I got mine through the DCM for $165. It was once in a lifetime and the amount of paperwork you had to submit was monumental, but I got one. My Gun Club President (now ex Pres) had been going to Camp Perry since the early 1960's. Garands were real hard to get back then, if you went to the National Matches you could buy a NM Garand, but I am not sure if it was every Camp Perry or not. The Club Pres said, Garands were so hard to acquire, he got his, after his Devine M1a! Which would have been late 1970's.
I built my match versions from the Blue Sky Garands that came in from Korea. The one that had the best barrel, what looked to be fouling in the Gun Store, some Korean had fired a rock in the barrel. That became my first NM version. Learned all about slamfires in that thing, and it was all due to Federal Match primers. They are the most sensitive primers on the market, lots of shooters used them because the box says "Match". At the time, the only allowable causes of slamfires were "high primers" and "your worn out receiver bridge", this is what Gunwriters told us in the printed magazines of the time. The concept of primer sensitivity did not exist. A primer was a primer was a primer. I was not certain about primer height on the first out of battery slamfire, but the second one, I had absolutely made sure all the primer pockets were reamed, and that I personally inspected each and every primer to determine it was well below the case head. After the second out of battery slamfire, I decided conventional wisdom was bunk and that the real cause of slamfires was sensitive primers. You would not believe the push back I got from the shooting community. Some very nasty stuff and lots of out right denial. Thankfully the internet came along, and the AR 15. I was able to find hundreds of slamfire experiences, in every semi automatic rifle out there, to bolster my argument, and those skeptics, nay sayers, and hateful types, while they are still around, they are not as vocal.
