They do exist outside - but are very hard to find -
Steve
They do exist outside - but are very hard to find -
Steve
I may be wrong but I thought CMP had an AFPG on the Auction site not to long ago. Maybe 2 months ago or so.
I was a college boy shooting at Camp Bullis, in San Antonio 1967-71. There were always many Air Force teams firing M-1's (only). Generally they were Security Service from Lackland and Kelly AFB's. In the time I was there the Air Force rifles were nearly all .30'06 but there were some 7.62. They were all AFPG's with that characteristioc polished rear-underside of the barrel. As an aside, the 4th Marine Recon Battalion (reserve) also in SA, had a rifle team that also used M-1 match rifles, and they were in the "original" .30'06.
Air Force shooters were very companionable but always tight with their ammunition. The "Brass Hounds" would cry "Long Ones!!! Long Ones!!" as they rushed to police up the '06 empties... San Antonio Big Bore Rifle Club always hauled the majority of the brass off and I remember the head man in the stat trailer, with his little Clark Gable moustache, would have 4-5 ammo crates full to the top with 1F match brass to sell after every day's shooting.
That's a great story!
Anyway, someone posted over at the CMP forum that some of the AFPG rifles may have been loaned to DCM shooting clubs and subsequently returned to the CMP and later sold. If my rifle started life as an AFPG and later went to a DCM club, that would explain the lack of an AFPG rear sight... and it being replaced with a NM sight. If the old one was broken or the club didn't like the AFPG modification... I can see them replacing it. If other components eventually wore out, I can see that those might have been replaced too. I don't think that the rifle has all of the components from when it would have been issued as an AFPG rifle, if that is truly what it is.
I think I've got a long way to go before I can truly figure out what exactly my rifle's history is.
Last edited by Akulahawk; 05-04-2009 at 01:22 AM.
Does anyone know if the USAF shooting team still has or would still have records of what rifles went through their shop or where I would find that info?
I just checked under the windage knob. It definitely does NOT have the typical AFPG modification for the 1/2 MOA adjustment. Given that there are a LOT of NM parts on this rifle, I can think of a couple scenarios that might have given rise to what this thing is. This rifle certainly is a mixer, but the question is "who did the mixing and when was it done?"
One scenario that I can come up with is that this rifle could have been an AFPG build that never was completed in their shop. Meaning that they'd installed the barrel, unitized the front handguard with the lower band, installed a lot of the metal hardware on the rifle, and then for some reason, work stopped on it. Therefore, it wasn't targeted, the rear sight mod was never done, and it was returned/loaned to a club and spent most of it's life there, until it was returned to the DCM/CMP. The barrel has been shot quite a bit. It's got some muzzle wear. I remember it gauging about a 2 when I had it looked at, with a TE around 3-4. (I'm not certain though.)
The stock IS bedded, but it's not stamped with this rifle's serial. It's a VERY good fit though.
I got it from the CMP. It would have originally come from either the Military to the DCM or Military to a DCM club and back to the DCM. I don't think that this rifle was anything BUT a competition gun.
Now I'm getting really curious about my rifle. If the CMP built my rifle up, I'd have thought it would have been cleaner when I got it... I think they basically sent it out to me the way they'd gotten it.
My rifle's a mystery to me... I really wonder if the shop that built AFPG rifles kept a record of M1 serials that entered their shop. Does anyone know if they did that and where I'd find the answer?
I have the same no.s on my garand, SAF 6535448, 12 54 A222C. What do they mean, new garand owner here, issued one in the 50's in Germany. Didn't get much info from the Air Force. Thanks
SA (Springfield Armory) F6565448 (Drawing number) 12 54 (made in December 1954) The rest, I'm not sure about.
Just an update of this, I just found out on another board that the AFPG rifles used both the standard and the NM bases for windage adjustments. It seems to be more possible that my rifle really IS an AFPG... I'm waiting on some confirmation of this, but... holding my breath I am not!
Collectors call these "Match Rifles," not "National Match Rifles," to distinguish them from guns made at SA under the formal NM program. They were built to NM specs, but unfortunately don't bring the money the SA NM's do because any of a dozen retired armorers could built one tomorrow and nobody could tell. Some call rifles like yours "Lackland Guns" after the AFB at which many were built.