[mtlucas0311]

Does anyone know about the early Garands? I've seen a few references to them as "tool room" Garands, and I've seen a serial number chart list Winchester Garands from 100000 through 100500 as an "educational batch". Are these guns special; or just low number models?

[armoredman]

Cut aways for troop instruction?

[mtlucas0311]

If you mean a gun that is cut in half to show a cross section, no. I have s/n 100470 (Winchester), and it's complete (but not original) I just can't find out if it's anything special. I used to take it out to the range, but I stopped when I saw a listing of serial numbers that said 100000 was the first built.

[highorder]

I used to take it out to the range, but I stopped when I saw a listing of serial numbers that said 100000 was the first built.

Nonsense! Go shoot that rifle. Serial number #1 was the first rifle built; It's in the SA museum in Massachusetts.

[Ron James]

Education batch simply means the first run through an assemnly line to work out all the bugs " The learning process".

[mtlucas0311]

I stand corrected, 100,001 to 100,501 were the "educational batch". My point was that if it is the type of rifle that would be special to a collector I would rather sell it to one rather than put wear and tear on it at the range. Even if I got market value for a "regular" Garand, I can get a nice shooter from the CMP, and the collector has a nice piece of history for his display. If I happen to get more money for it, cool, I'll get 2 shooters from the CMP. I just don't want to ruin something that may be unique.

[highorder]

M1 Garand production began in 1937 with serial# 81. The first 80 were shop model prototypes. Unless you have an original gas trap rifle, you have a mixmaster with a low 6 digit serial number. Enjoy it!

Hopefully Swampy will be by shortly to clean up the rest of this. :)

[mtlucas0311]

It's a Winchester not a Springfield, but it has a Springfield barrel so I'm assuming it's not a gas trap gun, but I really don't know how to tell the difference.

[highorder]

Pics are a big help!

I think that all the gas trap M1's were made by SA, but I will have to check on that...

By all means do whatever you like with your M1. I was just suggesting that NOT shooting it for fear of ruining collectors value is moot. Shoot it, and clean and lube it properly. Or buy a few more from the CMP and shoot them! :)

www.odcmp.com

Here is another shameless pic of my SA mixmaster from the 274XXX range :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m117/highorder/tbwm1.jpg

[ambidextrous1]

That's awesome wood, Highorder!:)

[armoredman]

Beautiful!

[Jim K]

An educational contract is a special contract for a limited number of items (for guns usually 500), to allow the contractor to educate himself about production methods, tooling, etc. There might or might not be a followup contract.

(For example, Singer got an educational contract for 500 M1911A1's. They completed the contract but no production contract followed and those guns are the rarest M1911A1 pistols known.)

An educational run is not the same as pilot production, which is a semi-production run made to insure that all the production processes work and the machinery and tooling are set up correctly.

Jim

[Jim K]

Just to add a bit. The tool room in a factory is where skilled craftsmen make the tools* (dies, cutting tools, etc.) used in the factory. Because of the skills involved, in some factories the tool room is also charged with making demonstration or experimental models for evaluation and possible introduction.

But generally, that latter task is assigned to a separate area, called the model shop. Equally skilled people actually build the item from the designer's sketches and see if it works. The process will also involve a production engineer who will determine how (or if) the item can be produced in a reasonable and cost effective manner. Some great ideas have never been produced because the design could never have been made by production methods or production would have been too costly.

Jim

*Machinery uses tools. For example, a lathe is a machine, but the bit used to cut metal is a tool. Changing to a new product may involve changing only tools but may also involve new machinery.

Jim

[mtlucas0311]

Thanks for the info Jim. It seems the concensus is that its just a Garand that happens to have a low s/n. It still pprobably won't leave the house again, maybe I'll see if I can find some vintage Winchester parts for it and try to put it back to OEM. The receiver still has the vast majority of it's factory finish so it would make a really nice project.
Thanks again, Mike

P.S. thats a great piece of wood on that Garand.

[Jim K]

On 16 June 1938, Congress passed the Educational Orders Act, allowing the military to place small orders with contractors so they could gain experience in producing military items. This was only one of many "halfway" measures passed by a Congress that, right up to Pearl Harbor, clung to the idea of "staying out of war" and could never quite commit to building a wartime military or industrial base.

On 15 July 1938, the Army inquired whether Winchester would be interested in an Educational Order for a complete set of tools, fixtures and gauges for the M1 rifle plus production of 500 rifles. After the usual request for proposal, proposal submission, and evaluation, the contract was let on 4 Apr 1939. The first 100 rifles were shipped 27 Dec 1940, the last on 10 Mar 1941. Unit cost was $175.00. Serial numbers on this Educational Order rifles were 100001-100500.

Winchester was, of course, awarded other contracts, and produced a total of 513,880 M1 rifles.

So a Winchester M1 rifle, serial number between 100001-100500 inclusive, was part of the Educational Order contract. Whether this affects the value of the rifle, I don't know and won't comment.

The above information comes almost entirely from "The M1 Garand: World War II" by Scott Duff, to which the reader is referred for more detailed information.

Jim