Sporterized M1 Garand...

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The guy who started this project probably never saw Band of Brothers and bought this rifle for 12 bucks out of a barrel full of them.

It's unusual, but not the strangest 'bubba' I've ever seen.
 
I'm wondering if the scope mounts directly over and if the feeding mechanism was altered so that the enbloc remains within. I've seen hunters do that before.
 
That's high on my list of dumb things you could do to an M1 Garand. That said, she's probably a decent shooter.

Reducing the barrel length would probably reduce the pressure of gasses going to the gas system, and therefore would reduce stress on the operating rod. This might have been done, then, to allow the use of normal .30-06 ammunition in the absence of an adjustable gas valve (before these things became commonly available).
 
By then the M-14 had been in service for a number of years and the M-1 was swamping the surplus market.

I even saw one that had been completely nickle plated and fully engraved!
That was a shiny sucker :D
 
Hmm. Well. Ah. I have never seen anything quite like it. Very creative I guess.

The iron sights are a disimprovement upon the original type. A side mounted scope is not all that bad, worked all right on the M1 -C and -D, but it does not look like the stock has enough cheek piece carved into it to line up with one.

Doubtless this rifle weighs a bit less than an issue M1, and is shorter. Those are good points, but, like 451, I wonder if it works.
 
Some GI brought it home and decided he wanted to go deerhunting with it without giving himself or his hunting buddies flashbacks, or get laughed at for using something ugly and that had no resemblance to a sporter. I've seen lots of conversions, though this one is done a bit better than most.
 
This psuedo-religious hands-off-all-mil-surp-guns is a relatively recent idea. Not long ago,certainly in my lifetime, and likely when this rifle was customized,it was a common practice to turn a tool of war into a food getter. The were not designed for hunting game and it wasn't unusual for the owner to modify it to better suit it's new role. Gunsmithing them was a fairly lucrative undertaking. It isn't fair to judge yesterday by today's standards. As to the particular rifle in this thread,I like it but it would have to perform.
 
Oh yeah.
When I was in junior high and high school every hardware store and gun shop had piles of various old WWII and even some WWI rifles that had barrels shortened, stocks cut off; all made into "sporterized" versions.
They were all crude and ugly.
And cheap :D
 
Around here it was rare that anything other than the stock was cut. Barrels and bolts were generally left alone but stock hardware,top wood were removed and the stock shortened to lighten it up. If one of these were found today,it could be put back into military configuration quite easily. I wish I could find a barrel full of that "junk" today!
 
I don't think collectors are entirely thinking things through, when they decry the bubbaization of military arms. On reflection, it appears to me that fewer pristinely original examples means collector grade pieces are worth more. Shouldn't collectors be encouraging sporterization? :neener:
 
I remember a hardware store one time got a crate of "sporterized" Italian rifles.
They were 13 bucks a piece.
Don't even remember what the model was anymore.
I knew a kid who bought one, it was practically a smooth bore :rolleyes:
 
Yeah,I remember those Carcanos. The stocks were so oily as to be gooey. Nobody had 6.5 Carcano ammo and no en-bloc clips even if you found a couple of rounds to shoot.
 
I don't think collectors are entirely thinking things through, when they decry the bubbaization of military arms. On reflection, it appears to me that fewer pristinely original examples means collector grade pieces are worth more. Shouldn't collectors be encouraging sporterization?
Click to expand...

NO! There's a lot of us that love to own and shoot old milsurp rifles, but aren't necessarily "collectors" that insist on "unmolested and correct" examples. My milsurps are all mutts, and I love every one of them. They're "correct" enough for me, but still aren't "sporters" by any stretch. And I'd wager there's more guys like me than there are of the purists that demand matching numbers, cartouches, and acceptance stamps.
 
This psuedo-religious hands-off-all-mil-surp-guns is a relatively recent idea.
Click to expand...

This is the best put expression of the way some folks regard these rifle I have heard. They are pieces of wood and steel, not holy relics from the crusades. While I applaud keeping historically significant pieces as found without providence the rest are just guns. I consider the Shuff guns to be improvements on the Garand, not sporters. No one has ever made the perfect gun, Browning came close but perfection has yet to be reached. So as long as the gun is safe and you aren't destroying history I say sporterize away!

That Garand would look good next to my Carbine... :D

car4.jpg
 
This psuedo-religious hands-off-all-mil-surp-guns is a relatively recent idea.
Click to expand...
I agree. When my dad was 17 (1945) he bought a Rock Island 1903 from the NRA for $12 and took it deer hunting. In the 1950s he totally sporterized it in the fashion of the day; shortened and turned down barrel, birds-eye maple stock from Herters, and a shiny new blue job. I thought it was beautiful. I still have it, re-barreled to .270 AI.

In the 1940s, a Winchester M70 cost around $100, so a sporterized military bolt action was a great alternative.

Even into the 1980s, 1903s in full military dress could be bought for less than $100
 
Sporterizing stuff was a big deal back in the late 1950s, 1960s etc. It happened, mostly to bolt guns because they were easier, but to some semiautos as well. It was the thing to do at the time, just like un-sporterizing them where possible is the thing to do nowadays.

Weirdest one I ever saw was a sporterized Johnson rifle, in a pawn shop on Bragg Boulevard in Fayetteville, NC. They had a sporterized Garand at the same time, I'd bet both were done by the same person.

lpl
 
Weirdest one I ever saw was a sporterized Johnson rifle
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Along those lines, dad picked up a nice Johnson rifle in an estate back in the 80s. I put 50 rounds through it one day just for grins. He tried to sell it for some time before my brother finally unloaded it at a gunshow for $150. :(

My, how times have changed.
 
This is the first gun that I actually care that it was sporterized, this is ugly and such a disservice to such a beautiful rifle! :eek:
 
Sporterizing was big in the '50s and '60s. The American Rifleman used to run articles on how to sporterize military guns. Oh the humanity!
 
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