Rebarreling An M1 Garand

I have always been fascinated with military firearms. When I saw a project M1 Garand at a gun show for a very reasonable price I just had to have it. The wood and metal were in respectable condition, but the barrel was completely worn out. This classic piece of history deserved to be revitalized. First, a few words about that history. The M1 Garand was developed by Canadian-born firearms designer John C. Garand and was the first semi-automatic rifle to be generally issued to soldiers of any nation.

During WWII the M1’s gas-operated, semiautomatic action gave United States forces a signifi cant advantage in fi repower and shot-to-shot recovery time over the standard bolt-action rifles commonly in use by enemy soldiers. The Garand also provided increased shot capacity of eight rounds compared to those bolt-action rifles which typically held only 5 rounds.

One of the disadvantages of the Garand was that enemy soldiers soon learned to listen for the "ping" of the ejecting clip, a tell-tale sign that the rifle was empty. Even so, General George S. Patten called it "The greatest battle implement ever devised." The Garand officially replaced the bolt-action M1903 Springfi eld as the standard service rifle in 1936 and was heavily used by U. S. forces in WWII and the Korean War. It continued in service to a limited extent until 1966 during the Vietnam War.

Many thousands were also lent or provided as foreign aid to America’s allies. Approximately 5.4 million M1 Garands were produced for military use and some recent manufacturers have produced new receivers with military surplus parts. Garands are widely available to civilian shooters and collectors and can be found at gun stores and gun shows across the country. The Civilian Marksmanship Program (thecmp.org), formerly the Department of Civilian Marksmanship, continues to sell Garands to American citizens.

The M1 Garand is a rugged, reliable battle rifle that has withstood harsh use over of decades of time. It was designed to take the punishment of the battlefi eld. Unfortunately, many of these surplus Garands have seen hard use and come with It fails the bullet test. See article for details. less-than-suitable barrels. This is understandable since some individual rifles may have had thousands of rounds fi red through them during their 70 year service.

Even a Garand that has been through an arsenal rebuild may come with a worn barrel. Due to the design the barrel is normally cleaned from the muzzle end and you can bet that troops in the field didn’t use a bore guide for their steel cleaning rods. I have seen many Garand barrels with a good bore, except for the last inch or so at the muzzle which was worn smooth because of poor cleaning technique.

Useful tools for examining barrels include a throat erosion gauge to measure chamber throat wear and a muzzle gauge to measure muzzle wear. One simple expedient for testing muzzle wear is to insert a bullet seated in a cartridge case into the muzzle. If the bullet can be inserted up to the case neck or cannelure on the bullet the barrel is excessively worn and needs to be replaced. My 1942 Springfi eld M1 Garand was an arsenal rebuild that had a worn out

barrel. This article explains how I installed anew replacement and returned it to shooting condition. Tools Rebarreling a Garand requires special tools. The following tools (and part numbers) are available from Midway USA (midwayusa.com): Barrel vise (226100), Action Wrench, M1 Garand (279337), Rosin (846792), .30- 06 Go gauge (763069), .30-06 Field gauge (556668), .30-06 pull through chamber reamer (258068), Receiver and Barrel Timing Gauge, M1 Garand (872304).

The receiver and barrel timing gauge is nothing more than two aluminum bars that attach to the rear sight base on the receiver and the gas cylinder on the barrel indicating a proper index between the barrel and receiver. To save some money on this project I made my own. I went to my local home improvement store and purchased 3/4 x 12-inch and 1 1/2 x 12-inch aluminum bars. I cut one 5/8-inch notch in the first bar and two quarter-inch notches 1 1/4-inches apart in the second.

The narrow bar sets over the dovetail on the sight fl at on the gas cylinder and the wide bar sets between the rear sight ears on the receiver. I also found a less expensive alternative to purchasing the .30-06 pull through chamber reamer which I will explain later. Disassembly First, I completely disassembled the receiver, including the rear sight, but left the clip latch in place. I will assume the reader already knows how to accomplish this.

If not, there are many fine guides and books available that contain instructions on how to disassemble this rifle. So now I had a bare receiver with the worn barrel attached. Time to remove it. I wrapped tape around the front of the receiver to protect the finish and attached the receiver wrench. Then I applied rosin to the barrel bushing, slipped it over the barrel and attached the barrel vise. I set the barrel vise in my bench vise and pushed down on the receiver wrench to loosen the receiver from the barrel.

Once the receiver was loose I removed the barrel vise from the bench vise to completely remove the barrel from the receiver. Installing the New Barrel There are a number of sources for new barrels. I found the best price for a Criterion barrel to be from either the Civilian Marksmanship Program or Dean’s Gun Restorations (dgrguns. com). I purchased my Criterion barrel from the CMP. Once the new barrel arrived I installed the gas cylinder with the front sight removed.

