Talked to a guy at work today and he said his great grandfather was an army sniper and he used a M-1 Garand. Did they make special Sniper Models?

Yep, and they go for a few coins:

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During and after WWII, the Army had Springfield Armory convert a number of Springfield Garands to the M1C Sniper. The conversion required special machining, drilling, and tapping for the scope mount. Still a few around, highly sought after and expensive.

As the conversion to the M1C was fairly labor intensive, the Army went to the M1D which had the scope mounting pad forged into the barrel. With a M1D barrel, any Garand could be easily converted to a M1D, even in the field. M1Ds are fairly plentiful, probably worth half the value of a M1C.

Dave

Yes, and there is a good article on them at Welcome!, volume 23 issue 4. (Fall of 2009) If you ever find an original they are worth a lot. GCA= Garand Collectors Association.

Yes, as posted above, but the advent of the M-14 and the difficulties caused by the open top and ejection of the M1 didn't help.

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Saw an M-1D with scope and pad at the gun show last week.

Don't remember the price but it wasn't cheap

I spent a lot of time training infantry units that had issue M1-D's. The biggest problem was the offset scope. The M-14 was a lot easier to train with. The M-1's were accurate and I had no problem shooting them long range, once you figured out what happens at long range with the wind changes.

I was in the NY Army National Guard from 1965-1970. My armory was in Brooklyn and we spent lots of time on riot control training. We were designated a SRF (selected reserve force) which would have put us at the front of the line if the guard was to be called out for V.N. We had to train every other weekend which was a pain but better than the alternative. Anyhow about this time the country was undergoing a lot of civil unrest (say Watts, etc) so to keep us busy every other weekend we spent a lot of time on riot control training. Since I had always shot expert with the M1, they asked me if I would be the sniper for my platoon. I was issued an M1 sniper rifle and after all these years I still miss the damn thing. The snipers from my Company spent our two week summer camp (Camp Drum, NY) training with those rifles. I do not remember the training being very structured but we did receive instruction from the FBI and also a little talk from a shrink. And we went through loads of ammo. Fortunatly we were never called out for a riot in NYC and I am thankful I did not have to use my M1 in anger. We did however become activated for the Post Office strike which was late 60s. We were activated for about a week and stationed at the main PO in NY. I was a guard who accompained another guardsman who carried a mail bag delivering to some of the offices in the city.