garand | laststandonzombieisland

Tag Archives: garand

M1 Garand .30-06 Ammo Update

Posted on July 21, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

As a bit of an update to the post I ran in February talking up the last supplies of U.S. military surplus spam cans from Ethiopian stocks, and a promised flood of milsurp .30-06 M2 rounds from CMP, I have the following bad news to pass on.

RTI says all the Ethiopian larder of milsurp spam can stuff is gone.

However, they do have some Italian-made M2 ball in 44-round craft paper boxes for as low as $0.89/rd.

Via RTI

Discounted pricing on Italian M2 Ball in stock now ready to ship! Perfect for a Garand, SAFN, M1917, and more! Noncorrosive, boxer primed, brass case.

This ammunition was manufactured between 1975 and 1980 and has been in storage until now. Each box of .30-06 ammunition contains 44 rounds. The ammunition is like new. This is the lowest-priced 30-06 ammunition in the US. Compare to ammo seek $1.19/rd. The Headstamp reads KT 30-06 and date (commonly 77 and 79).

There are also stocks of MKE-made Turkish .30.06 151-grain ball rounds in four-round machine gun links (!) floating around for about 80 cents a round. This stuff was reportedly made between 1962 and 1978 for Turkish GPMGs and you gotta delink it.

Speaking of machine gun-loaded ammo, SG has some rough-looking Cold War-era delinked Korean stuff that is corrosive.

Via SG Ammo

Notice: We pack each can here, orient the rounds as pictured to comply with LQ shipping regulations, inspect the ammo for quality and check the count by weight, but disclaim the possibility that the cans may have 5 more or less rounds. Assume a corrosive primer with this ammo. Rounds are in a vintage surplus M19A1 ammo can so there may be some imperfections on the can.

About 370 Rounds +/-5 in Ammo Can of 30-06 150 Grain FMJ M2 Ball Oriented Packaged Ammo By Korean Arms.

Brass Case, Boxer Primer, Corrosive Primer

KA headstamp with observed manufacturer dates 1960s – 1970s is the norm and typically the vast majority of the ammo, however there may be other headstamps in the mix, such as PS, WRA, RA, LC, others, etc

This ammo was delinked, and will have staining on the brass near the shoulder where the links where.

This ammo is M2 ball spec, meaning it is the reduced pressure load made for WW1 and WW2 era firearms, and can safely be use in the M1 Garand, 1919 MG, M1903 or BAR

Sadly, it seems the CMP larder has come and gone, at least for now, as all they have listed on their e-store currently for surplus ammo is .22LR Winchester while the only new .30-06 is Federal American Eagle 150-grain at $308.95 for 200 rounds, which is $1.54 a round, plus, plus, plus. They are over $2 a pop on Federal’s site, so I guess that’s sort of a deal.

Further, the hope of Privi Partisan .30-06 150-grain loads surfacing over here any time soon has evaporated due to the ban on munitions exports from Serbia over escalating tensions with nearby Kosovo.

Likewise, with Sellior & Belliot’s balls to the wall making ammo for all concerned in Europe on the sidelines of the Ukraine war, don’t hold your breath on any of those sweet Czech ’06 loads coming in this year although some bulk stocks of their 150-grain soft point loads do still seem to be floating around.

gun culture

Deets on the CMP Surplus Ammo…

Posted on April 13, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Via the CMP. Spoiler alert, I wished when it was teased that it was well under $1 a round for surplus M2 .30 Caliber ball.

Consider those hopes dashed…

A New Golden Age of M1 Garand Ammo?

Posted on February 14, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

For guys who own a few vintage and rebuilt M1 Garands– like this guy– sourcing suitable .30-06 ammo to feed them can be rough. Why not just use commercial .30-06 hunting rounds, well, the guns were designed for 150-grain ball at a certain pressure, and the newer, hotter stuff, can snap op rods, which are kinda expensive and tough to find these days. Plus, go price a box of even mid-shelf Federal blue box 150s ($34.99 per 20 plus tax and shipping) and you realize that shooing matches or practicing for such hurts the wallet at $2 per “bang” and $16 per “ping.”

