United States Rifle, Caliber 30, Model 1

[kate]

I have recently gone on the trip of a lifetime that I hope every American will consider taking. I roped my parents into driving me 4 hours one way, staying in a hotel, and waking up "early" in the morning to purchase a United States Rifle, Caliber 30, Model 1 (a.k.a. the M1 Garand). The driving started on October 20th, but the journey began at my first Appleseed.

My first AS was an instructor training day in Atlanta. There had to have been over 15 instructors there and only 4 shooters showed up, including me. At then end of the shoot on Sunday, SPQR gave the 'Garand speech'. I was instantly sold and wanted one of my own. That was also the shoot where yellowhousejake got his M1 Garand and let us shoot it! After that day all my parents heard was "M1 Garand, M1 Garand, M1 Garand!" I finally convinced them to take me to get one over fall break.

When we arrived at Camp Perry I was very excited, and it did not disappoint. Walk through a few doors and you find yourself standing in the middle of M1 heaven. The history was palpable, so strong you could almost taste it. The first few hours I was there were spent simply enjoying where I was and the feeling of all the history filling the place. When finally got down to seriously looking, I was asked "do you want a shooter or a looker?" When I thought about it, the answer turned out to be both. I wanted something I could shoot, but with history behind it and the beautiful wood that only time can produce. After another hour of rifling though the rifles (lol), the man behind the counter when back in 'the box' and found the rifle that I own now. Absolutely gorgeous wood with the original stock, a serial number of 40067, and a bore rating of only 2! I was instantly in love with it and just had to have it.

In my mind I was always saving up my money for something I really wanted, but the truth is I never really found anything worth buying that was in my price range and didn't feel like just going out and blowing money because I had it at that particular moment. Finding a M1 Garand for $400 was worth it. Very rarely can we put a price tag on a piece of our history and heritage, but with the United States Rifle, Caliber 30, Model 1 we can do just that. For $300-$400 every household in America can own a piece of history. This is the rifle at won WW2, this is the rifle that gave America its reputation on the battlefield, this is the United States rifle, this is our rifle.

[Old Dog]

Your rifle left Springfield Armory in May 1940.  It's just over 71 years old.

I know exactly how you feel.  Every time I pick up one of mine I feel the rifle.  A feeling I don't get with any of my newer rifles.  I wonder who held it.  Who cleaned it.  Where it went over the years.  I wonder if it got the young soldiers that carried it into harm's way back home safely.  If it could talk, what tales could it tell of danger, bravery, far away lands and sights?

Good luck with yours.  While I've not contacted the CMP over mine I've been told if you have issues with it when you get to the range you can contact the CMP, describe the issues and they will send you the new parts to fix the rifle.  People look at me funny when I say this but my M1 (Dec 1944 Springfield Armory rifle) has replaced my M1A as my road trip rifle and range rifle and grab when I need a big rifle gun.  My M1A (used for the above purposes for 30 years) is sitting in the gun safe.  I've been carrying that M1 for about 3 years now.  Its the way it feels in my hands and the way it shoots on the range that makes it what it is.

[Bill 3]

    It puts a smile on my face and a tear in my eye every time someone falls in love with "Our Rifle" and chooses to own a piece of history.  Congratulations, Kate, on your trip to Camp Perry and your selection of a rifle that will be yours for a long time to come.

[Uncle Davey]

Congrats Kate on your orange hatand now...the Garande!  Im on the verge of obtaining my own in a few days and I can hardly wait. I have wanted one since I shot ChiliDogs M-1 @ my 1st Appleseed in April..happy for you!

[SPQR]

The CMP should throw me some sort of commission don't you think?

[George Hacker]

A girl and her M1 Garand, it's a beautiful thing.   

- ShadowMan

[boscohurn]

Congratulations on the Hat and the Garand.  I have one on it's way too.  Picking your own out tho....too cool.  They are things of beauty and the history behind them....  yeah.  Congrats

[Colorado Pete]

Congrats Kate, you "get it", big time! Your last sentence is a gem!

That rifle is almost as big as you are. Get a good loop sling on it (try the leather M1907 for a change, leather just seems better on an M1).
It is a splendid addiction. Save your brass and some money for a reloading setup so you can shoot it MORE. Pick up Scott Duff's "M1 Garand Owner's Guide" as well. And a GI clip belt and a cloth bandolier. And a bunch of clips (USGI made). And ohhhh yes, you need a bayonet too....

