M1 Garand 30-06 reloading results

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71vette

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This was my first attempt at 30-06 Garand reloading and I'm very happy with the results so far. My intent was an easy shooting M2 ball-esc load. Due to a medical issue I'm sensitive to recoil, so I wanted this to be relatively tame. I loaded up 10 test rounds earlier in the week and was able to sneak out to the range this morning.

My test batch:

r0HNlJR.jpeg


Used all Remington commercial brass. Oddly enough, most of my brass is commercial. I also have a significant amount of nickel. The bullets are M80 pulls from CDVS. They look perfect. I've gotten quite a lot of primed brass from them along with several batches of bullets. I've been very happy with all of it so far.

The range was being used for Sheriff's department firearms training this morning, but I was able to squeeze in between shifts to chrono the new 30-06 loads.

147gr FMJBT M80 ball
47gr IMR-4895, 3.25" COAL, Remington LRM

24" M1: 2560fps

Cycling was perfect. No issues whatsoever and the bolt locked back/clip ejected like it should. Recoil was more than acceptable. I was standing, wearing a T-shirt and it didn't beat me up. After getting the velocity, I had five rounds left. There was a bunch of cones and barrels on the range for the department training so I didn't want to go back to 100 and shoot past them. I was able to find an angle at 50 yards for a clean shot. I fired five kneeling offhand into about 5 inches. Not my best work by far, but it grouped well and I'm assuming it's capable of much better with me not sucking…..

Here she is with my '43 Remington Rand that I also shot today:

ztSTauL.jpeg


This is the '43 Winchester with the VAR barrel.

I was able to recover all my -06 and 45 brass along with a LOT of 9mm, not that I really need more of that….. Wish I would have had more time, but it's a super nice day and I really can't complain. Got to chat with the Sheriff a bit too. He's an old family friend.

These were loaded on a Dillon 550 with RCBS dies. FL sizing and a seating die. No crimp. I used a Frankfort auto trickler so the charge weights should be pretty consistent. I'm debating getting a Redding taper crimp die as some web results show significant accuracy improvements with Garands. I am happy with the limited testing so far with the M80 bullets. Plus, can't beat the price!

ETA - Finished up a small batch today. I think the nickel looks nice!

vCw2NGp.jpeg
 
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That VAR barrel is Danish if you weren't aware. I remember buying "Danish Returns" from the CMP North Store back in the early 2000's. If you can find any Danish made 30-06, buy it. Very accurate! I have a case or two that I am hoarding.
 
Yep, the Winchester is a Danish return. The VSR barrel is a '57. The only part that's Winchester on the rifle is the receiver. Everything (other than the barrel) is Springfield. I also have a '43 Springfield with a '53 Springfield barrel. Everything is Springfield except the trigger guard, that's Winchester. Go figure.

The Springer:
 
Yep, the Winchester is a Danish return. The VSR barrel is a '57. The only part that's Winchester on the rifle is the receiver. Everything (other than the barrel) is Springfield. I also have a '43 Springfield with a '53 Springfield barrel. Everything is Springfield except the trigger guard, that's Winchester. Go figure.

The Springer:
 

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Nevada Ed said:
I get accuracy out of my 30-06 with that weight bullet to 150 gr with
47 grs of 4895 & 4064 IMR powders, for light target loads, for killing paper at my range.
My 03 bolt likes IMR4350 better than the faster powders, for some odd reason.
Click to expand...
I loaded the same... 47gr 4895 with 150gr. Hornady FMJ BT in my M1 Garand last year. I agree. Worked xlnt. Amazing weapon
 
In the 1980s I received a DCM rifle that was very special. The info I got was that this was a batch of M1s that were put together for some special purpose which was never completed and these went into Rock Island storage. A "Silver Sack" rifle. It was a 3.3 SA receiver with every other part new. The stock was new and bedded on the trigger side and weighed at least a pound more than any other Garand stock I've seen. The gas cylinder had to be tapped off with a block of wood. The barrel was a new SA 11/65 and the receiver was scratch marked SA 12/65. I did a lot of experimenting with loads and powder for bench rest shooting. In those days the hot bullet was the 168gr International Sierra. Hornady wasn't even on the same page. Powder was narrowed down to IMR 4064. Our range was only 100 yards. Narrowed down to that bullet and powder, I found that 46gr equaled teacup sized groups. Raising it to 48 hit the sweet spot..5 shot groups dead center that you could cover with a US quarter. Over and over, using that same load in my near new 03A3 with a 2 groove barrel, the same results, 5 shots covered with a quarter. I wouldn't have believed it if you told me, a couple grains isn't supposed to work that well, the two grove isn't supposed to shoot that well. I went on to win 5 bench rest matches with that load,
 
A winning combination. That's a 'pass on to younger generation' rifle. Got mine through Govt. Marksman program in 80's as well. Too bad they don't still do that.
 
