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.308 Winchester & the Garand Rifle?

trstonetrstone Member Posts: 833 ✭✭✭✭
edited January 2003 in Ask the Experts
Hey, everybody....

This may sound crazy, but I SWEAR I saw something on the 'Net about Garand rifles being chambered in .308--presumably .308 Winchester, and NOT .30-'06. Now, I always thought Garands were chambered in .30-'06 only; were some models chambered in .308 Winchester too? Or is this just an easy-to-do, popular conversion?
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    jonkjonk Member Posts: 10,121
    edited November -1
    i could be off base but as I recall, I heard that after the war, some were converted to .308... I'm thinking Navy... could be wrong. Commercial barrels are available. There are also a few in 7mm Mauser floating around. Fairly common to rebarrel to .308.

    "...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conf
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    Laredo LeftyLaredo Lefty Member Posts: 13,451 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    tr..... Yes there are garands in .308 or 7.62mm nato, two names for the same caliber, I have one.
    Mine is what is called a tanker garand. It is a shortened verson of the original rifle. The barrel is shorter and the fore-stock is cut down as is the end of the op rod as it acts as a gas piston.
    These were not issued to tankers, so I dont know why the name. Tankers were issued sub-machine guns and pistols.

    My tanker uses the same 8 shot clips as the 30-06 full length rifles.
    There are gunsmiths who can convert the .308 tankers to use the 20 rnd M-14 rifle magazines.

    As mentioned above the navy did convert garands to .308. I believe they both rebarreled them and used a chamber inserts to switch caliber.
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    Tailgunner1954Tailgunner1954 Member Posts: 7,734 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Yes, there are Garands that were converted by the military to use the 308Win / 7.62 NATO round. This was done to those Garands that were still in service after the new round was adopted.
    As stated above the first ones used a chamber insert, with the later ones getting a new barrel. One thing common to all the 7.62 NATO conversions is a magazine block (at the front of the clip well) to prevent 30-06 length rounds from being inserted into the rifle.
    Some guys like a mag full of lead, I still prefer one round to the head.
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    XracerXracer Member Posts: 1,990 ✭
    edited November -1
    Also, Springfield Armory (the civilian company, not the U.S. Government Armory), made up a bunch of Garands from leftover GI parts in both .30-06 and .308.
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    Warpig883Warpig883 Member Posts: 6,459
    edited November -1
    There are places that still do conversions.

    moc.murofsmraerifeht
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    dakotashooter2dakotashooter2 Member Posts: 6,186
    edited November -1
    There is an article on these in the new issue of Shooting times( I think) If I read correctly some are being made on newly manufactured receivers and using surplus internal parts. They cost a little over a "Garand" (pun intended).
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    IconoclastIconoclast Member Posts: 10,515 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    beachmaster73 has one he uses for match shooting, an original Navy version. Don't know if it's been rebarreled or had the chamber converted, but I do know he's right fond of it and it shoots mighty fine . . . not unusual with the Garand.
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    mark christianmark christian Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 24,456 ******
    edited November -1
    Even though the M14 was adopted in 1957, production was very slow and there were problems getting sufficent numbers of the new rifle into the hands of Army and Marine Corps infantry units. There was a rather load cry of outrage when members of Congress saw that troops sent to Berlin at the height of that crisis were still armed with M1 Garands, sufficent numbers of new standard rifle M14's were still not available even at that late date.

    Once M14 production got up to speed it was very clear to the Navy and the Air Force that neither branch really wanted or needed the new M14. The Air Force wanted to continue its use of the M2 Carbine for base security use, but the carbine had been declared limited standard with the adoption of the M14 and there would be no new parts procurement for that weapons system. As a result, the Air Force opted for the Armalite AR-15...but that is a whole other story!

    The Navy had on hand many thousands of perfectly serviceable M1 Rifles and saw no good reason to spend a small fortune to replace them with the new M14's...assuming that they would ever even receive them due to the production backlogs. The Navy solution was the adoption of the chamber bushing that Tailgunner mentioned. This was developed by H.P.White Laboratories and was considered a quick and easy modification- insert the bushing, fire an 8 round clip to seat it, install the plastic spacer to prevent insertion of a .30-06 clip and you were done. Most of these Navy M1's were modified by H&R and carried the marking H&R G 7.62 NATO on the barrel beneath the original barrel date. The Rifle itself was designated Navy Mk. 2, Mod. 0.

    After some field use it was soon discovered that after a while the bushings would shoot loose and be ejected along with a spent case. The solution now was to rebarrel about 30,000 rifles with 7.62 barrels obtained from Springfield Armory. Both H&R and AMF rebarreled these rifles and the original bushing rifles were declared obsolete and are now seldom seen. The new modified M1 was designated Mk. 2, Mod. 1 and are still in inventory today...or so I've been lead to believe by personel "in the know". As a result these Navy Garands are very pricey- lets say around $2000 and are eagerly sought after by collectors..like me!

    Even harder to locate are the Navy Trophy Match Rilfes. These were built up by Navy armorers at the Crane, Indiana small arms facility during the 1970's on into the early 1980's. In order to receive one of these trophies you have to be a member of the U.S. Navy, participate in a Navy match, and WIN! These rilfes are awarded by the Sec. Nav. and released on DD 1149 and must be documented to be considered worth the considerable premium asked for such rifles- usually around $2500 or more for a NIB example with papers and record book. There are a number of ways to spot a real trophy from a fake (many more of the fakes than the real thing) but that is beyond the scope of this post. Other countries like Italy also modified their M1 rilfes to 7.62 NATO, that work being done by Beretta and Breda. I hope this provides you with some useful information


    Mark T. Christian
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    Warpig883Warpig883 Member Posts: 6,459
    edited November -1
    http://www.fulton-armory.com/

    Fulton Armory is the premier Garand repair/rebuild place

    They sell them in 30-06, 308 or 270 on original USGI recievers

    moc.murofsmraerifeht
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    drobsdrobs Member Posts: 22,545 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Shotgun News had an advertisement for Garand chamber inserts that would convert the rifle to 308.

    Regards,
    ************************
    Got Da Bling Bling?
    pickle.gif
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