The Garand Project - 1 of ??
This is going to be the first in a new series of posts about a project I am undertaking as part of a friendly wager with another Texas Marksmen student who is also a close personal friend of mine. The wager is simple: we have each acquired "Rack" grade M1 Garand rifles from the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Our goal is to restore these rifles as best we possibly can within a $400.00 budget. This budget was chosen because, for $1,100.00, we could have simply purchased "Expert" grade Garands instead.
You will see my Garand above as it was shipped to me from the CMP. It is a HRA garand which indicates that it is a post-WW2 Garand that most likely saw service in Korea. I was lucky to get an original Walnut stock in very nice condition for my Garand with a "circle P" proofmark on the pistol grip together with a BA (Benica Arsenal) stamp. The rest of the furniture is walnut and in fair condition.
Thusfar I have completed the process of detail disassembling the rifle. I am not going to post a bunch of pictures of that process here because, frankly, I needed to buy a book to figure it all out and the process is actually pretty complex. This is not nearly as easy to work on as an AR-15. Upon disassembly, I was not surprised to find that the pitting has left this receiver in pretty rough shape. There is a lot of it - enough that I have decided it would be prudent to sandblast and reparkerize all of the parkerized parts of this rifle (including the receiver) that are still serviceable to stop any more pits from forming and to at least prevent existing pits from getting any worse due to rust. Buying the materials to parkeize myself will be interesting (note: the $400 budget is only for parts, with springs being exempt because its wise to re-spring a 70 year old rifle in any case). The only reason the budget is in place is to prohibit keeping the receiver and just buying all the other parts for a new rifle. I have chosen Wolff springs for my rebuild. Before I take them to the sandblaster, I am going to give the parts a 30 minute bath in mineral spirits and make sure they are completely degreased. Then, of course, I need to separate out what needs parkerizing and what doesn't.
While I wait to find what I need to parkerize, I am going to start work on the wood as well. This wood is pretty cool and I don't want to mess it up so I will make a new post once we get started on the full restoration and, obviously, this article will be a multi-part series. By the time everything is said and done, I am hoping to have a rifle worthy of being used for convincing people to get the fuck off of my lawn.
You will see my Garand above as it was shipped to me from the CMP. It is a HRA garand which indicates that it is a post-WW2 Garand that most likely saw service in Korea. I was lucky to get an original Walnut stock in very nice condition for my Garand with a "circle P" proofmark on the pistol grip together with a BA (Benica Arsenal) stamp. The rest of the furniture is walnut and in fair condition.
Thusfar I have completed the process of detail disassembling the rifle. I am not going to post a bunch of pictures of that process here because, frankly, I needed to buy a book to figure it all out and the process is actually pretty complex. This is not nearly as easy to work on as an AR-15. Upon disassembly, I was not surprised to find that the pitting has left this receiver in pretty rough shape. There is a lot of it - enough that I have decided it would be prudent to sandblast and reparkerize all of the parkerized parts of this rifle (including the receiver) that are still serviceable to stop any more pits from forming and to at least prevent existing pits from getting any worse due to rust. Buying the materials to parkeize myself will be interesting (note: the $400 budget is only for parts, with springs being exempt because its wise to re-spring a 70 year old rifle in any case). The only reason the budget is in place is to prohibit keeping the receiver and just buying all the other parts for a new rifle. I have chosen Wolff springs for my rebuild. Before I take them to the sandblaster, I am going to give the parts a 30 minute bath in mineral spirits and make sure they are completely degreased. Then, of course, I need to separate out what needs parkerizing and what doesn't.
While I wait to find what I need to parkerize, I am going to start work on the wood as well. This wood is pretty cool and I don't want to mess it up so I will make a new post once we get started on the full restoration and, obviously, this article will be a multi-part series. By the time everything is said and done, I am hoping to have a rifle worthy of being used for convincing people to get the fuck off of my lawn.
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