Is it bad I want a M1 Garand in .308?

I have one that I got at the CMP Anniston store about 5 years ago, a Special Grade, with a new stock, sling & Criterion barrel. It’s a Springfield. They told me it will digest any factory ammo in 7.62 NATO or .308 Win.

It is still in the safe, never been fired. I have no excuse why.

I moved on an LST in Vietnam. LST901, USS County Litchfield. The sailors on deck watch carried Garands in 7.62 NATO.

Not sure if this is of any value to anyone in this thread but, long story short, I'd probably never want a rechambered rifle again.

When I originally found a Gibbs Quest Extreme Carbine, I wasn't aware of what it was. I thought it was just a Jungle Carbine chambered in .308. It wasn't until later that I looked it up and realized it was a Lee Enfield Jungle Carbine decommissioned from military service and rechambered to .308 by a bunch of people in India (big difference).

After looking online, it appeared that a lot of people complained that these wound up experiencing serious problems from people shooting the higher pressure civilian .308 instead of the lower pressured NATO 7.62x51 (which is the opposite for pressures on civilian .223 / 5.56 NATO, to further confuse things).

I don't think it' s blasphemous but my .02 is find one originally designed for the caliber you want rather than buying something rechambered.

Fulton Armory makes these.

Robert said:

SA made some out of parts I think. But it has been at least 10 years or more.

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Springfield made some Garands for a short while. Then one went grenade on someone and they just disappeared. Just like all the pics of the gun that blew up at the time. I think it was in the vicinity of the late 90's.

If I remember right, the boy was shooting the gun off a bench and it just cut loose. Dont remember if he got hurt or not, but I do remember the gun was in small pieces, including the stock. It was pretty ugly. Since you cant find any of the pics anymore, Im assuming that SA settled and the pics were part of that.

Tortuga said:

Not sure if this is of any value to anyone in this thread but, long story short, I'd probably never want a rechambered rifle again.

When I originally found a Gibbs Quest Extreme Carbine, I wasn't aware of what it was. I thought it was just a Jungle Carbine chambered in .308. It wasn't until later that I looked it up and realized it was a Lee Enfield Jungle Carbine decommissioned from military service and rechambered to .308 by a bunch of people in India (big difference).

After looking online, it appeared that a lot of people complained that these wound up experiencing serious problems from people shooting the higher pressure civilian .308 instead of the lower pressured NATO 7.62x51 (which is the opposite for pressures on civilian .223 / 5.56 NATO, to further confuse things).

I don't think it' s blasphemous but my .02 is find one originally designed for the caliber you want rather than buying something rechambered.

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The Indial SMLE's they brought in back in the late 90's, early 2000's were pretty rough. I had one of the chopped down "Jungle" guns. About the only thing it did was shoot straight. Feeding and ejecting were hit or miss at best, and the headspace was bad, and a really bad paint over park finish.

Those guns arent in the same league of a properly rechambered Garand though.


I had a nice H&R that had been converted to 308 as a match gun, and it was what I was using before I quit shooting the DCM matches. From some experience with a couple of M1's that had been shot with corrosive and never cleaned, the H&R had similar corrosion on the op rod that leads me to believe it was part of why it was rebarreled.


This was that H&R....



From what Ive read over the years, the Navy rifle teams did a study on things looking for the best rifle for the matches, and came to the conclusion that the M1 was 10% more accurate than the M14, and the 7.62x51 was 10% more accurate than the 30-06, and so that's what they went with for their match rifles.

Not sure if I just lucked out and stumbled into a good one when I got the one above, but of the half dozen Garands Ive owned over the years, it was the most accurate.

At MCRD Parris Island when I went thru we qualified with the M14 service rifle. The next stop was Camp Geiger ITR ( Infantry Training Regiment) adjacent to Camp Lejeune NC. Every Marine is a Rifleman. At that point we were issued M1 Rifles. These rifles may not have been the best examples of the M1 having been used extensively in training. I was not impressed with the M1. Fast forward to Viet-Nam as part of a Artillery Observer team attached to RVN-Infantry they would have been better served with the the M1 Carbine as opposed to the M1 they were issued.

