remington brass in M1

[barnabus]

thinking of ordering a M1 from CMP. I was hoping to use remington brass but is it true they no longer make brass for reloaders?

[Winger Ed.]

Unless you can find a super, cut throat deal, and use the brother in law discount--
New brass has always been right at being the same cost as just buying loaded ammunition at Walmart.
If you really, really wanted new brass, you might consider buying loaded Remington ammo, and a bullet puller.

If you can't find it, it'll probably come back when they get caught up on making loaded ammo.
If ya do go that route- at least you'd have primed cases and maybe a good powder to work with.

I've heard sad tales of woe from using very much modern factory production civilian ammo in a M1,
but it was never an issue for me back when I had a Garand.
I always used once fired, or GI Match pull down cases from Mr. Bartlett back when he had a bunch of them.

[barnabus]

Unless you can find a super, cut throat deal, and use the brother in law discount--
New brass has always been right at being the same cost as just buying loaded ammunition at Walmart.
If you really, really wanted new brass, you might consider buying loaded Remington ammo, and a bullet puller.

I've heard sad tales of woe from using very much modern factory production civilian ammo in a M1,
but it was never an issue for me back when I had a Garand.
I always used once fired, or GI Match pull down cases from Mr. Bartlett back when he had a bunch of them.

im more concerned with not being able to find once fired remington if i choose to go with RP headstamp.

[Winger Ed.]

im more concerned with not being able to find once fired remington if i choose to go with RP headstamp.

Keep an eye out. It's out there, but I've fired R-P, Winchester, Frontier, LC, and Federal in mine just fine.

If I was starting from scratch, I'd be looking for USGI (R-P made plenty of that too) just for the 'cool' factor
of it being what the Garands were originally fed with.

[barnabus]

Keep an eye out. It's out there, but I've fired R-P, Winchester, Frontier, LC, and Federal in mine just fine.

If I was starting from scratch, I'd be looking for USGI (R-P made plenty of that too) just for the 'cool' factor
of it being what the Garands were originally fed with.

where would i find that? brass is almost extent it seems.

[Kraschenbirn]

where would i find that? brass is almost extent it seems.

It's out there; I just ran a Google search for '30-06 Brass' and came up with a half-dozen sources showing 'in-stock' for quantities from 50 to 1000 pcs...mostly mixed milsurp/commercial range-pick-up that will, most likely, require a little work (full-length resize, trim to length, remove crimp from primer pockets, etc.) to prep but it's out there.

Bill

[Winger Ed.]

where would i find that? brass is almost extent it seems.

Put ".30-06 brass for sale" into a search engine.

A long list of places that have it will pop right up.

[Moleman-]

M1's are hard on brass. I mostly use once fired.

[Stewbaby]

I absolutely love surplus LC and HXP. I’m up to 6 reloads on a bunch of it. Getting harder to find of course.


Wish I still had a bunch of this stacked up.

[pacomdiver]

yeah that greek hxp brass is what i mainly use in my garands

[samari46]

I use nothing but Lake City '67 or '69 brass in my M1. The Lake City Match M72 I save for use in my bolt action rifles. Mostly a sporterized 1903A3 and sporterized Model of 1917. The latter was a complete barreled action I bought way, way long time ago. Barrel was cut and crowned to 22" when I bought it and headspace checked with a go & no go guages. Polishes all the metal then had it bead blasted, D&T for Weaver Grand Slam bases. Did some swapping for a cut down 1917 stock. Has a Leupold 3x9 on it. Will install one of the sniper style cheek pieces that will also fit on a No.4 MKII. Frank

[Walks]

I use U.S.G.I. brass only in either of mine. Same as I grew up doing in the 1950's - 60's.

Commercial ammo is loaded today using slow burning powder. The pressure "arc" is different then the medium burning rate powder the Garand gas system was designed for.

Using Hunting ammo can cause bending of the Op Rod. An expensive part to replace.
Also bullet weights are best kept in the 150gr - 172gr weights. Again the bullet weights the Garand was designed for.

And yeah, I know "Uncle Joe" shot a couple of boxes of old Winchester Silvertips every year, through his DCM Garand that he bought back in the 1960's.

[Jack Stanley]

To test the idea of a Garand being hard on brass I did a little test . First I stripped the bolt of the rifle , then I found ten fired Winchester cases that would not allow the bolt to lock up on them . Next step was to adjust my Redding 30-06 size die down just a touch at a time until the bolt locked without trouble . That step took longer than you would expect because the die was being moved down only a couple thousanths of an inch at a time . By that process the die was adjusted for that chamber and results would likely be different if I used that ammo in a different rifle .

Ammo was loaded with surplus IMR 4895 , 150 grain flat base full metal jacket bullets and a Winchester large rifle primer .

The ammo was used until the tenth firing of the batch of ten cases . At the tenth firing , one of the case necks cracked and I scrapped the batch .

Chances are good that if I had annealed the brass at the fifth loading they would have continued to soldier on .

What I learned was adjusting for the rifle is important and proper care of the brass should be considered .

Jack

[country gent]

I used LC brass in mine. The only issue I had with the garand and also the M14 M1A with commercial brass was the heads went out of square faster with commercial brass. This was the violent extraction cycle. By plenty of brass as you will lose some each trip, just the nature of brass being thrown around.
When I was competing I would buy 2000 cases ptrp and load them over the year of prcie and matches I would lose a bunch in deep grass and such. Tuning the extractor and ejector did help a lot with this.Tuning the gas system ( shuster Plug) helps tone down the extraction also

[LeonardC]

OP: the CMP only lists "Expert" grade of Garands for sale at this time. $1000 to your door. That (the items for sale) may change as they wake up from COVID shut down.

I only shoot LC USGI ammo or my handloads in LC brass. Not all brass is equal. I read an article once upon a time where they fed rifle brass into a fancy machine to see what it was made of. Lots of variation from almost pure brass to lots of other stuff to make it harder, etc. There is some variation in LC, but it usually shoots great for me. I've had some other brass in .223 fail (primer pockets) during the first reload; I don't buy that brand of brass for any of my rifles.

Get your M1, buy a bunch of clips and reloading supplies, and get to shooting and having fun!

Consider joining the Garand Collectors Association. The quarterly magazine is well worth the $25 and IF you want they will share with CMP that you are a member so you can buy that Garand.

[35 Whelen]

I think I counted nine auctions for Remington 30-06 brass on Gunbroker. I'd go there.

35W

[Eddie1971]

PPU brass is a better and less expensive option. They even make an M2 clone just for M1's.

[tejano]

Geez, I have reloaded the same brass 5-6 times in my 3 Garands with no issues. I have used Lapua, Norma, R-P, WW, Hornady, PPU. Perhaps just dumb luck, but I also keep my loads on the mild to mid range side.

[dale2242]

I load any 30-06 brass I pick up for my Garand.
I have had no problem with any of it.

[Kraschenbirn]

When I got my first Garand in the 1980s, milsurp ammo and brass were common and relatively cheap so I started off with a goodly quantity of both. Some of the LC and FA headstamps that I use for 'P & P' (Practice and Plinking) with both cast and jacketed have been reloaded, at least, a half-dozen times. Yeah, I 'lose' a few...maybe 2-3% doing full-length resize...but that's not any worse than I did reloading commercial '06 for a Remington 742.

Bill