When I first got into Garands in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the CMP had just pulled in tons of surplus M2 ball ammo from European sources (Norway, Greece, etc) with most of it produced in the coldest period of the Cold War to feed their FMS’d Garands, M1903s, and M1919s then stockpiled for “Der Tag.”

You could get it pretty cheap. Like $99 a 192-round spam can packed in bandoliers and en bloc clips delivered to your house kinda cheap.

CMP imported over 25 million rounds of 150-grain Greek-made Pyrkal HXP ammo manufactured in the 1970s and smaller quantities of AYR-marked Norwegian Garand food crated up in the 1950s, both of which have proved popular in service rifle matches and target shooting for more than a decade.

By around 2017 the last of that boon had dried up, seemingly for good, and the only glimmer of hope out there was that Sellier & Bellot in the Czech Republic and Privi Partisan in Serbia were boxing up low-pressure 150-grain loads for about 75-85 cents a round and you could even get Berdan-primed gray-case 168gr FMJ Wolf Military Classic for about 60-cents per round.

Then came the Great Ammo Whammy of 2020 in which everything, everywhere sold out and became unobtainable, even common 115-grain 9mm ball, and the production of niche low-pressure 150-grain ’06 halted overnight.

This left some moody 1970s-produced Ethiopian ammo as about the best option by about 2020.

Now, we have a three-punch combination of great news to try and fix the shortage.

Punch One:

Last February, RTI in Florida announced they were bringing in containerloads of U.S.-made Korean War surplus .30-06 M2 ball from Ethiopia, packed in factory-fresh 384 round cases. The cost, at launch, was $800, which I said at the time was way too high (over $2 per round).

Echoing my thoughts exactly, RTI smartened up and dropped the price to $499 (sometimes lower on weekend sales) per case, and have almost sold out at this point, with just about 30 cases left still listed as being “in stock.” With the drop in price, I bit the bullet so to speak, and bought a couple, and am really happy with their condition.

Check it out.

Each tin contains four bandoleers with six loaded 8-round M1 Garand clips.

This totals out to 384 rounds, 48 reusable clips, and eight cloth bandoleers with cardboard inserts. Kind of an ok deal for $500. Not great, mind you, but OK.

Punch Two

Winchester just announced they are making new U.S.-production 150-grain M2 ball ammo, especially for Garand users. Of course, that’s nice, but the price is a “whomp-whomp” worthy $35 a box. so there’s that.

Punch Three

The Civilian Marksmanship Program just announced the recent acquisition of .30 carbine, .22 pistol, M2 ball, and .22 Long Rifle surplus ammunition supply that will soon become available to CMP customers.

CMP recently received significant quantities of surplus ammunition, and it appears to be American-made Lake City stuff from the 1960s, at least according to the crate stamps.

Ohhhh, baby.

Via CMP:

Currently, the items are in the cataloging and assessment stage by staff members.

“The CMP plans to make the ammunition available to our loyal constituents sometime this spring, after the surplus ammo goes through all CMP in-processing procedures,” said Mark Johnson, CMP’s Chief Operating Officer and Director of Civilian Marksmanship. “Purchase limits and restrictions will be set to ensure that the mission of CMP is well served.”

The CMP intends on maintaining a surplus ammo inventory large enough to support CMP Matches for the next several years and to provide discounted surplus ammo to competitors attending CMP events. All sales will include set limits to remain in compliance with guidelines specified in the Memorandum of Agreement between the Department of the Army and the CMP.

CMP recently received significant quantities of surplus ammunition.

Further surplus sales details will be forthcoming in the near future. Commercial ammunition sales are currently available on the CMP E-Store to qualified individuals. Register for an account or browse the CMP E-Store at https://estore.thecmp.org.

I’m headed up to Anniston/Talladega next month for the Shooting Sports Showcase and will be sure to get the scoop as to where this stuff came from and what the deal is with it.

