My Garand's TE and ME

[Phos Boss]

I finally remembered to take my June 1944 M1 serial #2969685 to work to have its Muzzle Erosion and Throat Erosion checked. She seems to be kind of an oddball with her Nov 1942 barrel.

Muzzle Erosion = 4, Throat Erosion = 4.

From what I understand while not real great, it's also not real bad. Is this on a scale of 1 to 10 or what are we working with here?

He also checked my head spacing which was 2.753. Don't know if this is good or bad. Thoughts?

He also noticed that a spring for my extractor was broken or missing. Could be why the last time I took her out, she wasn't extracting. Hmmm. It's been replaced.

[Phil McGrath]

He also checked my head spacing which was 2.753. Don't know if this is good or bad. Thoughts?

That's super long at 2.753?? So I think, you got some numbers jumbled up and flip around.......Min H/S on a 30.06 M1 should fall between 1.942-1.944 Max 1.950 anything from 1.95 too 1.955 is belt fed or for a BAR.


And with the T/E-M/E of 4 on both ends that barrel is a little long in the tooth, you might find a better more age correct barrel with lower and better numbers too swap it out with.

[RCS]

BAR Model 1918A2 Shop Manual states the BAR bolt should not lock on the 1.946 gage.

The Model 1919 series do not use the same gages for headspace as the M1 rifle

[Prince Humperdink]

My question is,have you fired it?If so,how did it shoot? An ME reading of 4 is very high,but I've seen them still shoot fairly accurately.A TE of 5 was the max for the Army to send an M1 overseas,but still a lot of Throat left as I believe 9(or 10)was reject?

[Phos Boss]

Have fired on 2 separate occasions. The second time I got pretty good grouping but sights need to be adjusted. We're going shooting this weekend to get that done. I'll post a pic or 2 of the targets.

[RDS]

M1 that stayed stateside were used till they reached 10 on the throat erosion gage. At 10 the barrels were replaced. A 4 at the muzzle shows muzzle wear. Cutting the muzzle crown may help.

[TJT]

Muzzle crown may or may not work. Counter boring will probably do more good for accuracy than a simple recrown. I speak from experience on this.
Jon

[FlyJS41]

Muzzle crown may or may not work. Counter boring will probably do more good for accuracy than a simple recrown. I speak from experience on this.
Jon

Respectfully, I'd suggest not counter boring a 1942 barrel since there's bound to be some collector value. IMHO, probably best to save up for a new Criterion.

[TJT]

I cb'ed an original SA '42 barrel on a '42 SA receiver. I buy guns to shoot, not for speculation. Before the cb it was all I could do to hold the 7-8 rings on an SR1 target at 100 yards. After the cb it will now clean that same SR1 target. It may have ruined the collector value a bit to some, but to me it had positive results. Only accurate rifles are interesting. This rifle, to me, is interesting. It now has a mw factor of "0". It's effectively a new barrel. Just for the record, I check my mw with machinist's gage pins. They are waaaay more accurate than any mw gage you can get from cmp or any one else. I can also use them to measure how deep the mw is. A standard mw gage won't give you that information. I was able to measure exactly how deep the cb needed to be to get to good lands and grooves. In this case it was only .187 deep.
Jon

[Phos Boss]

First of all, I just want to thank everyone for their responses. Got a lot of good information here.

As far as my barrel goes, I think I might try to locate a period correct barrel for my '44 and keep the '42 barrel for a future project.

I think I'm right in between FlyJS41 and TJT. I don't want to ruin the collectability of my M1 but I didn't buy a wall hanger. When I buy guns I expect to fire them - otherwise, what's the point?

[Moorem1s]

I'm with TJT- I love accurate rifles! Having that original barrel/receiver clean targets makes me happy.

[FlyJS41]

First of all, I just want to thank everyone for their responses. Got a lot of good information here.

As far as my barrel goes, I think I might try to locate a period correct barrel for my '44 and keep the '42 barrel for a future project.

I think I'm right in between FlyJS41 and TJT. I don't want to ruin the collectability of my M1 but I didn't buy a wall hanger. When I buy guns I expect to fire them - otherwise, what's the point?

Sounds like a good way to go. I think you could source a nice Apr-Jun 1944 barrel fairly easily. FWIW, those Criterian barrels are darn good for the price. I built a CMP special at the AMC last year and it's a real tack driver.

[TJT]

Just FYI I checked with cmp about the cb before I did it and it's cmp legal. They consider it a recrown which is legal.
Jon

[Phos Boss]

Went shooting today! 65 degrees in Illinois in February! The black target on the left was set at 25 yards and the white one on the right was set at 100 yards. Ignore the whole top half of the white one though - a guy from work was blasting away at it with his AR. Most of mine were bottom left. Pretty good at close range but then again how could you miss? Got a little squirrelly at 100 but was happy that I was hitting paper.

Have a question though. At first when I was shooting, I was using a rest. When on the rest, she would eject the spent casing every single time but would only chamber the next round about half the time. All I had to do was rack it and keep going - it was kind of like firing a bolt action rifle. Then I ditched the rest (that's when my 100 yards shots got really squirrelly) and fired standing, then she got passed around to a few other guys who also did not use the rest. Without the rest, she cycled perfectly without fail. Colin said, "I guess she doesn't like the rest."

My question is: Has anyone else ever experienced this and/or know what causes this?

[FlyJS41]

My question is: Has anyone else ever experienced this and/or know what causes this?

Maybe the op rod is binding either from the rest itself or the stock fit while in the rest. If not already done, you might want to get a new op rod spring. After that I'd start looking at the gas system.