Warning

[wch]

I received a warning from the CMP advising that shooters use 30-06 ammunition loaded to no more than 50,000 CUP and no heavier than 172 grs. in 1903, 1902A3, and M-1 rifles.
The note went on to mention that these rifles are at least 70 years old and should be coddled a bit.

[Winger Ed.]

That's a little surprising.

A bunch of surplus 03s were safely rechambered to .300Mag. and ya never heard any horror stories about that.
The receivers on them had a reputation for being tougher than Chinese Algebra, and ya needed extra hard drill bits to get into one.

There was a bunch that didn't have a good heat treat and had 'issues'.
The serial number block for them is pretty easy to find.
Maybe one of them slipped by and had a problem.

[kenblacksmith]

I believe the issue may be the Garand, 03's are solid as a Mauser.

[Mal Paso]

50,000 CUP IS the industry maximum average pressure for 30-06. That's not a reduction, it's the same pressure.

[Thumbcocker]

Mine get only boolits anyway.

[Stewbaby]

Their lawyer must have required it. As stated, 50,000 is standard. ...good luck finding anyone publishing a CUP value for their ammo though

[Land Owner]

Going "off the reservation" in reloading, meaning extrapolation beyond published recipes in reloading manuals is called WILDCATTING, which can lead to a BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.

[bakerjw]

At our range, we have a series of holes in the metal roof where someone goofed reloading 30-06 rounds. KB'ed a Garand at a CMP match one day.

[FLINTNFIRE]

If they blew up a Garand they would probably have blown up any other 06 also , this is just old lawyer nonsense , cover their rear ends .

That walmart ammo is likely to shoot just fine out of them as no one I know in the retail end of things selling ammo is hot rodding 30-06 , definitely a slow news day as there are 2 threads on the cmp sending this out meanwhile those of us who shoot our Garands are busy loading for them .

[M-Tecs]

That's what has been recommend for the past 85 years. What's changed? Nothing that I can see.

50,000 CUP is the SAAMI standard for the 30-06 in CUP. 60,000 PSI is the SAAMI standard in the 30-06 in PSI. https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ANSI-SAAMI-Z299.4-CFR-Approved-2015-12-14-Posting-Copy.pdf

I have personally seen Garand's converted to 35 Whelen, 300 Win Mag and 458 Win Mag. The only ones I have done have been to 308 Win.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/07/06/oood-mccann-industries-458-win-mag-garand/

I do heed the advice about port pressure. That being said in 30 plus years of working on the for Service rifles for competition I have never seen a bent OP rod. I made the mistake of agreeing to built two tankers for a buddy. I will never do that again. Saying bending the OP without heat was a challenge is an understatement.

https://www.handloadermagazine.com/m1-garand-handloads

Various sources claim the M1 bullet weighed 172, 173 and 174 grains, a mystery explained by a list of .30-06 service loads in Hatcher’s Notebook, the reference work by General Julian Hatcher. The maximum bullet weight of M1 ammunition was a maximum of 174.5 grains but could be as much as 3 grains lighter. Similarly, the maximum weight of the “150-grain” bullet was 152 grains but could be as light as 149 grains.