[kate]

I got a bayonet! It's the cut down one with modified case in stead of the short one because they had 16 in. ones but they had to cut them down because they were unwieldy, so I got the one that would have been used on my gun (says the nice guy behind the counter).

[Colorado Pete]

Good girl!!

[ThaiFighter]

you should head to forums.thecmp.org...

you'll find everything you need for the garand and it's care and feeding...

and then you'll be like me, wondering where all your money went.. 

[kate]

Question: How do you clean off the gunky stuff that the bayonet is packed in? 

[jmdavis]

Congratulations and good luck Kate.

To clean the cosmoline off the bayonet you can use brake cleaner, carb cleaner, kerosene etc, but make sure that you don't breath any of that, get it in your eyes, and be careful with the handle. After you wipe the majority off, virtually any solvent will clean the rest off.

Mike

[hawkhavn]

Gunky stuff = Cosmoline
Cosmoline is an elemental, sort of like air, earth, fire and water.  It can neither be created nor destroyed.  Supposedly, a run through the "Heavy Duty" cycle of a dishwasher will clean it off...

HH

p.s. A good scrubbing using paint thinner / mineral spririts should do the trick.

Question: How do you clean off the gunky stuff that the bayonet is packed in? 

[AuntieBellum]

kate, congratulations on your piece of history.  I absolutely cannot wait to see you shoot it.

And I like HH's suggestion on the dishwasher...but you might wanna check with your parents first... 

[kate]

The man at camp perry was talking about using a dishwasher but I didn't think that I would want to do that because I was afraid it would make it rust.

Thanks for telling me how to clean it! Do these suggestions apply to the inside and outside of the sheath?

[SPQR]

Water will make it rust, killer, but it takes time to form.  the fun thing is you can take it out of the dishwasher when the cycle is done, before it rusts, and cover it with gun oil and hose down the inside of the scabbard with CLP and you are in biddness as they say.


How long till you find a Garand match to shoot in?

[Old Dog]

I have not sharpened an M1 bayonet so I can't speak to that.

However, I have sharpened a couple of M14 bayonets and the steel seems to be very hard to sharpen compared to most knives.  I absolutely wore out a 70 grit stone in my Lansky knife sharpening kit while putting the "angle" on the first bayonet.  It got very sharp by the time I'd worked through the 120 and 320 grit stones and they didn't show any abnormal wear (but the angle was set by then).

I don't really use the bayonets like I do the rifle but I still pull them out of the sheath/scabbard and wipe them off with an oily rag now and then to keep them from rusting.

As to the dishwasher use for cosmoline?  Do you really want that nasty oily curd in your dishwasher?  If you go that route I have to pieces of advice.  First, immediately remove the bayonet/scabbard while still hot and wipe them down with paper towels to remove the visible water (a lot of it will evaporate away due to the heat) and then use a hair dryer to make sure you get all the water off/out.  Then wipe down the metal parts with an oily rag/cloth like you would your rifle metal parts (do this immediately as the hot water/soap will remove the oil from the metal's surface and promote rust quickly if not re-oiled).  The second piece of advice is to immediately run another dishwasher cycle with cleanser to flush out the cosmoline residue you can/can't see.

[kate]

Hmm, I don't know if I will sharpen it or not.

SPQR: Garand match?  I gotta be able to shoot it first and that's still in question.

[Old Dog]

Get one of those stretchy rubber shotgun type recoil pads and pull over the butt (unless you have short arms and already will have a reach issue).

You won't believe how must that sling and position will do for recoil absorbing (or minimizing the effects of).  I've seen some 135/140 lb. guys fight their M14's most of the week before finally taking command of the rifle rather than letting the rifle command them.  It can be done.

[kate]

I have problems with elevation and slide my hand really far back. The problem with that is my hand slides all over the place when I shoot. I guess I could grab the rifle but that's a little counter productive right?

[SPQR]

We'll work on it at Atlanta. 

[kate]

YAY! 

[Earl]

Nice buy Kate, I have my father's bayonet from WWII Pacific for mine, his pistol belt and the Japanese Army saber he brought back from Leyte and Okinawa, too. 

Trick question about sharpening the bayonet - the steel isn't designed to hold a knife edge for shaving or such. It is best sharpened with a file to a point and an edge (but forget the stones), then everything about the bayonet is with the angry youth wielding the twelve pounds (rifle bayonet) in an effective manner.

