what is meant when a seller says an M1 is Blue Sky marked and is in original Blue Sky box?

Blue Sky was an importer that imported a bunch of Garands in the late 80s (early 90s?) from Korea IIRC, many were beyond being worn out.

I used to have a Blue Sky Garand.  The previous owner had rebarreled it, but the Blue Sky barrel was included when I bought the rifle.  Beyond worn out is right.  You can take a 7.62 148g FMJBT and it will disappear down the muzzle (and it is a '67 dated SA barrel.)  The barrel is now being put to good use as a pry bar to aid in putting up my GI nylon cot on camping trips.  It occasionally does double duty as a ground rod for the portable electric fence when horse camping.

I have m1 30 carbine that is marked inland on the reciever  and bluesky/alexandria virginia on the barrel. it looks like brand new parkerizing. was this done by the importer? THANKS!

I also have a Blue Sky M1 Carbine. The importer parkerized quite a few of these guns. Mine has a clean bore and shoots with no problem. The value of the gun is less than one without the import stamp. The nice thing is that with the carbines, many were rebuilt and pieced together. So, you could replace the barrel with a non-stamped one and probably increase the value some.

I got a cheap blue sky with a 1942 SA reciever.

I had it re-barreled, new op-rod, and new stock.

A Blue Sky Garand is usually asking for trouble.

Hello All,

This looked like a good place for me to chime in for my first post.

I was in the business for 11 years in the 80's and 90's, and sold a lot of guns and still remember a bit.

Blue Sky was an importer who imported M1 Carbines and Garands from Korea, as stated by others. And yes many of them were trash, but there were several nice ones that came in. Many of the early Blue Sky's were so poor that the insides of the barrels were parkerized during the refinishing process. After numerous complaints to the importer, this problem was fixed. Towards the end you could tell the importer was at the "bottom of the barrel" as the overall condition of the Carbines and Garands was poor at best.

But, as I stated there were some nice ones that made it through, albeit they were refinished guns. I had the liberty of ordering on a average of 20-30 of each most weeks during the Blue Sky haydays, and would send an employee out to the range behind the shop to print each weapon on a target and test for functionality. If we found an exceptional weapon it went into rotation to replace my current import, and/or save for steady A+ customer. As best I can recall, we'd get an exceptional weapon for 1 in every 50, excluding the early runs of parkerizing of inside the bores and the last days of the real beaters.

No matter how well the weapon functioned, the stocks were always beat up and original, and I used the Easy-Off Oven cleaning method to strip them and refinished them with linseed oil, which made a 100% difference.

I bought 2 Blue Sky Garands years ago.   I think they were around $225.00 each.   Both are SA Recievers, one has a 6 didgit ser.# and a perfect  BBL W/ no signs of wear on the metal parts.   The other is 7 didgits W/a shot out BBL which I had rebarreled in .308.  Like TULCAT said, the wood was very rough & was replaced w/new.  The thing I remember MOST about Blue Sky is that all the springs were VERY brittle and would shatter into many pcs when compressed or bent.  I think it must have been the result of the prep used for re-parking the rifle because I have never seen this before or since on any mil-surp firearm.  After replacing all the springs & wood, both  have been fine rifles with 0 problems.  Good Luck, ALLONS11

I too can chime in on Blue Sky's - I worked for a huge firearms wholesaler in the late 80's - early 90's and had the opportunity to go out in the warehouse and pick through the boxes - I found one that truly startled me - wood was beat, shot out bbl w/ roll mark from Blue Sky that was done with such force that it distorted the bore, good op rod (NM) - BUT !! the prize was however the receiver - Jan 1937 mfr'd 4 digit (69XX) - it was an original gas trap recvr, with the 7th round mod and reparked at SA - finish was original grey/green park.  A true prize / needle in a haystack find for $169.
Still have it completely rebuilt w/ LMR bbl, and early NM config.  Shoots great!!

1SGA