Category: Ordnance

New M1 Garand Ammunition

Do not ever shoot regular 30-06 hunting ammunition in a standard M1 Garand.  Commercial  30-06 ammunition is loaded to a much higher pressure than the “Cal .30 Ball M2” that the Garand gas system was designed for and simply will not work.     At best, commercial ammo will cause a stuck case and at worst will bend the operating rod and/or break the extractor.

The last volume source for M2 Ball equivalent military surplus ammo was Greek HXP which was happily non-corrosive, unlike WW II and Korea vintage U.S. military surplus.

As surplus HXP started to dry up Federal came out with 30-06 ammunition loaded to Garand specifications.  The boxes were printed with a picture of a Garand and the part number had an M1 suffix.  Since then two other manufacturers have realized that with 6 million Garands floating around and Fulton Armory making new ones there is a significant market.  The three current sources are:

Federal /American Eagle AE3006M1

Sellier & Bellot SB3006M2

Prvi Partizan PP347

A web search will turn up multiple ecommerce sites for each.

If you’ve never shot an M1, don’t pass up an opportunity.  There are few firearms as much fun to shoot as the Garand.

.454 Casull

If you are considering buying your first .454 Casull and are looking at a Ruger Super Redhawk with the older grip panels, you will probably want to get a Hogue Tamer Monogrip for it.  These make the .454 much more pleasant to shoot and are standard on new Super Redhawks.  Pleasant is relative here.  Shooting one is kind of like being in a car wreck.  There’s a loud crash, you get knocked around, and there’s pain.  It’s not so bad when you get used to it, but you should practice sighting and double action trigger control with .45 Long Colt and not shoot more than one cylinder of .454 on any given day.  One cylinder periodically is enough to adapt to the recoil, avoid flinch, and give your capillaries time to recover.  Several full power cylinders in succession will injure your hand.  Also, don’t try impact absorbing gloves made for use with impact tools.  They compress your hand to a higher density, hold in the recoil shock pressure wave, and, with a .454, sting a lot more than no glove.