GCA Article On M1 Clip

[ROCK]

Just read the article 'Don"t Blame John Garand' in the latest GCA magazine.

I found it very interesting and I have a few observations of my own.

First, I don't blame John Garand. I praise him for designing a very well thought out magazine design. I prefer it to a detachable magazine.

His design provides one of the quickest reloads among the many military rifle designs.

Garand's clip is light, durable and extremely reusable. I have one clip I use for function testing that has been cycled many times with only finish wear.

I believe the Army made the right choice. They wanted magazine capacity to be no more that 10 rounds. A !0 round detachable magazine weighs a lot more than one 8 round clip.

Apparently, the military was not impressed with higher capacity magazines before full auto rifles were developed. There was a 25 round magazine conversion developed for the 03 Springfield. They made them for 98 Mausers too. They never became standard issue for all rifles. The SMLE was standard issue with a detachable 10 round box magazine and they could have easily increased its capacity. The Swiss decreased the magazine capacity of the later Schmidt Ruben designs from 12 to 6. If there was an advantage to increasing magazine capacity on the bolt actions, the military users didn't seem to notice it. The foreign contemporary semi autos of the Garand usually maxxed out magazine capacity at 10 rounds and reloaded from the top via stripper clips.

Magazine capacities of 10 rounds, with the capability of quick reloads with clips, was considered adequate for the rate of fire a semiautomatic rifle could produce. The 8 round M1 clip provided a very fast reload and the Army apparently did not think that 2 more rounds were necessary. They probably adopted the 8 round clip to avoid the thicker bottom profile in the magazine area that was a feature of the .276 Garand rifle.

Detachable box magazines containing 20 or more rounds were not necessary until the introduction of full automatic rifles and their much higher rate of fire and ammunition consumption.

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