Will new/rebuilt Garands shoot modern ammo.

[C-grunt]

I know its not a good idea to shoot new commercial 30-06 in a Garand. But what about the new or rebuilt ones?

 

[missouri dave]

I've never tried in my fulton armory garand. A couple of different companies do make an adjustable gas plug for it so you can. Hornady also makes a garand-safe hunting round now that is quite accurate in mine.

http://www.mccannindustries.com/scope/parts.html

Here's one of them. Can't find the other one right offhand.

 

[alexanderplatz]

Wow that Hornady Garand ammo is over $2 a round.

 

[mainmech48]

I sometimes shoot commercial "Match" .308 Winchester in my rebuilt/converted M1, mostly as a reference "benchmark" for my load development. FWIW, equaling the on-target performance of some of them, IE: the Black Hills 168 gr. Match loads, is a really tough row to hoe.

I have a DCM-legal Schuster adjustable gas plug installed. Cheap insurance if you're contemplating the use of non Mil-spec ammo in any Garand or M1A, IMO.

I wouldn't dare use many of the commercial .308 hunting loads in mine without it. Op rods are expensive enough, but I really couldn't afford to replace my Garand.

 

[Slamfire]

I know its not a good idea to shoot new commercial 30-06 in a Garand. But what about the new or rebuilt ones?

No. The gas ports on commerical barrels are typically drilled larger than GI dimensions. Barrel makers use one drill size above GI dimensions, because they don't have to special order a non standard drill bit. The size of the gas port determines the volume of gas that goes into the gas cylinder. While gas pressure is the primary factor on unlock, gas volume is second.

So with commerical ammo you have too much pressure at the gas port, and given that the port is the same size as GI, the gas volume will be too high.

What will happen is that the operating rod will be accelerated too fast. Unlock will occur when breech pressures are too high, the feed system will be working at too high a speed, and the bolt will rebound off the back of the receiver at too high a velocity.

An adjustable gas cylinder lock will help.

 

[WardenWolf]

Aren't high-power gas-operated guns fun to deal with? Once they get to that point, you actually have enough energy for the recoil to start damaging components if you feed it the wrong ammo. Russia accounted for this when designing their Dragunov, by building it with an adjustable gas valve. But older semi-autos, regardless of origin, typically only like the ammo they were made for. I have a PSL, which does NOT have a gas valve, and I'm in the same boat. I have to be very careful what I feed it. At least in my case, though, surplus ammo is still readily available.

 

[sharkhunter2018]

I have shot commercial .30-06 out of my Century Garand with good results. However I stayed in the 150 gr. range. I WON't shoot commercial through my 1943 Springfield though.

designing their Dragunov, by building it with an adjustable gas valve.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. IIRC, the SVT-40 was designed with an adjustable gas valve as well.

 

[WardenWolf]

Yup. Some shooters actually disabled the gas system on their SVD's to turn them into bolt actions, making them both more stealthy and potentially more accurate. It's a good way of building a gun, as it allows you to safely shoot anything the bolt and receiver can adequately handle while locked up rather than having a bolt carrier slamming back with excesssive force and potentially damaging something.