My buddy and I were at the range today him with his bushy M4gery all decked out with a RAS and aimpoint and me with my M4gery just stock A2 using my irons,When all of a sudden a gentleman with the MIGHTY M1 garand the rifle I first learned on looked at our proud black rifles and says"Hey boys this a realmans rifle no plastic,those things look like toys"now dont get me wrong my dad used it in korea and its a fun rifle to shoot even though its only 8 rounds
it has built a rep for good reliability,or has it?well he tapped a clip on the edge of the table
"please ,its a garand it takes clips"loads it in the rifle and BANG he takes a shot as we all watched on,to pay homage to the MIGHTY garand and low and behold the bolt locks back and 3 seconds later ejects the clip and what do we behold a stuck case in the chamber with a big gouge where the extractor bit but failed to yank it,So smart ass I am I loaded a full 30 rounder and proceede to pepper the 50 yd target a shot a second until empty and my bolt locks back and I say"if we were fighting for our lives that "real mans rifle"would have gotten you reel dead,plastic saves our asses again,After the good laugh had by all we tried to get the empty case unstuck with a rod,to no avail,then some one at the club house got it loose with the rod and banging it butt first on the ground,we thought it was a ruptured case but it was instead a dirty chamber not cleaned for the last 500 rounds over a month and not cleaning it,the chamber had a lot of build up and I kindly reminded him thats why my bushy is chrome lined and proved a few  things to me,1: chrome lining is very important,an AK or 14 wouldnt have done that,my AR has been dirtier and not done that, and 2:no matter what the rifles reputation is that you have it needs to be maintained,and 3:that even fans of the "real mans rifle"can turn completely around and love the little black rifle and marvel at its very modern design once they fire it,plenty of power no kick and most important no jams,Heres to another convert,

Im new to AR's, but have been around AK-47's for some time now.
I happen to like the chromed barrels, never had a problem with the AK or AR.

Sounds like you all had fun, Im not to much into relics, the ole' boy should buy a dependable AR  or AK. [:D]

TG

My DCM garand made my Springfield Armory way back when has a chrome bore, and I believe that all M-1's had chrome bores. What you describe is the assumption that a rifle will continue to fire even if you don't clean it because "it is chrome lined!" If you fail to clean your weapon after each firing session, you will eventually end up with gunk in the chamber and barrel. Not good for accuracy or dependability. The unburned powder and powder residue soak up water from the air and make this tar like substance.

So the lesson learned is to clean your weapon after every firing session. Chrome makes the cleanup easier but doesn't remove the requirement.

Uhhh........I would have to disagree, I don't believe any M1 garands had chromed chambers and bores.

You sir are right. You can have them chromed but M1 garands were never chromed ,they didnt start doing that to infantry small arms until the M14 came out but WW2 is where they discovered the need to do something to prevent rusty bores and chambers.Tto tac 40 Im not saying it does but ive gone 1500 rounds straight without cleaning my AR and it has continued to function and ive gone 500 rounds and let it sit 3 months and it functioned next time I shot it,I did those as a reliability test to see, other wise I clean every time I shoot no matter what I shoot,but chrome unless you have an extreme amount of build up will continue to work where other unchromed weapons will fail,not all, but today is proof that if he had a chrome chamber it probably wouldnt have happened,if he cleaned it regularly it definately wouldnt have happened,but you can go longer with chrome.And also ive shot my AR in the rain plenty and have never seen the carbon get like tar,clp is a wet lube and water does not wash it away unless you keep it under water and it still wont wash all of it away,geting fine sand and dust in the action with alot of lube can cause this but ive never seen water do it and like I said ive shot in rain,The AR is an allweather rifle if a little water bothered it our troops especially seals would be in a lot of trouble and those guys are wet alot.And water from the air?do you mean humidity,because the M16 is also a great jungle weapon,if not maintained right in the desert it will give you problems but so will every other weapon if you dont take care of it,the conditons you desribe,"wet"the M16 has been tested in those areas a long time,thats why in vietnam befor chrome chambers soldiers never chambered a round and let it sit because moisture and wet from the humidity would make the round expand jamming the chamber,but chrome cleared that up.

dude, use the spacebar..that shit's hard to read.

i like both rifles even though i've never shot a garand.  i'm not going to talk down someone else's rifle to them (unless it's a hesse) cause sure enough mine would probably jam.

No kidding?  He didn't mantain his weapon and it failed?  Eventually all rifles will fail if not maintained.  The difference is that his rifle is a hell of a lot older than what you are shooting, and has probably been neglected a lot longer.  

I like both.  Although the M1 that I have is a 5.3Million SN# (which makes it built around 1954) it has not seen much if any use and has the original barrel on it.  It's shoots great and is very reliable.  It's really hard to compare the two rifles, they both are great.  I usually drag both out to the range.  I don't even see the need to make a fuss about either as they both fulfilled the need for which they where designed and built for.  The big plus I see with the AR-15/M-16 is the lighter weight ammo allows you to carry a lot more.  The same holds true for us shooters, except the lighter stuff costs less.  Go price 30-06 and you'll see what I mean.  I say buy and enjoy them all, the CMP (todays DCM) allows you to buy a real USGI M1 Garand at a great price from the government, to bad we can't buy m-16's this way[:(].  

[URL]www.odcmp.com[/URL]

Echap

I would wager that given an equal number of rounds fired with no cleaning, over time one would run into chamber/extraction problems first with the non-chromed M-1 before the chromed AR. I own both, and they both get cleaned well after each range session. I do believe, however, that the M-1 has an inherently more reliable action in general than the AR (that dirty gas is a long way from the action in the Garand).