Got a big batch of Greek FMJ with clips made on WW loading equipment many years ago.
I reloaded hunting rounds with SP WC bullets for hunting deer. Never got a shot at a deer with it.
Just like to know that the FMJ rounds will go through any car or truck made today just they did in the 1940's!
 
Very interested to read the OP.

I was curious about CDVS, so I looked them up.
They sell bullets and powder salvaged from broken down ammo, often of mixed manufacture.
Saw this:
"Bullets are from several different manufacturers and will have a slight height variance between manufacturer." That means variations in resulting case capacity, and thus chamber pressure!
I don't like that!

Powders are only vaguely described, for example:
"14.6 GRAINS WITH 147 GRAIN AND 9 GRAINS WITH 220 GRAIN BULLET"
This was for an unidentified powder from unidentified manufacturer(s?) of 300 BLK ammo.
Other powder has "data" supplied by customers.
Of course, no pressure data.
No country of origin information.
Combined with the usual "customer assumes all responsibility" jargon, it makes me uncomfortable.
 
While buying some extra clips (that I didn't need), I got some bandoliers and cardboard covers. I also stumbled across an old 30 cal can marked for clips in bandoliers.

You can see where this is going……. 192 rounds, 24 clips, and four bandoliers later…..

rbktIEf.jpeg

7J6RbIW.jpeg

Ujh5ASQ.jpeg


Two bandoliers are brass, two nickel. All commercial brass as that's what I have most of.

I enjoyed "making" this more than I wanted to admit.

I've got two unopened spam cans of HXP I believe in clips, plus another couple of unopened 30 cal cans so it's not like I don't have some factory setups like this. I'll probably "make" more though as it strangely makes me happy.
 
That slightly reduced load is just fine. I do the same in HXP or LC military cases. My most accurate loads are with the full load of 4064 and a 168 match. The same bullet with 4895 is real close in accuracy and the recoil impulse seems just a touch mellower.

Anyways the majority of my milsurp shooting was in local walk and paste matches at 100 and 200 yards and I eventually used those downloaded loads. Dropping 100-200 fps was inconsequential at that distance. Those rounds made it all the way through the target paper!

These days I tend just shoot virgin HXP ammo. It was better than the USGI delinked machine gun ammo that CMP sold when I first got in to it.

Speaking of HXP, the Greek Ammo maker, they also made .303 British ammo. I just got some dusty tarnished stuff from a fellow. My Long Branch likes it a lot. It is as accurate as they say. The cases are supposed to be as good as you'll find for the .303 too. Getting the cases is the biggest reason I bought the stuff,
 
Lance Boyle said:
That slightly reduced load is just fine. I do the same in HXP or LC military cases. My most accurate loads are with the full load of 4064 and a 168 match. The same bullet with 4895 is real close in accuracy and the recoil impulse seems just a touch mellower.

Anyways the majority of my milsurp shooting was in local walk and paste matches at 100 and 200 yards and I eventually used those downloaded loads. Dropping 100-200 fps was inconsequential at that distance. Those rounds made it all the way through the target paper!

These days I tend just shoot virgin HXP ammo. It was better than the USGI delinked machine gun ammo that CMP sold when I first got in to it.

Speaking of HXP, the Greek Ammo maker, they also made .303 British ammo. I just got some dusty tarnished stuff from a fellow. My Long Branch likes it a lot. It is as accurate as they say. The cases are supposed to be as good as you'll find for the .303 too. Getting the cases is the biggest reason I bought the stuff,
Click to expand...

I LOVE Greek HXP ammo in my Garands.......I have a stash.
 
I took the CMP Advanced Armorers Class at Aniston. They had a Garand on display with the receiver heel blown out they said from over pressure reloads. Bolt thrown rearward with too much pressure. They cautioned against using reloads or any commercial .30-06 unless it was loaded for M1Garand like the American Eagle loads.
As a precaution I obtained the Garand Gear ported gas plugs for my rifles and their website has a full explanation of this. I don't reload or use commercial hunting loads but thought it cheap insurance.

www.garandgear.com

Ported Gas Plug (TM) - M1 Garand- GarandGear

The Ported Gas Plug™ has an open area in the base of the screw that increases the starting volume of the gas cylinder. This causes the peak gas pressures in the gas cylinder to drop by over 30%.
www.garandgear.com www.garandgear.com
 

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The M1 is a pretty stout rifle.

I don't advocate shooting anything that generates higher, above the amount the military surplus ammo may generate, in chamber pressures. But staying within the limits of that you're not going to hurt an M1 as long as you also replace the operating rod/recoil spring when needed.

The issue with the M1 has always been the gas port pressures. That's what damages the operating rod or other gas system components or even the receiver. Especially if you're not replacing that operating rod spring as/when you should.