Stay tuned, and cross your fingers.

weapons

Update on that RTI Milsurp .45 Ball

Posted on February 11, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, I had a post about Royal Tiger’s recent– albeit highly-priced– score of arguably collectible Korean War-era M2 .30-cal ball ammo, i.e. Garand, M1919, and BAR food.

Well, the other shoe has dropped and RTI just announced a beautiful larder of circa 1943-44 made .45ACP.

For lack of a better word, it looks amazing.

“Each crate of ammunition contains 1200 rounds of WWII era .45 ACP. Each crate contains 2 sealed metal tins, each tin contains 12 boxes of ammunition with 50 rounds per box. The ammunition is like new, crate condition is generally good to very good. The crate may have dings, dents, scratches, or small cracks in the wood. Metal tins are sealed from the factory.”

Sadly, it is also even higher priced than the .30-06, hitting the shopping cart at well over $2 a round (plus $23 shipping!) for just a 50-round box. Spam can and full crate sizes aren’t much cheaper per cap.

Sure, range-grade ammo right now is going for .45 cents a round, and this USGI stuff is not really for shooting but more for putting in a display case with your vintage M1911A1, but it still seems outrageously priced.

As my buddy, Vic Fayard says, “Of course, it is up to you guys to judge if the juice is worth the squeeze. We are just reporting it.”

Flotsam of Korea, via Addis Ababa

Posted on February 8, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Royal Tiger Imports has announced they have successfully received cases of original Korean War-era .30-06 M2 Ball ammo from an overseas source.

Late of the former Royal Ethiopian Army, each vintage wooden crate contains a pair of sealed metal tins.

Each tin contains four bandoleers with six loaded 8-round M1 Garand clips. This totals out to 384 rounds, 48 reusable clips, and eight cloth bandoleers with cardboard inserts.

Ethiopia was the first nation in Africa to contribute a complete unit of ground troops to the UN Korean command in 1950– the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Kagnew Battalions.

Formed from the Royal Guards division of the Imperial Ethiopian Army, the Kagnew Battalions drew their name from Haile Selassie’s father’s warhorse. They served alongside the U.S. 7th Infantry Division, receiving U.S. kit. They suffered 121 dead and 536 wounded during the course of the conflict.

The Ethiopians continued using the M1 Garand well into the 1970s.

The RTI-imported ’06 larder is expensive for my tastes ($800+ shipping) running over $2 a round, which, as it has been stored in Ethiopia under unknown conditions for the past 70 years, may or may not go off.

I can remember buying 200-round lots of loose 1970s-vintage Greek HXP from the CMP for $129 as recently as 2014, so I may be jaded, but it feels like the better price for the Ethiopian cases may be around half as much as RTI wants.

Still, it is nice to know that such old milsurp still exists.

Further, RTI is also teasing old surplus .45ACP and .30 Carbine ball, which may be of more interest. Watch this space for updates, as they say.

The beauty in up-cycled Molle II egg pouches

Posted on July 21, 2018 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Let’s talk for a second about NSN: 8465-01-525-0589, Molle II Hand Grenade Pouch, IR Reflective.

These bad boys are about the size of two packs of cigarettes and are made, as you would guess, to swallow one frag-type grenade. Thus:

They also are dirt cheap (get surplus, you can find them for about $3. I inherited several of these from a friend who just got out and was getting rid of most of his stuff), reliable, have easy Molle snap attachments on the rear to fit on any sized belt, bag or carrier; and of course a snap front as well as a drain hole in the bottom. While I (generally) don’t carry around grenades or flash-bangs anymore, the pouches are useful in lots of other capacities such as to carry an IFAK (it’s like a take-out Chinese food container, you can really stuff a lot in there, just be sure to bag it to keep the wet out) or compass while hiking or camping.

I also tend to need some extra M1 enblocs from time to time as I use a CMP special grade (old WRA receiver, misc GI parts, new Criterion barrel in a Boyd’s hackberry stock) for deer/hog hunting and a 1944-vintage 3.1-serial field grade Springer for range antics.

