5.4 mil SA with HRA bolt

[0311Shooter]

What this means to me, and here we go again, is when someone makes the statement "I want to keep my Garand/Carbine/03 just as I received it because ..........".

In the course of 60+ years, whether just behind the front lines, in an Army, USMC, Navy, Coast Guard, ROTC armory, or a Reserve Unit, parts got swapped around all kind of ways.

They grabbed a part, installed it, if it went "Click - BOOM", it was the CORRECT part.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me ----- the ability to swap parts around on my weapons as I see fit. If I have an SA, I want to put SA parts on it. If I have an HRA, I put HRA parts on it.

As long as it fits and goes CLICK....

[Devil Dog]

I thought all M1 collectors/dealers would change "Correct Grade" rifles into "Service Grade" rifles just to have more service grade rifles to sell.
LOL

[slamfire1]

Dan,

Not only is that statement not true, it is utterly asinine. It is not worth any further comment - people can believe what they want, since they will anyway.

Orest

The time will come when the world will know that Orest's utterances are worth less than Bernie Madoff's.

[billy82269]

My !(55 HRA appears correct except for the SA bolt. HEY!!!! DID YOU GET MY BOLT!!!! LOL Actually I am not sure about the stock being correct I think the stars and eagle are about 3/8" & the circle P has the serifs.

[Rotor]

If you notice, barrels are not replaced. Marked items in particular are swapped out: bolts, operating rods, trigger groups. Stocks are changed, HRA for SA, SA for HRA.

I mean if you look at your late model SA or HRA and can’t figure out that it has almost no finish wear, did not go through a rebuild program, and yet the parts are not all correct, well where do you think it most likely happened?

It is a business decision, and if you don't like it, buy a bunch of standard grades and try to swap enough parts around to get a couple of all correct rifles.

Of course this could not be the case for all but it sure makes sense in some instances.

Remember when the Greeks were first coming out in 2003 and 2004. Service grade HRA's ($450 then) with original finish, -2 TE barrels and bolts were common (I got two). If I recall, rackers were $300.00 and frequently looked as good as the service grade metal in a rack stocks. I do remember people getting out of sorts that guys were getting rackers as nice as their Service Grades.

Didn't "Field Grade" get invented in 2005 to allow a level between Rack and Service? I'm sure this allowed the ability to equalize the quality.

I don't expect Orest to fess up about "correcting" or downgrading rifles. It would destroy the perception of purity and arbitrary nature of the grading system. However, logic dictates it has to happen on occasion.

When Orest says it is "Asinine... and not worth further comment" I think he does protest to much.

JR

[DaveE]

Guys, I used to volunteer two days every quarter. A group of three of us would always go together; myself, "kontiki", and "rhino", from the old Jouster forum. I never saw CMP armorers doing what is described here. What did happen is that the three of us would be cleaning rifles together after test fire and doing final inspection. WE would sometimes change parts between rifles to make them a little more correct. We didn't swap bolts (headspace issues), but would swap Op Rods, stocks and many small parts. You can't believe how busy CMP armorers are just trying to get rifles out the door. They don't have time to play games, (but volunteers did lol). Example: If you have an old copy of the Spring 2004 GCA Journal, you will see an article we authored about one of our volunteer adventures. We found something like 20 HRA service grade rifles that shoud have been collector grade. They were missed because they had SA barrels. Rhino and I each bought one as a service grade, and they are described in the GCA Journal article. CMP armorers could care less about the grade; they call them like they see them.

My $02

Dave

[Ramboueille]

Of course this could not be the case for all but it sure makes sense in some instances.

Remember when the Greeks were first coming out in 2003 and 2004. Service grade HRA's ($450 then) with original finish, -2 TE barrels and bolts were common (I got two). If I recall, rackers were $300.00 and frequently looked as good as the service grade metal in a rack stocks. I do remember people getting out of sorts that guys were getting rackers as nice as their Service Grades.

Didn't "Field Grade" get invented in 2005 to allow a level between Rack and Service? I'm sure this allowed the ability to equalize the quality.

I don't expect Orest to fess up about "correcting" or downgrading rifles. It would destroy the perception of purity and arbitrary nature of the grading system. However, logic dictates it has to happen on occasion.

When Orest says it is "Asinine... and not worth further comment" I think he does protest to much.

JR

Of course there was no chance the Greeks changed anything while they sat there for more than 30 years either. Wouldn't you agree?