On this day in 1926, John C. Garand patented a semi-automatic rifle. Civil Service employee John Garand was in a class all by himself, much like the weapons he created. Garand was Chief Civilian Engineer at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. Garand invented a semiautomatic .30 caliber rifle, known as the M-1 or “the Garand,” which was adopted in 1936 after grueling tests by the Army.
7 comments:
Most folks mispronounce Garand's name by putting the accent on the second syllable (rand). Garand pronounced his own name by putting the accent on the first syllable (Ga). But, if you say it correctly, folks who don't know look at you like you're the one saying it wrongly. I chose to say it correctly, like John C. Garand said his own name.
- Old Greybeard
I thought the original as-designed caliber for the Garand was .276, but with war looming the military did not wish to start over with a new small arms round.
_revjen45
On this day in 1781, Charles Earl Cornwallis surrendered all British troops in the American colonies to Gen George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
Anonymous, you are correct. The M1 Garand was originally designed to use the .276 Pederson.The Army asked to have the rifle chambered for 30.06, rather than .276, due to having 2 or 3 million rounds of 30.06 ball ammunition on hand.
Had the army gone with .276, the rifle would have been lighter, and the magazine would have held 10 rather than 8 rounds. I suspect the rifle would have cycled faster, due to the shorter cartridge length of the .276. Another thought, the .276 would probably have had significantly less recoil.
I own two Garands: one completely refurbished from CMP and another that is on the beaten and worn side. The beat up rifle is going off to be refurbished next year at some point.
Both of Garands are sweet shooting rifles.
-Blake
"Most folks mispronounce Garand's name by putting the accent on the second syllable (rand). Garand pronounced his own name by putting the accent on the first syllable (Ga). But, if you say it correctly, folks who don't know look at you like you're the one saying it wrongly. I chose to say it correctly, like John C. Garand said his own name."
Yup. I hear ya. One of my brothers, a cop with major firearms experience in evaluation and training pronounces it wrongly. He never listens to the whys and it really used to piss me off. Now I look at him as the self-justified ass that he is.
I love mine, that is, if it is possible to "love" such an inanimate object. Manufactured at Springfield Armory between July and August of 1944, it is mostly original. It functions and shoots flawlessly. In this day and age of ARs and AKs, it is my SHTF go to weapon with a large compliment of M2 Ball ammo. With one center mass hit, the target goes down...and stays down! It's pretty easy to do at 400 yards with iron sights, just as ole John C. intended.
John Cantius Garand's genius was not merely in designing a full-bore semi-automatic service rifle that actually worked and was reliable. Julian Hatcher in his book about the M1 rifle describes how difficult an accomplishment that really was and how many people had failed at it before Garand succeeded.
No, Garand's genius was in not only designing the rifle, but in designing the manufacturing processes with which to efficiently build it in mass quantities. He was an industrial engineer of the highest order and therein was the genius of the man.
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