Off trail question about M1 Garand documentation option

[kywoodwrkr]

Who had a service for evaluation and documenting any given M1 Garand?
I had an M1 which he had certified as to date manufactured and completeness of as manufactured
components.
Can't remember the name.
Was it Duff?
thanks

[Binky]

Scott Duff. Has a web site and authored several books. It used to be easy to make a rifle correct ( not so much today) and very few rifles found today are as manufactured due to the many rebuilds and parts swapping done in the field.

[kywoodwrkr]

The reason I would like to know the name is I had an August '41 Springfield which had been blue printed/assessed..
Rifle was 100% correct according to the person doing the assessment and >85% condition.
Friend needed a house payment on some new farm property so sold it.
Just can't for the life of me remember who it was that provided the assessment document.
thanks

[georgerkahn]

The reason I would like to know the name is I had an August '41 Springfield which had been blue printed/assessed..
Rifle was 100% correct according to the person doing the assessment and >85% condition.
Friend needed a house payment on some new farm property so sold it.
Just can't for the life of me remember who it was that provided the assessment document.
thanks

A while back I came across a H&R Garand which "looked" correct to my, and a buddy's eyes... He bought it, and for kicks and giggles sent a letter or email to the Civilian's Marksmanship Program (CMP) along with a nominal payment for their research to get a letter back from them stating when they initially sold this rifle, and that it was/is a "correct" one, too! Also, fyi, the GCA (Garand Collector's Association) has quite a few genuine experts on this firearm, and generally are most generous in sharing their knowledge.
A late friend's dad was an arms bearer in WWII European theatre, and one of his roles was to pick up dropped arms and take back to their location du jour, where they were pretty much disassembled -- good parts being tossed into inverted helmets and or whatever containers available. When an arm was given to the armorer in need of repair, it was suggested that the very last thing the armorer may have looked at it was the part's manufacturer. Hence, a rifle with field repairs could (?) be 100% correct? OR, is the definition limited to, "As it left the factory"? But then, too, factory's ran short of parts and often "borrowed" -- e.g., Winchester putting in a Springfield part or two / vice-versa.....
geo

[El Bibliotecario]

A while back I came across a H&R Garand which "looked" correct to my, and a buddy's eyes... He bought it, and for kicks and giggles sent a letter or email to the Civilian's Marksmanship Program (CMP) along with a nominal payment for their research to get a letter back from them stating when they initially sold this rifle, and that it was/is a "correct" one, too! Also, fyi, the GCA (Garand Collector's Association) has quite a few genuine experts on this firearm, and generally are most generous in sharing their knowledge.
A late friend's dad was an arms bearer in WWII European theatre, and one of his roles was to pick up dropped arms and take back to their location du jour, where they were pretty much disassembled -- good parts being tossed into inverted helmets and or whatever containers available. When an arm was given to the armorer in need of repair, it was suggested that the very last thing the armorer may have looked at it was the part's manufacturer. Hence, a rifle with field repairs could (?) be 100% correct? OR, is the definition limited to, "As it left the factory"? But then, too, factory's ran short of parts and often "borrowed" -- e.g., Winchester putting in a Springfield part or two / vice-versa.....
geo

With the widespread obsession about so-called 'correctness' I found this realistic perspective a breath of fresh air.

[15meter]

There is an spectacular article by Ernie Pyle describing an armorer's depot in Normandy D-Day plus ~plus 6 weeks.

It describes what happened to the rifles that were "recycled" back into battle, it is an incredible read.

Tried to find it on line, couldn't find it, if anyone has a link please post it. It is worth the read.

I have no problem shooting one of my "mix-master" Garands. They are a true piece of history, as opposed to an artfully re-created "original".

[Bigslug]

One thing that's really cool about the Garand IS the degree of parts interchangeability they allow. I worked in the local gun shop scene during the Arlington Ordnance import days of the early '90's. We left the bolts with the receivers they came in out of headspace concerns, but moved a lot of parts around - either to tighten the guns up to make better shooters; make them more "correct" to the degree that our knowledge allowed; or to help out our serious collector regulars who needed "this op-rod, that stock, that trigger group, etc. . . and we never had a problem across all four manufacturers and 20 years of production. From the field armorer perspective - this is probably why we still have access to so many of them today.

In that same early '90's era, we got in a lot of other surplus - much of which conveyed a real sense of just how an active combat environment can consume equipment. The rapid tear down with minimal tools and plug-n-play parts of the M1 undoubtedly helped to keep a lot of them with us.