Feb 22, 2014. Mar 31, 2020. The M1 Garand, M14/M1A, M1 Carbine & M16/AR15 all have a free floating firing pin. They all dent the primer on loading. From left to right, an unfired primer, a dimpled primer, and a fired primer. Indeed, the original Garand firing pin was redesigned to reduce slam fire by lightening the firing pin, even when fed as designed, by a clip.
I happily admit that when I saw this video from Paul Harrell, I wondered as I clicked whether he’d pronounce “Garand” reasonably, or instead say it like Ian of Forgotten Weapons. And once the actual video presentation began about 1.5 minutes in, he made me laugh by not pronouncing it at all!
During the intro, he gets to the Garand and calls it “the M1 this word right here,” gesturing at a space where the word “Garand” appears. That was good for a nice guffaw out of me… and I was further pleased when he deigned to pronounce it in the way I happen to prefer.
Getting down to brass tacks and the purpose of the video, we look at the M1A (7.62 NATO / 308 WIN) and the M1 Garand (30-06 Springfield).
M1 Garands For Sale By Us Government
I have very little experience with either of the rifles, but my father had considerable shooting time with the Garand and and he was not a fan in the least. I believe I could sum up his opinion like so: The Garand is heavy, rattly, inaccurate, and will do its best to take off your thumb.
Paul clocks some ammo, demonstrating that each rifle produces similar velocity with similar bullet weights. Then he shoots for accuracy at 60 yards.
His results show better accuracy out of the M1A. Then he decides to shoot more rapidly and toss in a reload — preceded by a demonstration of how each rifle is loaded and reloaded. Accuracy results this time are not different enough to matter.
M1a Vs M1 Garand
After pronouncing the M1A the “winner,” — which one would hope, since it was intended to replace the Garand — he bends the ol’ brain a bit and decides to compare the guns against the rifles they actually went up against in battle.
This approach first pits the Garand against a Mauser 8mm bolt action rifle, fired by Chuck. Although Chuck can run a bolt action pretty well, he of course loses the race to the semi-auto. Notably, the Garand also wins the accuracy comparison by a large margin.
Springfield M1a Vs M1 Garand
Quarkxpress 2020. Next, Chuck shoots the M1A while Paul fires an AK clone, and the AK wins. So they fire the drill again, after swapping guns… and this time, the results are much closer.
M1 M14 Difference
Enjoy the video, then comment to let us now which one you prefer.