20 rd mag det?? 1920 Garand Rifle

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eclancy

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Gentlemen,
For the new guys. Here is Mr. Garand 1920 Semi-Automatic Rifle.
What do you think about it?


Gentlemen,
There was a lot of data about the magazine, getting into the prone position having the Magazine getting in the way of the shooter. Remember, that the BAR was used in WW1 and thus it was a combat tested weapon. My problem with the BAR or any other full auto is the amount of ammo to keep feeding it. IIRC there were 3 man teams to keep the BAR up and running. I WONDER what would happen if all the guys were issued a BAR type weapon. Half of it troops would be getting the ammo to those on the line. Mr. Garand was ahead of Ordnance because he had all ready built a semi auto in 1920 with a rifle with the 20 rd. magazine and yes Ordnance did not want that type of firearm. Yes it had problems but with the team at SA those guys could have built as the 1920 one. But it would still have taken one or two riflemen off the line to keep ammo to feeding it. This is just my .02 cent. Talking with some WW2 Vet's. Some of them used 2 BAR"S on the left of their line making it sound like a .30 Cal., Machine Gun and a 3 man team with the M1 Garand on their right. They could make the Garands sound like a couple of BAR's firing Nice Trick!!

LOOK AT THE WEIGHT SOMEBODY MISSED THAT ONE !!!

1920.jpg

Remindernowa-1.jpg

A word to the WISE for CONGRESS:
"You cannot invade America. There is a rifle behind every blade of grass." Admiral Yamamoto

A Veteran, whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of “up to and including my life.”

Thanks again for taking the time and effort to read this data. I hope you have learned a little of the history of the M1 Garand.
Clancy
ps Could use some hits. I hope to have both sites update in soon. Have fun hope you enjoy and learn.
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IIRC there was some experimentation in 1945 with a garand modified to feed from BAR magazines as a possible weapon to use during the invasion of Japan.

Fortunately, no such invasion was necessary and the plan was dropped.

I imagine the Italian BM-59 is a pretty good approximation of what such a weapon would be like. By the standards of its contemporaries, it would have had few peers.
 
Amazing. I had no idea that John Garand had made a magazine-based semi-auto rifle in 1920. That's the only criticism I've heard people say about the Garand today.
"It's limited because it doesn't accept magazines."

When one becomes proficient with the rifle, and learns to load it without the "Garand Thumb" effect, it can be loaded just as fast if not faster than a magazine-based rifle.

Video of loading a M1 Garand by DrakeGmbH :what: :evil:
 
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The only reason that Garand adopted the famous en-bloc clip system was because of the Army's silly requirements for the rifle to have the magazine flush with the stock so that it could be incorporated into their current drilling manuals with no fuss.
 
In 1920 they still had a lot of mule transport for supplies and a small post-war budget. The ammunition wasting detachable box magazine was a worry then.

By the 1940s, they were banging through the 8-round clips pretty fast, not to mention 20 shot BARs, 15 and 30 shot carbines, and 20, 30, 50 shot Thompsons. But people were shooting back, which can change your attitude.
 
I read in a magazine article a while ago that to get rid of the 'garand thumb' as your pushing the clip into the rifle you slide your other four fingers along the side of the rifle in front of the bolt handle to stop it from moving forward.

Maybe this was already know, but I though I'd throw it out there.


Also the garand was hell of fast for its time, so I don't think anyone cared about it not taking detachable mags.
 
redlion...........dang garand thumb is one of the msot painful things i hve ever had happen while shooting
 
The main advantage to en bloc clips to me is that they are cheap, pre-loaded, you don't have to keep up with detachable mags. Capacity is limited though.
 
When you push down a clip, you can use your right hand thumb so that the bolt hits the bottom of your thumb and naturally pushes it out of the way. Or learn to hold the bolt while doing it.
 
Cool, 20-round M-1!

As for avoiding M-1 Thumb, I was taught to use the heel of my right hand to hold the charging handle while pushing the clip in with my thumb. When it catch engages, the whole hand will rock out of the way, avoiding M-1 Thumb. (Not only that, but you can hold the op-rod with the heel of your hand if needed.)

And yes, I have had M-1 Thumb!! :banghead:
 
Yep, a early version of the M14 using .30-06 Springfield (7.62x63mm) instead of .308 Winchester (7.62x51mm).

I would be interested in buying one of those! :D
 
I believe that's Garand's first design, which was primer-actuated, not gas-operated.

The en bloc clip was the Garand's great weakness -- because of the complexity of the magazine parts needed to make the en bloc clip work. As a result, we had only one successful commercial source for Garands during WWII, Winchester.
 
The original Garand design left the primer unsupported. There was a fairly heavy firing pin blocking a primer-sized hole. When the rifle was fired, the primer was blown back, forcing the firing pin back, and this provided the energy to cycle the rifle.

When the Army decided to go to staked primers (basically upsetting the metal around the primer pocket to lock the primer in) this system was no longer viable. So Garand moved on to gas operation -- originally using a muzzle cap or "gas trap," which wasn't very strong when used as an attachment point for a bayonet. The final design (adopted after production began) was to go to a gas cylinder hung under the barrel near the muzzle.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the "primer actuation" refers to a type of blowback system wherein the primer setback is (somehow) tied up in the delay system.

I really have no idea what that means in terms of what parts it has and what they do. I'll look around and see if I can find a diagram.

It was used in an early garand design, and later by AAI for some iteration of their SPIW/ACR concept, which I swear dug up every strange and unusual design concept from the murky depths including flechettes, rotary breech, tandem magazines, multi-barrel, self-loading underbarrel grenade launchers...



Edited to add:


Thanks Vern.

That is one bizarre operating system.
 
But it would still have taken one or two riflemen off the line to keep ammo to feeding it. This is just my .02 cent
Click to expand...
Remember, this is in addition to the existing ratio of 7 combat support per 1 front line soldier that existed during WWII.
 
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