Tanker Garand

[DocPaladin]

Gents,

I am considering purchasing a 'Tanker' manufactured by Springfield Armory in .308. I t has a black synthetic stock with a rail on top for optics. It is used. The previous owner died and his son had no interest in firearms so he sold his fathers collection to a gun shop. They are asking $625 for it. I've seen it and externally it seems OK although I did not look down the barrel. the gun shop is 2 hrs away so they would ship it to a local gun shop. This means adding on $25 FFL fee + shipping so the total would come to over $660 (not to mention the $40 in tax). Is this too much money to pay for this rifle?
The purpose of this rifle is for defensive purposes if a pandemic or other disaster hits and I have to either defend my home or bug out with my family.

Thanks

PS This is my first post.

 

[statelineblues]

Buy It!

Sounds like a good deal - always wanted a Tanker. Very close to my real desire - the BM-59

 

[B.D. Turner]

I had a tanker in .30/06 that was a real flamethrower. My BM-59 in .308 is not shabby either. I would buy it.

 

[Ian]

Go for it! That's about as good a price as you'll find for a tanker. The synthetic stock and rail are nice extras, too. I have two tankers that I've bought for about that price, and I love them.

FYI - you should check to make sure the op rod doesn't bind before purchasing the rifle. To do so, remove the trigger group, stock, and recoil spring. Then (with the follower out of the way), tip the action forward and back. The op rod should slide back and forth just on its own weight when the action is angled between 30 and 45 degrees up or down.

 

[Dark Helmet]

If it's not out of state, drive the two hours and get it, quick!

 

[SoCalShooter]

Do it, Garand in the hand is better than a can of spam.

 

[DocPaladin]

Thanks, Gentlemen. I appreciate your comments. Ian, thanks for the technical advice. I may actually take DH's advice and drive back over there and get it. That way, I can do as Ian suggests and give it a thorough once over.

 

[DocPaladin]

.308 vs 7.62 NATO?

My Tanker is chambered for 7.62 NATO. Is this very different from .308? When practicing with dummy/training rounds, the En Bloc clip loaded easily and the rounds cycled well. I took it out to the range and tried using live .308 cartridges but the En BLoc was too wide with 8 .308 rounds to feed.

 

[Eightball]

.308 chambers 7.62x51 NATO.
7.62x51 NATO will NOT chamber a .308 safely.

There are minute differences in headspacing that make that work how it does.

 

[Jeremy2171]

7.62x51 NATO will NOT chamber a .308 safely.

There are minute differences in headspacing that make that work how it does.

Then why are there no 7.62 NATO reloading dies?

 

[Nightcrawler]

7.62x51 NATO will NOT chamber a .308 safely.

I shoot commercial .308 in my 7.62x51 FAL all the time.

Where you will notice an issue is trying to run surplus NATO ball through a tight .308 match chamber. It can impede function.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Jump on it.

 

[wcwhitey]

If it was made by Springfield like mine was you will have a new barrel in .308. Mine was a gem an sorry I sold it. It wasn't as much of a flame thrower as I thought it was gonna be. I did put an Garand muzzle hider on it and that worked out great. Nice find, buy it. Bill

 

[DMK]

Guys notice the date on the original post.

I think he already bought it and now resurrected the post to ask a question about it.

DocPaladin, it probably would have been less confusing if you started a new thread.

 

[Titan6]

Easy there. If loading commercial .308 you need to exercise a little caution. The Garand was designed to fire a lighter military load and some larger, heavier civilian loading to can build heavy back pressures and cause the operating rod to break.

That said the clip should not bulge out any farther with any .308 loading vs. 7.62 X 51. They are the exactly same size in diameter. So I would check the following:

- Are you 100% sure that it is 7.62X51 (.308) and not 7.62X63 (.30-06)? Technically both were NATO rounds but the shorter case is what is widely regarded as the modern 7.62 NATO round. The .30-06 often reads as ''.30 caliber rifle''.

- Does the chamber appear to have a conversion device to allow it shoot the shorter round? The vast majority of Garands were made for the longer case with many (re)made for the shorter case. Some a chamber converter was stuck inside to allow it to shoot the shorter round. These are notorious for accuracy, feeding and extraction issues.

- Is the clip itself warped or bent? You said you fed it dummy rounds. Did it get banged up when you were doing that? If all else is correct it may just be that your clip was bent or warped. These can be straightened but should be replaced at earliest opportunity if they do not allow the firearm to function normally.

 

[Risky buisness]

Too Wide? the clip it's self? were the cartridges paralel (side to side), or were they stagered? Icant believe that it's possible to get them(the cartridges) in a rectangle rather than a parallagram shape in the confines of the clip perhaps if it's a really old sprung out one

 

[DocPaladin]

Thanks for all the feed back, and I mean all of it. I tried loading two different kinds of .308 ammo, Federal and Wolf using various en bloc clips. they all would not fit but jam while trying to feed them into the rifle. I also tried loading the clip with the dummy rounds and they loaded easily. I them loaded the .308 into the clip that had the dummy rounds and they jammed again. On the rifle it reads :"7.62 NATO". Should I try military surplus 7.62 NATO? Or, perhaps I should try contacting Springfield. Any other suggestions would be helpful as well.

 

[Ian]

When it jams up with live ammo, is the top round on the same side as when it works fine with dummy rounds? If you look, when loading a clip into the action, one round will be higher than the others in the clip.

Did you load a full clip of dummy rounds? If the op rod spring isn't correct for a tanker, it can prevent a full clip from being loaded. I had that happen myself once with a spring cut down from a normal M1 spring. The wire diameter was slightly too thick, and when the spring was long enough to cycle the bolt properly, loading a full clip would compress all the coils completely together before the clip would latch in place (the op rod spring is what puts tension on the follower).

 

[DocPaladin]

Ian,

To answer your first question, I did not notice whether the top round was on the same side with both the dummy clip and the live ammo clip. I think(?) they may have been on different sides. The dummy clip may have had the top round on the right and the live clip had the high round on the left but not sure.
As for your second question, I definitely had a full clip of dummy rounds.

 

[Ian]

Hmm. I don't know what difference the top round would make; I'm just trying to figure out some other variation between the live clip and the dummy clip.

Perhaps you could remove the stock and oprod spring, and try loading the live clip without and spring tension on the follower? That might reveal what's going on.