Category Archives: M1 Garand

Last match of the season

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Shot my last match of the year in Sunday in the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Not planned but it seemed a fitting way to end the season.

I intended to take the 1917 for Armistice Day however with hurricane sandy and getting ready for deer season I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to practice and I didn’t want to end the season with 87 point. I shot pretty well the dry fire practice and changes I made to my sling really helped.

Now I just need to find some time to give my Garand a good detail strip and clean and start practicing for next season. I already have my hotel booked for Perry in the summer!

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Dry fire practice

Re-crowning an M1 Garand

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My Winchester Garand had a muzzle erosion of 3 and had a very beat up crown. I ordered I re-crowning tool from midway to try and clean it up a bit.

The first challenge was trying to find a tool that could take a 1/2″ bit. After a tour of several hardware stores I gave up and borrowed an old hand drill which fit.

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I put a little bit of light oil (left over hone oil) on the bit and shaved the crown down a bit.

I am pleased with the results the crown looks nice. I may have take more off the end than I probably should have.

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Post re-crowning the muzzle erosion has improved to around 2.25 if that improves accuracy or not I will find out on the next trip to the range.

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1907 Sling Keeper Placement

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I’ve been struggling with my sling and cheek weld in the past few matches. So I did a little dry fire practice in the hotel (I’m sure my neighbors loved that).

I made my sling a little longer so that the upper frog is now in the “10” holes and switched my keepers back to a more traditional set up. One above and one below the upper frog. I had it set up with both keeps below the upper frog.

I feel pretty good about this set up. Now if I screwed up my point of impact… Well I’ll find out tomorrow but the poor cheek weld and sling slack are letting me develop bad habits that lead to inconsistent position and hurting my slow prone.

In case you are interested I use a Turner Saddlery 1907 national match sling. I highly recommend them. I even have one on my hunting rifle.

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M15 Grenade Launcher Sight

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In an ongoing effort to restore my rack grade Winchester that I’ve nicknamed my “Winchester Grenadier” I picked up a M15 Grenade Launcher sight and disk.

I installed the sight disk after repairing the holes one of which was a ripped up a bit.

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The “Sight, Grenade Launcher, M15” is a simple stamped contraption used to aim grenades fired from a M7 Gernade Laucher suck on the end of a Garand.

Seen here with an M7 launcher and an M31 inert practice grenade (not explosive no one panic)

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The top of the M15 sight. Note the level and the front sight post on the left and the rear peep sight on the right.

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The bottom of the M15 is marked PRL which per Bill Ricca’s site means it was made by Pressure Lube Inc in NYC between March 44 and March 45.

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Since the holes in my Winchesters stock have seen better days I modified the tabs on the M15 sight by filing down the tabs a bit so that it doesn’t require as much torque to rotate the sight on the disk. The file on my Leatherman Wave fit nicely between the tab and the body.

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Repairing a Garand Trigger Guard for Stock Fit

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The trigger guard pins on an M1 Garand need to be “round” for proper stock fit, much like the late production SA stamped trigger guard that came with my Winchester rack grade.

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However, this part was designed to be softer than the receiver legs for good reason so often the pegs become flat on one side which can cause the trigger assembly to fall out of the stock.

This picture of some old manual seems to be floating around the Internet indicating that worn out pegs can be peened to improve lock up.

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A friend of mine gratuitously sent me a proper WRA milled trigger guard. Here is the “before” picture.

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As you can see it’s not that bad but I can’t stop myself from fiddling with it.

You will need a 1/2″ piece of wood to support the ears, American made ball peen hammer, and a shim.

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I used my big vice and supported a 1/2″ piece of plywood with some scrap wood so I didn’t hammer the wood out of the vice.

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There isn’t much to it after that. I carefully whacked ball peen hammer in the middle of the peg until the peg seemed a bit “rounder” You may consider using a wooded or rubber mallet and tapping the ball peen hammer.

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This seems to really just roll the edge back down and doesn’t reshape the entire pin however it should help with fit.