What's wrong with 2 groove barrels?

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Tropical Z

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I mentioned this in the Big 5 Garand thread,but can't get an answer.One poster said that the US property marked Enfields were undesireable due to the fact that they have 2 groove barrels.Why is that bad?
 
Not a thing.
Two groove barrels were a wartime expedient to reduce manufacturing time and cost. They shoot just fine to military standards and some of the pre-68 milsurp shooters preferred them for the grip they gave on cast bullets.
 
Some have stated that they are a little faster, and others have stated that they wear more slowly. I dunno 'bout all that, but I *do* know that my two groove barrels shot as well or better than my traditional barrels.
 
Judge a barrel by how it shoots, not the number of grooves. Two-groove barrels can shoot just fine and seem to last longer.

Not that it's much of a plus in a Garand, but have found two-goove barrels to be very good cast bullet shooters.
 
A two groove Garand barrel is something you should run away from. It's an 03 barrel turned down and sleeved into the stub of an M1 barrel. This was done back when surplus M1 parts were pretty scarce. Many rewelds were equipped with these barrels. You can see pictures of 2-groove M1 barrels in the Kuhnhausen Shop Manual in the Dangerous Components section.
 
A two groove Garand barrel is NOT a cut down O3 barrel. They where made when Cut-rifling was used to make the barrels. It is faster and easier to make a two groove Cut-rifling barrel than a four. When they started switching over entirely to button-rifling it doesn't make any difference how many grooves you have so they went back to four grooves.
 
2-groove M1 Garand barrels are bad juju.

What's wrong with 2 groove barrels?

Crosshair, just so you know, there were some unscrupulous folks in the 1960s who swaged surplus 2-groove 1903A3 barrels into original M1 Garand barrel stubs, making a 2-piece, 2-groove Garand barrel. These are the ones one should run away from. Why did they do it? Because surplus 1903A3 barrels went for $0.95 each from the DCM, considerably cheaper and easier to find than the correct M1 Garand barrels.

Look at an example here:

http://www.fulton-armory.com/Weld.htm

Here are a couple pics of those composite Springfield/Garand barrels:

BarrelJoint3a.jpg


Note the seam between the two barrel halves:

BarrelJoint2.jpg




However, 2-groove barrels as used properly by Savage in the Lend-Lease No4Mk1 and Remington in the 1903A3/1903A4 Springfield rifles are just as good as, if not better than, their contemporary 4-groove barrels.

This 1903A4 sniper has a 2-groove March 1944 barrel:

03a4bench.gif

168gr Sierra MatchKings group like this at 100 yards:

03a4target.gif

It's not the number of grooves in a barrel, it's how well they were put there... ;)
 
NO two-groove M1 Garand barrels were ever issued. Any two groove you may find on an M1 is an 03 barrel. See Gewehr98s pics.

Two grooves on 03A3s are just fine!
 
My 03A3

has a 1943 2-groove barrel. I have gotten groups as small as 0.48" 5 shots 100 yds with it, though the average is 3/4". Ain't a thing wrong with 'em.
 
Someone PLEASE tell me that not all two groove No4 Mark 1's were US made and that some were just cheap Enfields made quickly for the war.
 
"...Any two groove you may find on an M1 is an 03 barrel..." Nonsense. M-1 barrels were made with two grooves in late W.W. II to speed up production. There was no difference in performance. A two groove barrel is exactly the same as a four groove barrel with one set of grooves omitted.
"...US property marked Enfields..." Were made by Savage under contract for the Brits. When the contract ran out, all the finished rifles, parts and machinery were sent to the Canadian Arsenals Long Branch Plant up here. Had one on my MIU when I commanded a CF Army Cadet Corps, long ago. It worked just as well as any Long Branch made rifle. So did and does any other two groove rifle.
 
The reason I ask is that I have a heavily bubba'd two groove enfield. Shoots really straight, but I hate to think that someone butchered something of even slightly increased value over any other enfield. I don't like bubba's rifles as a general rule, but how can you pass up a $50 rifle? Even one that ain't pretty. Less guilt about beatin' it up at that price.:)
 
"...Any two groove you may find on an M1 is an 03 barrel..." Nonsense. M-1 barrels were made with two grooves in late W.W. II to speed up production.

BS. Two groove '03 barrels were made to speed up production, but not M1 Garand barrels.

Don
 
Not all Savage Enfields were....

two groove. The early rifles were 5 groove, I have one. I have a Faz No 4 two groove that will shoot 1 inch groups at 50 meters. I never heard of a two groove Garand.......I would question it.....chris3
 
On Enfields, a two-groove is usually as accurate as a standard, all else being equal. I've heard, though, that when they go, they go fast and hard. From (for example) consistent 3 MOA to keyholing-level accuracy in <200 rounds.

Someone PLEASE tell me that not all two groove No4 Mark 1's were US made and that some were just cheap Enfields made quickly for the war.

Sure. I have a two-groove Faz.
 
I have a 5 groove Savage, Long Branch, and Fazakerly, a 4 groove BSA, and a 2 groove Maltby and Fazakerly (all #4's). 2 Groove #4 Enfield barrels were war time expediant answer to kick out more barrels faster. Accuracy is consistant with 4 and 5 groove barrels. ANY Savage is desirable these days.
 
Somebody needs to do their homework...

"...Any two groove you may find on an M1 is an 03 barrel..." Nonsense. M-1 barrels were made with two grooves in late W.W. II to speed up production. There was no difference in performance. A two groove barrel is exactly the same as a four groove barrel with one set of grooves omitted.

Sorry, Sunray, you missed by a country mile. The only 2-groove M1 Garand barrels produced were for prototypes, and only 16 of them were made for testing around August of 1942. They were built not for expediency in manufacture, but to test changes in bullet velocity. None were ever done for regular (issue) production. 2-groove barrels were common for M1903A3 and M1903A4 Springfields, yes, as well as Savage No4Mk1 Lee-Enfields, but no M1 Garands.

Just in case that doesn't sit well with our Canadian expert on U.S. military arms, the story can be backed up by our own resident M1 Garand expert, E. Clancy, who supplied the info earlier from his extensive library of War Department files and documents:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=117323
 
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