The International Harvester came with a variety of bits and pieces as befits anything and everything that spent any time in an arsenal whatsoever. In the mix are parts from Springfield Armory (SA), Harrington & Richardson (HRA), and Winchester (WRA). The 4-mik600k serial number places it in the latter part off the first serial-number block that was assigned, maybe somewhere in 1955 – I think if you add-up production numbers, but don’t trust my math.
UPDATE: According to the OldGuns.Net calculator, “The year of manufacture for serial number 46579XX is 1953.”
It’s a fun gun to field-strip, and beyond. The legs of the receiver are thoroughly IHC stamped (International Harvester Corp.), with some interesting pencil marks. 44 over 4-61 – probably arsenal re-build markings. Additionally the stock has been glass-bedded – a long time ago using early materials, so for replacement/competition purposes I might as well go National Match, since this would fall into that designated shooting-class now (match-rifle).
The barrel is of the well known and high-quality Line Machine (LMR) company dating from July 1953.
The Springfield Armory op-rod mics an excellent .526, plus there’s the trigger-housing and hammer, with a late IHC “U” marked safety.
UPDATE: “U” for United Auto, used by late SA and early IHC rifles.
HRA = bolt and gas-plug.
WRA was the donor of a lovely trigger-guard.
The peep-sight was drilled and tapped for a Marbles or Western type sight disc. And it’s not perfectly centered. It’s also much finer than even a National Match hood, and frankly too-fine for my eyes as sighting through it exhibits for me the “spider-web effect.” That’s OK, I have another rear aperture that has been un-f*cked.
Not sure what the stampings on the windage and elevation knobs amount to: BME and WCE…but are late-period items and not IHC.
UPDATE: Thanks to Calvin we now know that, “BME = Bruce Machine & Engineering and WCE = Wico Electric. USGI contractors.”
Also not sure what the “11” is on the bullet-guide thing is.
Small Parts Deconstruction
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http://thegca.org/ Garand Collectors Association. 4 magazines a year. And they qualify as a
club for CMP sales purposes. So you if you fill out the forms and qualify, you can buy *slightly* cheaper greek fodder for the gun, and parts.
Thank-you for that!
BME Bruce Machine & Engineering. WCE Wico Electric. USGI contractors.
Thank-you and Merry Christmas! BTW Wranglers fit better than Levis and most cattle-people up here wear them and not Levis, but for their disdain of the liberal city where Levis is HQ’d.
Amazing where one can find beauty.
It’s a Heinz 57, but still a shooter… THAT was the beauty of the M-1 design. You could disassemble 20 rifles, throw the parts in a pile, assemble 20 guns from random parts and they would ALL shoot! 🙂
Part interchangeability rules!
44 9-64 markings MIGHT be AA 64 for Anniston Army Depot rebuild program FY 64, September month.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2015/12/10/from-the-american-rifleman-archives-in-the-system-m1-garand-rebuilds/
http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=12403
Here’s a couple of links to pages talking about Garand rebuilds.
Thank-you very much for those links!! Yes that must be A4 = Anniston. And furthermore “A4 78” is stamped on the leg above the drawing-number, so maybe it went through two re-builds? My Scott Duff “Post-War Garands” book is on its way.