If you get a chance to read Hatcher's Book of the Garand it's a really great book about the development, testing, problems, and fixes they went through bringing the M1 from the drawing board to the arms rooms in the US Military.

After WW2, realizing that there were no reports of M1 rifles blowing up during all the combat it went through in so many varied climates they did a test to see just what it took to blow up an M1 Garand. Not going to try to go into all the details of the pressure test guns, the similar caliber guns and the loads they used. Just want to say that by the time they stopped the test they'd gotten to a calculated chamber pressure of 180,000 psi or greater (calculated because they'd stopped using the pressure test guns at some point for fear of damaging those and the similar caliber bolt action rifle had blown up) the M1 was still running till it finally had a case failure which resulted in the loading parts, stock, etc. being damaged beyond use. They put the receiver/barrel in a new stock, added a new trigger guard/loading parts assembly and continued to fire regular/normal GI issue ammo till they got tired of firing it with no more issues. The receivers and barrels are unbelievably tough. They weren't measuring gas port pressure in this test, just chamber pressure.

I have zero worries using my reloads in my M1 rifles because I never load maximum loads (best groups are usually 100 to 150 fps below maximum in my experience) and I check each case for powder level prior to seating a bullet (do that for pistol ammo, too.) Almost 50 years of reloading and never a single squib load.

You can, in any cartridge, have a case failure with a normally safe powder level/charge. I've had one in 9MM. I've had some cases that failed during the resizing process or the bullet seating process and never made it to the firearm.

There are some people who probably shouldn't reload. Just as there are people who probably shouldn't drive a car. I can't fix that. I just look out for my own guns/ammo and that ammo sure does shoot some nice groups in the right gun.
 
With rifles I dispense every charge with a Frankfort auto trickler so every charge is weighed. I also check the loaded cases using a Wilson case gauge. This load is the starting charge for 150 grain bullets from the Hodgdon "M1 service rifle" section. These are about as tame and Garand specific as I can get.

I did just score 800 pieces of "once fired" 30-06 brass of another forum for an extremely good price. Unfortunately I'm extremely low on IMR-4895. I do have 10 lbs of H4895 on hand as well as a large amount of 175 grain FMJBT PRVI bullets. That might be the next adventure.
 
M1A4ME said:
The M1 is a pretty stout rifle.

I don't advocate shooting anything that generates higher, above the amount the military surplus ammo may generate, in chamber pressures. But staying within the limits of that you're not going to hurt an M1 as long as you also replace the operating rod/recoil spring when needed.

The issue with the M1 has always been the gas port pressures. That's what damages the operating rod or other gas system components or even the receiver. Especially if you're not replacing that operating rod spring as/when you should.

If you get a chance to read Hatcher's Book of the Garand it's a really great book about the development, testing, problems, and fixes they went through bringing the M1 from the drawing board to the arms rooms in the US Military.

After WW2, realizing that there were no reports of M1 rifles blowing up during all the combat it went through in so many varied climates they did a test to see just what it took to blow up an M1 Garand. Not going to try to go into all the details of the pressure test guns, the similar caliber guns and the loads they used. Just want to say that by the time they stopped the test they'd gotten to a calculated chamber pressure of 180,000 psi or greater (calculated because they'd stopped using the pressure test guns at some point for fear of damaging those and the similar caliber bolt action rifle had blown up) the M1 was still running till it finally had a case failure which resulted in the loading parts, stock, etc. being damaged beyond use. They put the receiver/barrel in a new stock, added a new trigger guard/loading parts assembly and continued to fire regular/normal GI issue ammo till they got tired of firing it with no more issues. The receivers and barrels are unbelievably tough. They weren't measuring gas port pressure in this test, just chamber pressure.

I have zero worries using my reloads in my M1 rifles because I never load maximum loads (best groups are usually 100 to 150 fps below maximum in my experience) and I check each case for powder level prior to seating a bullet (do that for pistol ammo, too.) Almost 50 years of reloading and never a single squib load.

You can, in any cartridge, have a case failure with a normally safe powder level/charge. I've had one in 9MM. I've had some cases that failed during the resizing process or the bullet seating process and never made it to the firearm.

There are some people who probably shouldn't reload. Just as there are people who probably shouldn't drive a car. I can't fix that. I just look out for my own guns/ammo and that ammo sure does shoot some nice groups in the right gun.
Click to expand...
Was this the testing of receiver strengths that Phillip Sharpe was involved in also?
 
M1A4ME said:
Sorry, I don't know about that. It's just a section in the book Gen. Hatcher wrote.
Click to expand...
Sharpe was involved in checking military receiver for their strength. All military receivers, not just U.S. He does not mention anything except the strongest. It was not the Garand.
 
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