Finishing my enlistment with 3Rd BN 8Th Marines at GITMO-Cuba part of my duties I was assigned to train Sailors that were assigned to an element of the defense battalion basic marksmanship. The Sailors were issued M1 Rifles that had been converted to 7.62mm NATO. There were two methods of conversion. chamber inserts and or re-barreling. The chamber inserts proved to be problematic on occasion being ejected with the fired case.

I was simply never impressed with the vintage M1 rifles I came in contact with. A completely reconditioned M1 Rifle might be a different story

Tortuga said:

Not sure if this is of any value to anyone in this thread but, long story short, I'd probably never want a rechambered rifle again.

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I am in general agreement with your .02, especially when the job is a poorly executed economy or desperation measure. The 8x57 Carcano and 6.5 Vetterli conversions come to mind. However the 7.62x51 M1 Garand conversions do not usually fit into this category -- unless hopelessly bubba-ed! And FWIW, during most of the Garand's development cycle it was chambered in .276 Pedersen.

There were three typical methods for converting (as opposed to rechambering) a 30-06 M1 Garand to 7.62 NATO:

1) Shortening the barrel from the breech by about .5" and then recutting a new chamber (which was actual rechambering)

2) Fitting a steel insert inside the existing chamber, thus reusing the original barrel with minimum cost

3) Replacing the entire barrel with a new one.

The US Navy started with the insert method, and eventually opted for replacement barrels.



The most problematic method was the use of a chamber insert. This was known to occasionally work loose and eject stuck to a spent case. Occurances were seldom catastrophic, but they could put the rifle out of action until serviced.

Shortening the barrel and rechambering had the advantage of reusing all of the original components of the original rifle, but the disadvantage of requiring the op rod, spring, buttstock and handguard be shortened to match. The Beretta factory offered this conversion as an economical way for NATO countries to continue using existing stocks of Garands, and at least Italy and Denmark paid to have quantities thus altered. Columbia also did a small number of similar conversions domestically:



Installing a new replacement barrel was the simplest and safest route since only one component had to be replaced, but manufacturing and installing a bunch of brand new barrels can get pricey, especially at a time when the armies were in the process of switching to infantry rifles with removable box magazines.

In all three methods, the conversion also included alteration of the gas port to match the different pressure curve of the 7.62 cartridge. In addition, a block of some kind was typically inserted into the front of the magazine well to prevent loading a clip of 30-06 cartridges -- this was a safety measure and had no effect on feeding the shorter cartridges. Here's a vid of a Danish 7.62x51 Garand running the shorter ammo flawlessly:

First

Heir Kommt Die Sonne said:

Before 80% of you start yelling Blasphemy, what I mainly would like is a newer one made by Springfield Armory and rebarrelled to .308.
If I could find an original that was rebarrelled at some point to .308 then I wouldn't mind that either.
I tried looking around and all I found were the 1950s Navy chamber-sleeved ones. (which are super collectible.)

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First there is nothing wrong with wanting a M1 Garand chambered in .308 Winchester or for that mater any of several available chamberings. Your rifle, your choice.

I strongly suggest a rifle through the CMP as mentioned. Going this route makes sure you get a good quality right out of the box. Should the gun exhibit any issues they are right there to make good. You want 308 then go with it,

Ron

Corpral_Agarn said:

This is the way.

I love my 308 M1 Garand.

I loooooooove shooting the M1.

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Why don't you tell us how you really feel...

Paul R Zartman said:

Why don't you tell us how you re a loyal feel...

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It has to do with the ping.

Garands are well made and very accurate for a service rifle. Their history in combat is excellent. It is a good piece of history to own and shoot.

Just my opinion.

cfullgraf said:

It has to do with the ping.

Garands are well made and very accurate for a service rifle. Their history in combat is excellent. It is a good piece of history to own and shoot.

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All this.

I'm getting my M1 rebarrelled in .308 although the shop is taking forever to do it. Mine was originally a Springfield 1945 gun - and the receiver still is - but by the time I acquired it there was a 1955 H&R barrel attached.