I wonder the M1 problem was caused by corrosive ammo. My friend has an M1 that he shot a few times with surplus corrosive ammo and then put up for a month or so uncleaned. The next time he tried to fire it the case of the first round stuck in the chamber and the extractor tore tore out a big hunk of brass off of the case rim. The corrosive material had severely pitted the chamber and the brass from the case flowed into these pits, effectively locking the case in place. He polished the chamber to get the rifle back in service. I'm sure that this abuse did wonders for the barrel and gas mechanism.
Abuse anything enough and it will quit working.

To INFERNO 715,I am not talking down anyones rifle,read my first post again and you will see the gentle man who made the "real mans"comment to me is some one that I know considering we all had a good laugh about it.To STICK MAN,its a cmp rifle built with new unissued parts,its a harrington and richardson rifle.To MAGNETO the case head was stamped ASA and had a purple sealant around the primer.To ECHAP whos making a fuss?,asfar as comparing the two its apples and oranges,ones a full size battle rifle ones a compact battle rifle,to those who got their feathers a little ruffled taking my post as a comparrison of the two,chill out it was a fun range day for me and all my friends there including my pal with the garand,read the post again you will see we were both cracking on eachother,but thats what friends doby the way I beleive I said it was the first rifle I learned on,and yes I still own it.To those who didnt understand the post read it again,it seems people read a thread and see only what they want to see,read it again and you will see we are all friends.

No worries, I agree, I just was afraid that this would boil down to another .30 vs .223 thread.  I lik'em both and am glad you had a great day at the range. I say shootem and enjoyem.

Echap

Yes I meant humidity. Water in the air came from late nights with little sleep. My point was that any weapon that is not routinely cared for is prone to malfunctions. Yes, there are some weapons out there that are like the eveready bunny, they just keep going and going and going.... When I had my Chinese AK-47, it was like that. I treated it like crap and it ran fine.

Now, I am not going to argue the point about M-1's and chrome bores. The only things that I am sure of is that chrome bores WERE recommended by the Marines in the Pacific Theater during WWII to prevent corrosion and malfunctions caused by the weather, humidity, and corrosive ammo use. I assumed this request was acted on because the Marines eventually got almost everything they asked for and the appearance of what appears to be a chrome bore on my Garand..

My M-1 is a Springfield Armory Garand with a 5 million serial number. The paperwork that came with it indicated that it was depot refurbished  back in the 60's before I got it through DCM (only had to pay $165)back in the 70's. It has a similar bore finish as my chrome lined AR, with the same type of transition between the phosphate finish and the bore finish. Is this chrome? I think it is but I am not able to swear that it is. In deference to those that say the Garand was not chromed one possibility is that the bore was chromed in preparation to being sent to ARVN troops for arms supply, but was never sent to NAM. It also came to me with a grenade sight attached to the left side of the stock.

I have a M1 Garand too, and it shoots like a champ, but I clean my guns after each shoot. I love it for shooting my 30.06 AP M2 rounds. [:D]

US military M-1's came with unlined barrels. No chrome in the barrel or chamber. The US used corrosive primers and if the chamber wasn't cleaned regulary, you would get a FTE. Ask ANY combat vet from WWII or Korea, if your chamber brush wasn't well worn, you were in for an ass kicking from your platoon leader.

To the best of my knowledge, no one ever made a chrome barrel for the M-1. Too many good GI, Danish, and Italian barrels out there.

To TAC40,thats possible when it was refurbished,I know the navy was still using them at that time because they were experimenting with chamber inserts to allow the use of .308 but they kept ejecting the insert with the empties. so maybe they started using chromed bores if thats so you have a peach,it would definately cost a few bucks to have that done as an option,mine is a springfield armory rifle and there is a museum I beleive in massachusetts or washington but with the serial# they will tell you when it was made.Mine was made between jan and feb of 44 and shipped to the pacific theatre of operations"they wont say the name of the soldier who carried it"
the barrel was marked 1954 and wood was new I got this one 14 years ago through the DCM assembled from never issued parts.

If I remember my history right the M1 Garands did fine in the desert and on the beaches not to mention the southeast asia area too. [;)]

BTW, my Garand has not jammed on me yet (knock on wood) My AR has but seems to be over that now.
I shoot the M1 in Garand matches but will be shooting the AR in a highpower match next month.
Different guns for different jobs.

I think some of you guys are missing the point here.  I don't think the thread auther wanted to say that ARs are more reliable then Garands, but rather he wants to illustrate a funny piece of range irony.  

I was at the range a while ago and there was an older guy with an absoutly pristine M-1. The shooter had rebuilt an original Springfield by locating all original parts in their all original condition. This guy spent alot of time finding parts that had the same shade and percentage of park. What was he shooting through this beauty, Wolf 30.06. He had a round jam in the acton and couldn't get it open no matter what he did. Luckey for him it was a spent cartridge so he could safely remove the rifle from the line and work on it later.

Moral of the story, clean and feed you weapon like your life depends on it.

i meant HIM talking down YOUR rifle.  anyway..

To ADJER_BULLETS you are absolutely right I just didnt have the words at the time but that was my point,To INFERNO 715 sorry man, I thought you meant I was talking his rifle down.but thats what I was trying to say my buddy was bustin on me with the rifle I was shooting and then the first shot he took with his garand he got a bad jam,and I made the comment to him if he were using that to defend himself that would be a potential life ending jam,makes you feel good the targets cant shoot back when at the range.

Back in its day, the Garand was the Cock of the Walk. My father could not say enough good things about his he used in WW II. I bought a Korea era MI from a friend of mine who was an Importer. I paid $150 for it. The used it to test for corrosive ammo. The barrel was very rusty. I scrubbed it out, and the rifle has not missed a beat since. It is an International Harvester. I hope fifty years from now our ARs can demand the same respect that the Garand has.