I have been wanting a garand for a long time but have been putting it off. After reading an article in american rifleman about the winchester garands I couldnt help but want one made by winchester. The name winchester in those strange letters looks so natural on the receiver of an m1. So far my only real source has been the cmp but they are all out. I was wondering if anyone in the know could tell me if they are really rare and not easily available or if they will be resupplied soon.


Or perhaps I should just email the cmp instead?

If complete rifles show up at CMP they will likely be auctioned off their website.  Here is one they auctioned off a couple months agao for $2000.  auction.odcmp.com/auctions/detail.asp?id=46
They have some stripped receivers available though through their regular channels.  

"R006WRA Grade A Receiver, Winchester, Original finish (some wear). No rust. May be light pitting. $275
R006WRA13 Grade A Receiver, Winchester. WIN-13 Model, Original finish (some wear). No rust. May be light pitting. $475 "


My understanding is that they are one of the more collectible of the Garands, but may not be the best made.  

They were known to for rougher machine work, But hey, there was a war on..Winchester M1's are rare birds. Total production from Winchester during WWII is 513,880 according to Duff's book. Compared to a little over 3.5 million that Springfield Armory made, As you can guess, parts are getting hard to find and when found usually pricy. One could build one, buying a Winchester receiver,  keeping an eye out for needed parts, this could take years and quite a bit of cash. The CMP will probably never have Winchester M1's in sufficent stock as to make them a regular order item again. And when they DID have them in stock, they were usually rebuilds with few Winchester parts other than the receiver. If you have the cash, the auction the CMP has maybe an option, other than that possible private sale, If you have to have a Winchester, good luck, If you can cope with something else, maybe a S.A. service grade from the CMP. Usually these are decent rifles to start with, and easier to restore as parts are much easier to find.

The only ones I have ever seen were at gun shows and they were very expensive and in poor condition.

Unfortunately, that is about your best bet from what I can tell..

I love my Winchester Garand. It was born in June 1944.


No, it's not for sale.

so let me see if I can get something straight. I can build a garand on a winchester receiver but with non winchester parts, but the winchester receivers are likely to have some wear and so it would be better to go with another mfr?

They were made during WW2 so they've been around a long time. But, so have a lot of SA M1's. All parts on M1's should be interchangeable. Win. parts as well as SA parts of that era are rare and thus higher $. I am not concerned with "correctness" or collectibility. I just want shootable rifles.

Quoted: so let me see if I can get something straight. I can build a garand on a winchester receiver but with non winchester parts, but the winchester receivers are likely to have some wear and so it would be better to go with another mfr?

Sort of, you could build a total winchester but like he said, it'll probably take years and plenty of dough.  For some reason winchester stuff  has a higher value.  Even though from what I've heard, they weren't the best quality.  Springfield made nice ones, Harrington and Richardson also.  Do what the rest of us are doing.  Start out with either a service grade greek from the CMP, they have springfields and H and R's I think.  Or their Field grade Springfield.  Heck, just go to www.odcmp.com.  Look there.  You have to start somewhere and that's a good place to, if you can meet all the requirements.  Then once you get one, shoot it and learn more, then maybe think about a collector.  But here is the thing, any time you do matching manufactures, and have to have it all correct, it's not a really a good idea to shoot it because it's value is so high.  If you want one to shoot, just buy a cmp one, clean it, get her runnin good, and watch your smile increase every time you shoot it.  There's nothing like the ping.  Enjoy the journey!!

Picked up my 1942 Winchester a few months ago at an estate sale for $550.00 .There getting hard to come by and I rarely see any Garands in the used rifle racks at the local gun stores,only CMP rifles at the gunshows where people are trying to get 900 bucks for a rifle they bought for 350.

winchester M1 is going to set you back a pretty penny, and really other then the name winchester that is on it, there is nothing  spectacular about them, the machining is crude at best, compared to the other rifles made by springfield arms of the same period.......if you want a nicer example of a M1 the H&R are much better machined and fitted, and overall condition of those are much better then the wartime M1s........add to that production of those are less then winchesters, total production of H&R is only 428,600 rifles, which makes them the second least made M1s.

these H&R rifles are the "sleepers" of the garands.........I would buy one of those, while they are still priced   pretty reasonable,  before I would buy a springfield.

I bought a Winchester Garand 2 years ago. The only Winchester part on it was the receiver every thing else was SA.
Since then I have replaced almost all the parts to WRA. The hardest part was getting a barrel.
Mine is a June 44 also, so I have to find a barrel that had the drawing number readable from the clip latch side.
I was lucky, the bolt I had head spaced to the barrel.
That was my biggest worry.
The only thing I am going to do now with it is send it off to get re-parked.

a lot of great info here guys thanks. I think ill go with a service or field grade springfield or H&R cause I really wanted a shooter that I could tinker with and modify.

thanks for all the advice guys.