I have a plethora of other calibers and it didn't make any sense to me to keep .30-06 ammo around just for the Garand.

cfullgraf said:

It has to do with the ping.

Garands are well made and very accurate for a service rifle. Their history in combat is excellent. It is a good piece of history to own and shoot.

Just my opinion.

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My grandfather was with the US Army with operation Torch and fought through North Africa, Sicily, Anzio carrying an M1and was wounded by a mortar round at Monte Cassino. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino
Drafted off an Iowa farm, he was a Rifleman and Mule Handler according to his service record.
He never talked about his combat experiences except to say he hated every minute of combat but was proud of his service and said he would do it again if called upon.

He's been gone since 1996 and I still miss him very much.

Nothing wrong with a .308 Garand, I just bought a new Criterion 30-06 barrel for mine and was very tempted to go with a .308 . Still second guessing myself.

Yep... .308 - is just a late mdl. option for the U.S. RIFLE, CAL. .30, M1.



GR

I know the purists might hate me, but I'm not even a little sorry. I absolutely love my 308 Garand.

This gun is a mid WWII production Springfield that was send to Denmark after the war. They eventually returned it to the U.S. and I purchased it as a Service Grade from the CMP. It was already rebarreled once by the Danish armorers and that barrel was shot out. It was about a 5 MOA gun. It also had other issues such as the occasional double fire.

I sent it to Dean's Gun Restorations and had him rebuild it. He put a 308 Douglas barrel on it, new wood, reparkerized all the metal, replaced all the springs, and did a trigger job. I put on a rear NM sight and the Turner 1907 sling.

Dean's gone now, but he was an artist with these guns and I'm glad that he worked on mine.

Thanks!

I see nothing wrong with it is you want to experience the Garand while still using a round with (maybe) more options regarding GI surplus type ammo- assuming it will be available again one day at reasonable prices. As for me, I would prefer a USN model with the CONVERSION BARREL vs the chamber sleeve version.

The upper M1 is of WWII serialization and was a project gun I built in 1996 when I took a NRA gunsmith class (Montgomery College, Troy NC). The rifle is chambered in 7mm-08 Remington. NM front and rear sights, fully bedded and all the old accurizing tricks. During the early and mid 90s Douglas made barrels in 7mm-08, 270 Winchester and a few other cartridges. The lower is a Korean era birch stock which are sometimes referred to as the "orange wood" stocks. The lower gun is chambered in the original 30-06 Springfield. If I had a good receiver I have a .308 Winchester barrel from the early 90s and likely enough parts to build another complete rifle. All I need is a receiver.

The 7mm-08 while a sweet rifle and accurate I can't shoot it in any "as issued" matches. Nice rifle though.



Ron

Nice M1s Ron!

7mm-08 is a new one on me. I've never seen a Garand chambered in that!

DMK said:

Nice M1s Ron!

7mm-08 is a new one on me. I've never seen a Garand chambered in that!

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Thanks, it was going to be a 308 Winchester but things went wrong. Knowing I had the course coming up I ordered two 308 Douglas barrels from Brownell's. The barrels arrived the day before I was leaving and I just grabbed one and next day I was on my way to NC. Then I got a sinking feeling when I looked at what I had.



So here we go with a 7mm-08 Remington. I don't know of any others like it other than one I built for my brother-in-law and have no clue where that rifle ended up. Brownell's made good and gave me the barrels and I still have one 308 barrel. Still also have all my old M1 Garand tools including the receiver wrench and barrel vise. Haven't done one in 20 plus years. Wish a good receiver would fall into my lap. My earliest ammunition I made neck sizing down .308 Win brass and surplus 7.62 X 51 NATO brass. Really abundant back then.

Ron

I have several Garands in '06 and always wanted to try out a 308, so when my son and daughter in law gave me a loose SA receiver for Christmas I knew exactly what to do with it. I sent the receiver/bolt to Shuffs to have a Criterion 308 barrel fitted. While that was in the works, I gathered up all of the other parts I needed and had them waiting when it got back. The wood came from Dupage Trading and most of the other parts were either on-hand or purchased online. I did add NM front and rear sights after this pic was taken. Great shooting rifle and will be the last Garand to go.