[Colorado Pete]

Kate,
Find a good padded shooting jacket, if you haven't one already.
It's nice if you can reach the front swivel with your support hand in prone/sitting, but many folks (especially smaller folks) can't. If your support hand is sliding on the stock, a GENTLE grip with the PALM of the hand cupping the stock (with fingers relaxed) works if you can keep the grip tension from varying. If you need to get your hand further forwards, it may help to slightly increase the angle of your body to the rifle (in prone). This can have the effect of moving the rifle closer to the support side arm and giving you a little more reach.

Another way of gaining elevation in prone besides the inchworm-hip movement Appleseed teaches is to move the trigger side elbow straight out sideways (to the right if you're shooting right-handed) a small amount. This lowers the trigger-side shoulder (and rifle butt) and raises the muzzle.
In sitting crossed-leg, try tucking the trigger-side elbow downwards further in front of the knee, or downwards into the inner crook of the knee. Good luck!

[Old Dog]

It may not be pretty but it works - at the Feb. 2007 RBC at Ramseur the instructors taped a small block of wood to the bottom of the stock on Silence's M1A as a sort of handstop to give him a positive forward stop for the support hand.

If I had the small stature/reach issue with an big rifle like the M1 or M1A I'd get a "spare/range" stock and install some type of permanent hand stop on the bottom of the stock.  While I've not done this on an M1/M1A stock I've done this on AR15's....I remove the front sling swivel on the bottom of the front sight base and install a sling swivel mount on the bottom rail of the free float tube (or install a rail on the bottom of a round free float tube if that's what was on the rifle) which has a secondary effect of shortening the reach for the support arm/hand.

I just would not drill holes in a real GI wood M1 stock but I would in a $50 Ramline synthetic stock or an aftermarket wood stock (I say aftermarket because many of the GI surplus stocks can be so worn out inside that you have to have them epoxy bedded to fit snugly on the rifle).  My shooter rifle came from the CMP with a Greek stock so loose that you could move the rifle receiver around in the stock so I put it in a Ramline synthetic stock ($50 on sale from Midway at the time).  It was ugly black plastic and came with the stock, and both handguards.  This stock has a rubber recoil pad installed on it when you buy it.  I used a krylon camo kit to put a camo paint job on it.  No, I can't shoot it in competition but I didn''t buy it for that reason.  Which makes me think you probably can't install a rail on the bottom of your stock to move the front sling swivel rearward and still shoot it in competition.

Good luck with it.  The tip about altering the angle between your body and the rifle (so that you're not so straight behind the rifle will do a lot to move that support hand forwards on the stock.

[boscohurn]

I am not sure if this comes under Sneaking Around proper position or adapting.  I came across it by accident, cold morning, fingerless x-country ski glove on support hand.  It had a leather strip across the palm that keeps the rifle from sliding.  So basically, accidental shooting glove.

[jmdavis]

Kate,

Wear a glove on your support hand. It will help. Also while handstops are not legal in competition, nor is a moved sling swivel, substances like "firm grip" (a pine rosin) and spray tacky glues are. You put these on your glove and then adjust your hand on the stock.

The glove itself will help alot without any spray tack.

In addition you may want to work on your position to absorb the recoil of the .30 cal round. One way that people do this is to decrease the angle at which the address the target (ie get more behind the rifle). If you can look into the Virginia section of the forum. I have posted a link to an International Shooting handbook from the US Army Marksmanship Unit. While this particular version is more than 35 years old. There is still good information to be found there.

Shooting is a process. At first it is conscious and you focus on each individual aspect. Later, first some and then more of those aspects become subconscious. You will reach a point where you can drop into position with your M1 and NPOA will be there (as if by magic). This is because you have trained your mind and body and they react appropriately.

Look up Sheri Gallagher for an example of a woman shooter at the very highest levels. (She holds the National Record for Match Rifle with a score of 2396-161x out of 2400). That means in 240 shots she hit the X-Ring 161 times and dropped only 4 point total. That score won her the National Championship in 2010. Then there's the first woman to win the National Championship Nancy Thompson (Sheri's mother). You might want to look up her and Margaret Murdock (1976 Olympic Silver medalist as well as winner of many International championships) as well.

If you can believe it and visualize it you can do it. But there is sometimes alot of work in the meantime.

Good luck,

Mike