My Soon to be New Rifle

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Me and one of my friends on the Navy Rifle Team have struck a deal! He has nine Garands and I am getting one of them from him.

Springfield Garand, Cal. .308 with a brand new 1966 SA bbl made by Springfield for the Navy. There has not been one shot down the tube of this bbl. It does not have NM sights on it.. but it will in time.. I will prob have Ronnie Morris whom lives near Nashville tune the rifle up for me. The action will need to be bedded, and the ferruels will need to be glued and will have to make sure that the op-rod is not touching anything. Not sure yet if the trigger will have to be cleaned up and tuned to 3.5 lbs or not. Normally a service rifle must have a 4.5 lb trigger for Service Rifle matches.. but since I will be shooting this one in NRA long range.. I can have it at 3.5 lbs. I will pull this new bbl off and save it.. after all.. how often does one come accross a SA bbl made in 1966 for the Navy that has not been shot???? I will prob replace with a Krieger 12 twist stainless bbl. My plan is to shoot Berger 185BT's with either IMR 4064 or H-4895 powder, Lapua .308 brass (to which I have plenty of).

[Desert Rat]

That is a pretty rifle!

[Mike]

Nice rifle.

Just a quick question concerning your load. Do the .308s not have a problem with bending the op rod with too heavy a bullet? I know the .30-06s have had issues when you try to shoot anything over a 150gr.

Mike

[Guest FroggyOne2]

The Navy Team uses 190gr Sierras.

[Desert Rat]

I guess the Navy is just not aware of that well known problem!

Maybe it is due to lack of experience by the Navy rifle team!

You asked for that one!

[Sandman]

That's a nice rifle!

[MikeW]

Very nice Congrats!

I had a .308 garand years ago and traded it off like a dummy....

I thought that the bent op rod issues were becuase of "hotter" higher pressure loads... not so much the heaiver bullet but the combo of bullet, type/amount of powder, and case length. Get an adjustable gas plug and the issue goes away. Mr. Morris will know for sure.

I will look in my parts bin and see if I have a rest set of NM sights. I know that I have a "real" set on a garand and an extra NM apature or two.

[Mike]

I thought that the bent op rod issues were becuase of "hotter" higher pressure loads... not so much the heaiver bullet but the combo of bullet, type/amount of powder, and case length. Get an adjustable gas plug and the issue goes away. Mr. Morris will know for sure.

That makes sense. I was just curios as to the scope of the loads and the ramifications to the rifle.

I guess the Navy is just not aware of that well known problem!

Maybe it is due to lack of experience by the Navy rifle team!

You asked for that one!

Yeah, you sure got me there. Burn.

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Very nice Congrats!

I had a .308 garand years ago and traded it off like a dummy....

I thought that the bent op rod issues were becuase of "hotter" higher pressure loads... not so much the heaiver bullet but the combo of bullet, type/amount of powder, and case length. Get an adjustable gas plug and the issue goes away. Mr. Morris will know for sure.

I will look in my parts bin and see if I have a rest set of NM sights. I know that I have a "real" set on a garand and an extra NM apature or two.

Awesome.!

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Nice rifle.

Just a quick question concerning your load. Do the .308s not have a problem with bending the op rod with too heavy a bullet? I know the .30-06s have had issues when you try to shoot anything over a 150gr.

Mike

It is not the weight of the bullet that causes the problems.. It is the burn rate of the powder being used.. You do not want to use powder that has a burn rate slower than IMR 4064.