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Scot’s Product Review: The M1 Garand
You can’t write an article on the M1 Garand without quoting Lt. General George S. Patton, who called the rifle “the greatest battle implement ever devised”. That was incredibly high praise coming from one of the greatest leaders of combined arms in WWII and considering the number of superb weapons that were developed in the conflict.
The Garand is the semi-automatic rifle adopted by the U.S. Army in 1936. It was the first standard issue semi-auto adopted by any army. The Russians tried next with their SVT 38 and 40 rifles in 7.62mmx54R, but the combination of technical difficulties and the disruption of the German invasion led the Russians to go back to the Mosin-Nagant bolt action in the same caliber. The Germans issued some semi-automatics during the war, but none came close to rivaling the Garand for widespread use. The Japanese were so impressed by the Garand, they tried to copy it during the war but only got a few made. While many U.S. troops at the beginning of WW II were still carrying bolt action rifles, virtually none in frontline units carried anything other than a self-loading rifle by the end. No other Army could say this until the 1950’s.
The Garand remains an effective rifle to this day and is worthy of consideration by any prepper for hunting or self-defense. It is accurate and reliable and holds eight of the powerful, popular, and widely available .30-06 cartridge that is capable of handling pretty much anything you would want to hunt in North America. You can find Garands for as little as $600, and I will explain where to get them later in the article.
It is more politically correct than many modern defensive rifles, thanks to its non-threatening looks to the ill-informed and the fixed, eight-round magazine. That makes it easier to own in some locations.
Garands are sometime encountered in .308 Winchester. The Navy used Garands as standard issue longer than the other services and converted many to .308. It is also quite common to rebarrel them in what has become the more popular round, partially because of the availability of surplus ammo.
The Garand was the basis for the M14 rifle and inspired the M1 Carbine and Ruger Mini 14.
The Garand has few drawbacks. The major one, in my view (and that of virtually everyone else on the planet), is the magazine. The Army specified a fixed magazine, using clips to load it, and the rifle’s designer– John C. Garand– who worked at the Springfield Armory, had to oblige. Today we know the advantages of interchangeable magazines– something the Army didn’t grasp in the 1930’s. They were so afraid of soldiers losing the magazines that they were blind to the improved combat effectiveness of detachable magazines. This is a problem, because you can’t top off a partially full Garand without ejecting what’s in the magazine, unlike the bolt rifles it was up against. Worse, if you don’t have a clip but do have loose rounds, you can only load one round at a time, unlike Mausers, Enfields, or Mosin-Nagants, that can be fully loaded with single cartridges.
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