I traded off my old "blue sky" import M-1 for one from a local widow. Her late husband used to shoot this m-1 in some matches but I am not sure exactly where or what matches he was in.  Anyway, I bought it sight unseen and when I took it to the range it shot about a foot to the left (or was it right?) also the front sight is adjusted wayyyy to the right, hanging about halfway off the perch on the barrel.

My question is what can I do about this thing shooting so far off? Also, it was apparently rebarreled a while back. Very nice rifling and crown, it looks like a mil spec barrel, parkerized , etc.  the action has been glass beded as well.  Could the barrel be bent? Rear sights messed up?

Thanks guys

If the front sight is not centered... center the front sight and see if that centers your shot grouping.

If that does not fix it... then start looking at other things that could contribute to the problem.

Yep, center the front sight and the rear sight and try again. If it is still way off then the barrel is either under or over timed and would need to be adjusted. It is not that hard with the right tools. I put together a Winchester Garand from a stripped receiver and using a small bubble level got it timed within two clicks, first try. Any competent Garand smith should be able to adjust it quickly without charging you much, if needed.

It may have been re-barreled then put away without zeroing.

Set the rear sight to mechanical zero.  Drift the front sight left and right (unlock the allen nut) to mechanical zero.

Thanks for the input guys. I haven't taken it out yet but I should be able to soon.

Anyway, can someone recommend me a Garand smith in the northern Kentucky or Cincinnati, Ohio areas?  If I need one I figure I might as well have a name and number in hand.

Thanks guys,

Indy

I had to adjust the front sight on my service grade from the CMP.

Remember FORS, (front opposite rear same) when making sight adjustments.

Good luck!

pics are helpful....



 

Another way is: the good child and the bad child.
The rear sight is the good child. It is close to home (under your nose). Move it right and the bullet strike goes right. Move it up and the bullet strike goes up. Same with opposite directions.
The bad child is the front sight. Far from home. Move it right and the bullet strike goes left. Move it up and the strike goes down.

Saw this here on AR15.Com some years ago.

OP stated that the rifle appeared to have been re-barreled..........raises the question of if or not the bbl was properly drawn up to center..........if not that condition would most certainly affect the centering of the sights.    Any deviation right or left will affect sighting.   You might be able to make a determination of just how square the bbl to receiver relationship is by leveling that receiver as best you can.   I'd suggest a solid rest and a level on  the flat behind the rear sight.........then see if you can gauge if the bbl aligns by the use of a level across the front sight ears.....probably tho, it'd be best to remove that front sight entirely and use the flat top of the gas tube itself.

If that rifle is GI I believe it'd be possible to have the CMP do some work on it, at least at one point recently they were offering such services.    Likely the best place for you to check would be the CMP website itself.


Good luck with it.   I've both a SA Garand and a James River 14.   On neither do both the rear and front agree as to center.....and I believe the problem is more ME than either rifle...just the way I look at the sights....still, nearly off the sight base is clearly a problem......again do check the CMP site!

Most likely the front sight got knocked over or came loose which does happen. Center the front sight and center the rear and than sight it in for windage.

A quick way to check index is to take action out of stock take front sight off set on flat surface and check with a small bubble level using the front sight pad and recvr flat above chamber.

God bless the CMP ..........but their eyeball indexing method is lacking, of the four CMP rebarreled SG's I have got,  three were so far out I had to re index them. You would think they of all people would have a GI surplus Garand barreling machine.

I ran out of clicks on my service grade from cmp. Like I said I had to move the front sight to get the windage centered. Is this an issue? I'm not real smooth on these yet.

I personally think you are better moving the front (so no, it is not an issue)

Center the rear, and then drift the front to get it sighted in.  That way if you ever have to make windage adjustments it is easy to go back to zero.

I think all will be fine.  If your font sight was way over to the right, it would be expected to shoot left.  

The military way (some good videos online, don't have links handy) said to adjust rear and then remember what "your" rifles windage was.  So if you had to make adjustments you could go back to zero (but your zero would be "x" clicks right/left).  If you zero using the front, you will be able to keep your rear centered.

Thanks, makes perfect sense, and I like having the rear centered any how.

Move the front sight all the way to the left so it's flush with the left side of the front sight base when you are sighting down the barrel.

This will give you built in windage and move your impact more to the right. Finish zeroing using the adjustable rear sight.

You should move the front sight to zero windage. not a issue as this is why they went with the wide front sight base gas cylinder.

Personally as long as I can zero with front sight even if all the way to one side ( rear centered )  I will leave as is.

If like in the case of the last few CMP SG where the front sight was all the way to one side + 6-8 clicks of rear windage..... Re index needed.

I have to disagree with you on this.
It is front same, rear opposite. If the gun is shooting left you want to move the front site to the left or the rear to the right.

You are both saying the same thing but in different ways.

I always look at it as move the rear sight the direction you want the impact to move.

Move the front sight toward the bullet hole.

Center your rear windage. Drift the front sight left until you are zeroed. Ideally, you want to do this when there is no wind.

Front Opposite, Rear Same is correct.  

If you are shooting to the left, you want to move the impact to the right, so you adjust the sight to the left (right and left are opposite).  If you are shooting to the left and want to move the impact to the right, you would adjust the rear to the right (right and right are the same).

If you have a rifle with dual elevation capable sights.  If you are shooting high, you want to lower the impact so you raise the front sight tip (lower and raise are opposite).  If you are shooting high and want to lower the impact, you would adjust the rear down (lower and down are the same).

OK, you guys are looking at it from the target/ impact point of view. I look at it from where the barrel is pointed point of view, meaning the barrel is pointed left so move the sights to align the barrel with the sights.
Sorry about the confusion.

Thanks for all of the sighting advice guys.  I finally got to take the garand to the range last weekend after centering and basically resetting front and rear sights to factory zero.  After firing my first group it dawned on me that the sights must have been set the way they were because of some weird position or shooting style the former owner had.  Both front and rear sights were way to the right, so after resetting both to zero i was pretty much dead on at 100.  Simple as that apparently.

Thanks again for all of the help guys, you all never disappoint.

Indy

yep.   good deal as long as you don't have to twist the barrel on the rifle.  That's a bit more difficult.  

The way you first described it sounded like your fix was easy.   For any of you guys that run into this need to move the front sight you can use the tick marks on the receiver for the rear sight as a guide.  Ea ch tick mark is four clicks of windage which totals to 4 moa per tick mark.   If you need to move your impact a foot at 100 yards then and you want to move your sight the distance of 12 clicks or 3 of those tick marks.  Eyeball or measure that on the rear sight and move your front sight that amount.  You should be within a click or two of center.  If your rear is centered and your a click or two of being zero'd then don't bother moving the front sight unless you just like to be persnickety.  I am satisfied when my sights are within a click or two of centered.

Most folks are on the bullet impact convention as that's how the military sights have been marked and soldiers trained for years.   It gets complicated and confusing to many  in conversation and thought.  I explain it to new shooters telling them to visualize two sticks, one representing the bore line and the other the sight line.  Gives a better understanding of what's going on for the bullet lob and gravity effect as well as sight adjustment.  My father was a high school rifle team shooter and Marine and he had no idea why the bullet went above the sightline,  it just did according to him.   I was reading one of his Jack O'Connor books before I found a clear illustration of the dumbed down physics and showed it to him while a teenager.  A picture is worth a thousand words my dad said to that.

Even knowing this sometimes we make a dope change and end up dialing it back the other direction double the number of clicks when we went the wrong way.