Depending on how tight the splines of the new barrel are you may have to drive the gas cylinder onto the barrel with apiece of wood and a mallet. I installed the barrel vise and screwed the new barrel onto the receiver, tightening the barrel until the bars of the receiver and barrel timing gauge were parallel indicating that the barrel was properly indexed. With the barrel installed, let’s look at finish reaming.

The chamber of my new barrel came about 0.010inches short which meant I would have to finish cutting the chamber to the proper headspace. The pull through chamber reamer is an expensive tool that I would probably only use once for this project. Instead of purchasing this tool I went to Elk Ridge Reamer Rentals (reamerrentals.com) where I rented the reamer for a little over 30% of the cost of purchasing one.

It is critical when doing this sort of rifle work to check the headspace and the only correct way to confirm proper headspace is with cartridgespecifi c precision gauges. Excluding multi-tool headspace gauge sets for extreme precision work, there are typically three lengths of headspace gauges in a set. Go gauges are the shortest and used to set minimum headspace for anew barrel.

This ensures that the rifle chamber will accept cartridges made to maximum Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute specifications. No-Go gauges are the middle length of the three gauges. With this gauge installed afirearm should not go to battery, however, if the bolt does close on this gauge the barrel may still be within acceptable SAA- MI tolerances. If this is the case the Field gauge is needed. The longest of the three gauges, it usually represents the extreme end of safe tolerances set by SAAMI.

Technically, a bolt should never close on afield gauge, however, some gauge manufacturers purposely make their Field gauges a bit undersize so headspace

I tightened the new barrel until the bars were parallel. I used plenty of lubrication while cutting the chamber. could still be within SAAMI specifi cations, but just barely. In almost every case a bolt that can close on a Field gauge needs serious attention. To use these gauge completely disassemble the bolt. There should be no extractor or ejector contact on the gauge, just the bolt face.

To disassemble the Garand bolt I slipped a small fl at-blade screwdriver between the extractor and extractor plunger so the plunger was depressed. While holding my thumb over the bolt face I used a punch to drive out the extractor from the bolt body, thus preventing the ejector from flying out. After the extractor was removed I carefully relieved ejector spring tension by allowing the ejector to move out of the bolt face.

I removed the ejector and ejector spring, then removed the firing pin from the rear of the bolt. Finally, I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to remove the extractor spring and plunger. While the bolt was disassembled I cleaned and lubricated all parts, then set them aside in a small plastic container so I wouldn’t lose them. I am always amazed how dirty a semiautomatic can get, especially all the little nooks and crannies where powder residue can accumulate.

With the rifle and bolt disassembled, I inserted the .30-06 Go gauge into the chamber and gently tried to close the bolt using just light finger pressure. Never try to force a bolt closed on a gauge. Just light finger pressure is all that is needed. The bolt would not close on the Go gauge, indicating a short chamber. I placed a bore guide on the front of the barrel and ran the pull-through rod through the bore until it was visible in the action.

I attached the reamer to the rod and liberally lubricated it with cutting oil. After pulling the rod until I felt the reamer contact the rifl ing, I gave it about ten turns. The reamer should only be turned in the cutting direction as turning the reamer in the opposite direction could damage the cutting edges. I could feel the reamer 30-06 Go gauge in the chamber the gap between the right locking lug and the receiver shows that the bolt would not close.

This indicates a short chamber, which I will have to continue reaming until the bolt falls into place with the Go gauge installed. 45 caliber cleaning patch wrapped around a .25 caliber bore brush then impregnated with cleaning compound is used to polish the bore and newly cut chamber throat. cutting into the new barrel indicating it was making a longer chamber and new throat. I pushed the reamer back into the action and unscrewed it from the rod.

After removing the rod and bore guide from the barrel I thoroughly flushed the reamer and barrel with brake parts cleaner to remove all chips and cutting oil. I ran a clean, dry patch through the bore from the breach to the muzzle to make sure there were no metal chips left and rechecked with the Go gauge again, but the bolt still would not close on the Go gauge.

This entire procedure was repeated until the bolt would completely drop into battery with the Go gauge in place, indicating the chamber and throat were properly cut to the correct headspace. Just to make sure, I

also checked with the Field gauge that the bolt would not close. Barrel Break In I purchased a Chrome Moly barrel manufactured by Criterion which is actually a subsidiary of Krieger Barrels, Inc. The company’s web site, kriegerbarrels.com, contains a lot of information regarding their manufacturing process and how to break in anew barrel.

When I cut the fi nal chamber dimensions by turning the reamer ninety degrees to the direction of bullet travel, I left reamer marks in the throat across — at right angles to — the lands. These marks are rough enough to strip copper off of a bullet and this in combination with the hot expanding gas turns the copper into a plasma which is deposited down the length of the bore causing fouling. To prevent this fouling the reamer marks in the chamber throat have to be removed.

This can be accomplished by either a number of shoot-and-clean cycles to break Complete your American Gunsmith collection. Or read up on a special subject! A limited number of the following