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Posted: 3/31/2005 7:43:23 AM EDT
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Yesterday was my very first Garand Day. I received my Greek Rack Grade M1 Garand yesterday. It took me at least 3 hours to completely disassembe, clean and reassemble it (I wanted to take my time, after all, this is my first time). The stock looks pretty bad, but the receiver is a post WWII SA, so it is in good condition (no pitting, etc). I have it now installed in a Ram-Line Syntech stock, while I attempt to refinish the stock. Here are some pics (case sensitive): http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/garand.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/muzzle.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/receiver.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/bolt.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/stock.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/handguards.JPG http://home.thegrid.net/~tkwan/images/Guns/triggergroup.JPG Anyone care to guess the ME from the muzzle pic? Where does it say on the barrel what year it was made? What about on the receiver? The RamLine Syntech stock is hollow, so the rifle is now front heavy. I'm thinking of yanking out that foam insert and sewing up a bag of sand and stuffing it in the stock to balance it out more. Any other suggestions? Happy Garand Day to Me!!! Thanks. Tony |
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Instead of sand, fill the hollow butt with the GI cleaning kit, grease pots, patches, and small spare parts. Double baggie all of them, and fill any voids with bottles of bore cleaner and patches, muzzle guide, etc. There's room in there for just about all the emergency cleaning parts, tools, and supplies you are likely to ever need, Don't let that space go to waste, use it to your advantage |
Congrats and pics made live |
Lock the bolt back and look on the right side of the bbl. It has the date and some other info stamped on it. The serial # will tell you when the receiver was made. Check the charts here to determine when that was. Congrats, or should I say poor you. They're kinda like Lay's Potato Chips. You can't just settle for 1. |
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I'm still waiting for my Service Grade USGI rifle (backordered?). I haven't started yet, but I plan to refinish the wood stock and see where that takes me. I'd rather use the original wood stock than to buy a new wood stock (go figure). In the meanwhile, it'll stay in plastic. As for putting stuff in the hollow plastic stock, the recoil pad is installed with two screws, so it's hard to have access to this stuff, once it's in there. I've made a small concrete mold out of cardboard / duct tape and put some quick dry ready mix in it. It should dry tonight. Cushion the inside with Really Great Stuff (self expanding insulation foam), and that should do it. Tony |
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I'm starting to work on the wood. It's alot of work. Washing all the cosmoline off the stock showed what I'm up against. I've started sanding... BTW, took it to the range today. The Gas Cylinder Lock shot loose with the first round. Stripping off the gas cylinder showed the threading on the barrel for the lock is in really bad shape (mostly stripped on the bottom end of it). Is there any fix for this? Thanks. Tony |
The ME looks like it could be around 2-3 from the pic, but w/o a proper guage it is hard to tell. If you look up stone axe engineering he sells good te/mw guages for $50. They are nice and way more reasonable than USGI when you find one. Wood looks a little rough with repairs. Put an add on Jouster for a newer USGI stock or see Dean at DGR for a beautiful Wenig replacement. With the rifle assembled and you pull back and lock the op-rod you should see a barrel date there. This will not be true for all barrels WInchester etc. Hope that helps. If you post a partial serail number I can give you the year the rifle was made. |
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Got a new gas cylinder lock and it has a bit more bite than the one that came with the rifle. At least enough for it not to shoot loose (for now, but the thread on the barrel is still very thin). Since I was going to rebarrel anyways (when I thought the thread on the barrel was completely gone), I went ahead and counterbored it. Also, I followed the instructions on the CMP site and refinished the stock with Tung Oil. How does it look now?       Now I have two sets of stocks for the M1. One for rough play (plastic) and one for show (classic). Does anyone recognize the stamp on the stock? Looked like a "J" something that has been "XX"ed out. tk |
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