I got my first M1 Garand a few weeks ago. The receiver has a “groove” on the top rear straight down the middle as shown on the pic below. It appears to me that this abnormality was created at the factory as all the stampings are intact and overwrite this marking.

I’ve never seen this on pictures of any other Garand and am just wondering if there’s any significance to it; other than maybe this was just during a very busy production period during Jan 1944 and the QA process just passed it through.

Attached File


Any feedback from you seasoned Garand experts would be appreciated.

ETA:  I do know this receiver is special in one way; it has a duplicate SA overrun serial number that matches a Winchester receiver which may or may not still exist.

Common in the late 1.9 into the 2 mill range. just a milling mark from shaping top of heel. It was war so they let non critical stuff like that slide.

Thanks. Made my heart skip a beat when I first opened the case as it looked like a crack, but then quickly realized it wasn’t. Ive seen pics of other imperfections before, but never one like this.