I would not let the butt plate bother me at all. Like RCS said, that can easly be corrected if you wish. As I hear it, there are many LL rifles that do not have the stocks that were on them when 1st imported. It is said that some collectors were allowed by the initial distributers to switch stocks on rifles they were buying. RCS may know of this first hand.

[Joe W]

Just for informational purposes here is the early butt plate that RCS referred to. You can see the half round radius below the bottom screw and above the top screw snd the checkering pattern with the four checkering points under the lower butt screw with the center two cut in half as RCS stated. As my rifle was manufactured, at the earliest, late Dec 1941, the both screws are the same. To me a picture is worth a thousand words.