I find that one pouch holds three enbloc clips perfectly for an all-up weight of 26oz for said ammo, clips and pouch:

Two pouches give you 48 rounds at the ready, four is 96 rounds for 6.5-pounds of weight on the rigger’s belt going into an unconventional 3-gun match. The more you know…

weapons

If you are interested in a deal on an IHC Garand, there has been a development

Posted on March 12, 2018 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

The U.S. loaned 312,430 M1 rifles to NATO-allied Turkey, beginning in 1953 and ending with the final shipment of 5,000 in 1972. A few years ago, several thousand were returned from the Turkish Navy and now, over 13,000 have come back from the Turkish Air Force and are filtering out through the CMP as testing and grading are being completed.

The good news is, as many as a quarter could be rare IHC models.

The neat news is, they also sometimes have Turkish dope charts (marked Nisangah Tanzi) affixed to them.

Heard you were looking for a pre-owned M1 or M1911? CMP just got 99K of the first and 8K of the latter..

Posted on February 5, 2018 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

The Civilian Marksmanship Program has recently received truckloads of vintage M1 Garand rifles long ago loaned to U.S. allies overseas and is preparing to inventory M1911 pistols as well.

Gina Johnson, CMP’s general manager, told me via email Tuesday the federally-chartered non-profit corporation has been moving the repatriated 30.06-caliber rifles into their warehouses in recent days.

“We have roughly 86,000 rifles from the Philippines and roughly 13,000 rifles from Turkey in our possession,” said Johnson.

And then there are the 1911s…

Ping! Cutting edge plans some 85 years ago this month

Posted on December 16, 2017 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here is Patent Case File No. 1,892,141, Semi-Automatic Rifle, Rec’d 27 Dec 1932 from inventor John C. Garand– any of which makes great man cave or shooting house wallpaper.

Via NARA (70663520).

Enjoy.

Your non-collectible M1 Garand option

Posted on April 10, 2017 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

I have been on the CMP’s “list” for years and have bought several M1s and bayonets as well as a couch-sized stack of milsurp (Greek and Norwegian) ammo through their good offices. Unfortunately, it seems their stocks of field grade, rack grade, and service grade Garands have dried up and, other than the occasional collector grade gun put up for auction and some sniper models, the best thing going is a mixmaster rifle they are making that actually sounds pretty good.

Referred to as the CMP Special Field grade, this is a “completely refurbished rifle consisting of an original M1 Garand Springfield or HRA receiver, new production Criterion barrel, new production American Walnut stock and handguards, and new web sling. Receiver and most other parts are refinished USGI, but some parts may be new manufacture. Receiver will have considerable pitting above the wood line”

The price? $830 plus shipping, which when you consider that Criterion does nice work on their barrels and typically asks $200~ for them alone, is not that bad of a deal.

Speaking of non-collectible M1s:

Robar offers a service to bring non-collectible “beater” M1s up to a really sweet grade.

Robar’s Service Grade Enhancement Package ($1895) consists of:

-Supply and Install New Barrel, Headspace and Time
This service includes the removal of the old barrel and installation of a new barrel. The chamber will be finish reamed to give proper headspace within military specifications. The take off barrel will be returned unless directed otherwise.

-Supply and Install New Op Rod

-Metal Refinish
This service includes the disassembly of the rifle, surface preparation and coating/plating of the metal parts to match new laminated stock. Rifle will be reassembled and function fired. Includes NP3 plating 10 M1 Garand Clips. Removal of excess pitting is not included.

-Fit New Laminated Stock/Return Old Stock
This service includes the removal of the old stock and transfer of the stock hardware from the old stock to the new laminated stock. We will also make sure the hand guards have appropriate clearances and the trigger group lock-up is properly tight, but not too tight.

-Supply and Install New Gas Cylinder

-Trigger clean up, remove creep, 4.5 lb+
Remove all noticeable creep from second stage, but maintain a crisp military two stage trigger pull and a trigger weight of at least 4.5 lb.

-Supply and Install Ultimak Scout Mount

weapons

« Older Entries

laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

Tag Archives: garand

M1 Garand .30-06 Ammo Update

Like this:

Deets on the CMP Surplus Ammo…

Like this: