Full/Semi-Auto fire for the M1 Garand

[eclancy]

Gentlemen,
During testing in the mid to late 1930's the M1 Garand was built to fire in semi-auto fire only. What is your point of view on the M1 Garand having full-auto and semi-auto firing built into it before we got into WW2. We know that many of the people working on the Garand Project 5 at SA were looking at this.
Thanks again
Clancy

 

[General Geoff]

That role was already filled with the BAR. No need to give the Garand select fire capability at the time.


Also, it would be nigh-uncontrollable in full auto mode, similar to the M14.

 

[collateral]

I think a select fire garand would be the most pointless weapon ever created. It doesnt have anywhere near the magazine capacity that a full auto weapon should have, and you would not be able to hit anything with it.

 

[Ghost Tracker]

Yep, agree with collateral. The first, maybe the second, shot can be held on target. But even a well-trained, experienced rifleman can't hold a 30-06/.308 MBR (Medium Battle Rifle) on target in full-auto mode from an unbraced hold. That's why the L1A1 (English) Version of the FAL was semi-fire only. Also, the weight of the necessary ammo for a full-auto 30-06/.308 makes the hump impractical for the Infantry. A SAW is necessary at the squad-level, but EVERYBODY doesn't/can't need one.

 

[mljdeckard]

The best example of a full-auto Garand was an M-14. The gas piston was improved a bit, it had a higher capacity, and was configured to be a squad weapon. But what everyone pretty much accepts now, that no one wanted to hear then, is that it takes a large-framed, expert rifleman to really use it correctly in full-auto fire.

I can't see that it would have been seriously considered at the time, battle rifles and squad automatic rifles were implemented quite differently, and the army was not in the mindframe of trying to make one gun do everything at the time they were implementing the Garand. They were looking to implement a rifle that had speed and capacity advantages over a bolt-action rifle, not trying to take on the capabilities of a BAR.

 

[db_tanker]

What is your point of view on the M1 Garand having full-auto and semi-auto firing

OUCH!!!!

 

[jefnvk]

Pointless. It seems even now, M14's are used in semi.

An 8rd auto makes absolutely no sense. Let alone a shoulder fired 10lb auto chambered for '06.

Also, considering that the previous battle rifle (yes, I know it was designed 35 or so years prior) had a magazine cutoff to prevent wasting ammo, and nearly everyone else was still using bolt guns, I'm not sure that the fighting mindset had yet evolved to every soldier having a full auto and enough ammo to use it.

 

[kBob]

Some of the earlier Smith and Smith Versions (not Ezel) of "Smallarms of the World" (aka 20th Century military gun nut's "Old Testiment")have a section on the development leading to the M-14, which began in WWII. Originally called the A20 series and later the T20 series the test sets started out small (as in the so called tanker garand that was being developed to provide a shorter weapon for jungle fighting not arming tankers) and included such things as a bolt lug roller like would later be found on the T44 series (M-14)

Right away there were calls for a full auto capable M-1.....even with the 8shot enbloc clip. There were control issues.

Next the T20 had a 20 round removable magazine added (first modified BAR magazines and then a purpose built one. Imagine a full length BM-59 in .30-06 and you sort of have it.

Besides being fairly uncontrolable, heating issues ON THE GAS CYLINDER AND THAT PORTION OF THE BARREL popped up(thus the change in the gas system for the M-14)

Various muzzle attachments were tried, from the flash hiding cone of the M-1C with cuttouts in the top to make it a compensator of sorts to some weird muzzle breaking/ compensating/ things not seen again befor the AK74.

Interesting to note that the plan with adoption of the M-14 included a dedicated heavier "M-15" Auto matic rifle that weighed more than the standard gun and featured a bipod. When the M-14A1 was fielded (standard and so marked M-14) that had a selector and an M2 Bipod attached was found to be uncontrolable it was replaced by the M-14A2 (also just a standard M-14 marked rifle with extras) to include and improved M2A1 bipod (had a sling attachement point), a compensator system that fit over the exisiting flash suppressor, a neato keen pistol grip stock with a forward folding pistol grip and extra long sling that could be run from the butt's sling point through the bipods sling point to a sling point on the forward pistol grip. Sound Rube Goldberg-ish but I liked it.

I found this a rifle that could be controlled in auto fire. others did not. I was
6'1"+ and 200 pounds at the time.

-Bob Hollingsworth

 

[police]

M1 Garand in full auto sounds like a scene in a Rambo movie.

 

[El Tejon]

Or something you take to the mall when on duty.

 

[cpileri]

this sounds interesting

Mr. kBob-
you wrote: " a compensator system that fit over the exisiting flash suppressor "

This sounds like it has potential. Did the compensator system work to keep the muzzle down?
Did it still suppress flash with the compensator system attached?

Anyone have any pics or info on this combination?

I smell... marketing idea!

C-

 

[rcmodel]

What everyone else said!

First, hardly anyone could control one on full-auto without much more training then the Army was willing to give line infantry troops.
We found that out big time with the M-14. It didn't take them very long to take all the selector switches off of all the M-14's.

Second, the fully enclosed barrel of an M-1 would get terminally hot in very short order. I have lit up a wood stocked M-14 and had to pour canteen water in it to stop the smoldering stock wood. A full-auto Garand would be much worse.

Third, nobody on foot could carry enough 30-06 en-bloc clipped ammo to make it through some of the prolonged battles of WWII.
And unlike box magazines, you can't carry loose ammo and reload en-block clips in your spare time. Most all of them get lost in battle.
(The Battle of the Bulge was almost lost due to M-1 ammo shortages as it was.)

And did I mention that almost nobody could control one well enough to hit anything on full-auto?


rcmodel

 

[Navy joe]

In Citizen Soldiers and I believe Band of Brothers Stephen Ambrose makes several mention of field converted Garands that were full auto. Since it is Ambrose history I'd want some corroboration but if true that would be exciting. His writing says that the converted M-1s were quite popular with soldiers in close contact such as walking point. If it was done, a file is mentioned so I'm sure it was some modification of the secondary sear which means that firing at full lock was probably somewhat luck dependent. Effective or not, I suppose it would get your attention if 8 general delivery bullets passed through your neighborhood very quickly.

 

[El Tejon]

Ambrose is my favorite fiction writer.

That may be a misunderstanding between M1 rifle and M1 carbine, rather than yet another Ambrose misrepresentation. However, with him, you never know.

Darn that US Army and its numbering!

"Quick, get me both an M4 and an M16."

"Which one? The carbine or the tank? The carbine or the halftrack?"

 

[kBob]

cipleri,

I never shot one at night and did not notice any difference in day light.

It was called a "bullet stabilizer" in the TMs and FMs, but what it was was a collar the length of the M-14 flash suppressor that had a series of holes that matched the top two suppressor slots. I did not like the fact that it attached by a screw to the bayonet lug, but I do like my bayonets.

rcmodeler,

as it happens I just finished reading Don Burgess' "Seven Roads to Hell" about his experiences with A company 506PIR of the 101st ABN (Normandy through occupying the Eagles nest) in which he describes the Battle of the Bulge at the Paratrooper private level.

He commentd about the scarecity of all types of ammo going in(especally bazooka rockets and mortar rounds), then a 10th armored LT gathering up "extra" ammo from his tankers and Mech Infantry and sharing it and then having so much ammo that they could not carry when Neville was abandoned on the second evening they had to blow it up to prevent capture. Then he goes back to having scarce ammo very shortly after that and near the end meantions how many of his fellow Screaming Eagles were armed with captured weapons. Then the skys cleared and the C-47s came....

I recomend Currahee, The Road to Arnhem, Seven Roads to Hell, and Beyond the Rhine to anyone interested in the Paratroopers veiw of WWII in Europe from D-Day in Normandy to the end. So DOes Stephen E. Ambrose. WHile I liked Band of Brothers in print and on DVD I think this may be a better story.

Oh and to keep on topic this series might have been named "A boy and His M-1 Garands" See? Rifles.

-Bob Hollingworth

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Everyone's seen this, but so what.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQrtzSdVDo


Now supposedly, one can perform a minor mod to the trigger group (as can be done with the mini) and end up causing the M-1 to fire a second round on release of the trigger.

I haven't tried this, and part of the 'fun' of .06 is not training to double tap.

A full auto Garand would be a highly specialized weapon of very limited scope.

 

[Limeyfellow]

My old neighbour before he died did have an M1 Garand that had been converted to full automatic. The most useless rifle of all time, unless you are trying to take off the soldier in prone, offhand, in a tree and the attacking plane in one pull of the trigger.

 

[Slamfire]

You could never have convinced the 1930’s Army to issue a full auto rifle. I have read plenty of period discussion, from the Infantry Journal, to the Articles in American Rifleman. A semi auto rifle was a tough sell. It wasted ammo, it was “unreliable”, and worst of all, it was “inaccurate”.

America was the only nation to field, as standard issue, a semi automatic rifle in WWII. Does that not tell you the absolute conservative nature of the pre WWII military, World Wide? Let me tell you, the user likes what he has, and wants the same, only a little better. Revolutionary change scares the user, and the user will push back hard. Like rejecting the box magazine concept and requiring 8 round clips because they were “cheaper”. A full auto Garand?, not back then.

Today you can look back and see these things as “inevitable”, but they were not. Lots of hard fights resulted, some losses, some positive movement. And when bad choices were made, like scrapping the 276 Pederson round and keeping the 30-06, those bad choices have never been corrected.