Garand sadness but faith in humanity restored.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I finally found an WWII Garand in my price range this week end. I had the rifle examined briefly by a fello at the gun show who knows a bit about them who pointed out the good and bad so I was good with the price. I was vey excited to finally have my first M1. Got her home and broke her down for a closer examination and upon reassembly I noticed a weld at the barrel /reciever mating surface hidden by the op rod and only visable with good light and a close look. A quick visit to milsurps.com and alas my fears were confirmed. A call to the seller later my faith in humanity:was restored (refund without issue) but the sadness remains only to improve when I find another. to the seller but for the time being. to milsurps as well for providing easy acccess to the required information.

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.

[Bob Seijas]

Sounds like a VFW/American Legion rifle -- the government in its wisdom was worried that these semi-autos would fall into the wrong hands and so made them single shot by drilling out the lock screw, then welding the gas system together so it couldn't be fixed. However, it wasn't that hard to undo (I did many for units that wanted to fire blanks semiauto). Part of the de-auto was also a small tack weld to join the barrel to the receiver lest somebody unscrew the whole thing and replace it. Sometimes it was on the bottom, sometimes it was on the top under the handguard. Many of these guns were largely original and beautiful. The barrel/receiver tack weld could be filed off easily with no effect on safety.

[Joe W]

I had purchased a "ceremonial less wood" from CMP in 2008 for $ 270.00. It was a mid to late 43 receiver with a like new 3-52 HRA replacement barrel (MW-1, TE 2.5). It had only the small tack weld, barrel to receiver, that Bob mentioned. No other welds. The small weld did not interfere with function so I left it as is. Added wood and it was ready to go. Turned out to be a great shooter.

[emmagee1917]

Yep . One of my first Garands was an H&R . Shot so good I made it my go-to shooter . After several years and thousands of rounds , I finally noticed the very small tack welds under the op-rod. Nothing had happened so far , so I continued to use it. After 30-35 years and 15-20,000 rounds , the grouping was opening up to 4-5 inches . Sent it off to have a NOS barrel installed which forced the removal of the welds. The new barrel installed without issues ( thought the welds might have been there to hold in a loose barrel due to oversized/ worn reciever threads ) . Accurracy was still a poor-ish 3-4 inches so I looked into it more and found looseness in the stock fit. Put in a new Dupage stock and I'm back to almost 2 inch groups and none past three.
It's good to have my old friend back.
Oh , as an aside , the gunsmith asked me if I wanted to have the gun refinished because of the grind marks . Thought about it , but they were under the wood and could not be seen and the rest of the original finish was pretty good . Found out later that the ground area would not have taken a proper refinish anyway due to metal changes caused by the heat.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I paid pretty close to the going price and thought about keeping the M1 but hated the thought of potential problems or extra cost if I ever rebarreled. Now that CMP seems not to be a option for a WWII vintage rifle I suppose I need to get off the fence and search in ernest for my M1.

[DaveN]

HoH
I had a friend many years ago with a Garand he wanted me to sell for him( after I decided not to buy it myself for the same reasons you returned yours). This one was a 200000 serial # Springfield with a Winchester stock.
I found out it was a drill rifle, probably American Legion that was set up for blanks. ME 2 TE 6.
I was very new to collecting these wonderful rifles and sold it to a rein-actor for $300 (at a gun show)
Wish I had bought it as I found out latter it was properly repaired and shoots great. And the stock was worth at least 300 by itself.
To live is to learn I suppose.
If that rifle is correct it as was said here is probably fixable and with the irregularities you could go back and get it for a reduced price.

[Neal Myers]

Keep in mind, MOST VFW & American Legion rifles are issued to them, but are actually still owned by the US Government. Some veterans organizations have sold rifles, believing that they owned them. CMP tracks all loaned rifles by serial number, & those lost/missing will be reported as stolen, eventually ending up on the Treasury stolen gun data base. So, it's a good idea to be sure that any drill rifle you are offered has a CMP sales receipt.

Neal