Reddit reviews The M1 Garand: Serial numbers & data sheets

Very unlikely you will find one that is documentable as "all original". If you can it will be quite expensive. When the US Army used these guns they would periodically go through an arsenal rebuild. All the guns that came into the armory were taken apart and the parts put in bins. Then each bin of parts was inspected and any parts that were out of spec were tossed. Finally, bins of inspected parts + new stock parts were used to re-build guns to go back into the racks for use. No effort was made to keep parts together in the same gun. The only critical tolerance is the headspace, and if a given bolt/barrel combo wouldn't headspace, they just swapped bolts until it did.

If you visit the CMP forums, you will learn that almost all the M1's coming out of storage for surplus sale are "mix-master" guns. That is to say the parts are all original, in spec, M1 Garand parts, but they were not original to the receiver or other parts when the gun was made.

I have two Winchester M1 Garands. Both carry SA barrels, and a some parts from about every maker but IH.

I would say your best bet if you really want an original gun would be to join the GCA, Garand Collectors Association) and start reading their journal. You will learn there what you need to know to actually discriminate what is valuable and what is not. Also, pick up Scott Duffs booklet on serial and drawing number ranges:

https://www.amazon.com/M1-Garand-Serial-numbers-sheets/dp/B0006F5XFG/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480546394&sr=1-4&keywords=M1+garand

Scott Duff has an excellent series of books on the M1 Garand. For the M1 carbine I recommend War Baby by Larry Ruth.


The M1 Garand, World War II: History of development and production, 1900 through 2 September 1945 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1888722010/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_OdcrDbNVAZ87Z

The M1 Garand: Post World War II https://www.amazon.com/dp/1888722002/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_aecrDbEA59JSA

The M1 Garand: Serial numbers & data sheets https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006F5XFG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_recrDbDN3REQ4

The M1 Garand Owner's Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/1888722037/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5ecrDbXABQP1B

The M1 Garand of World War II: A guide for the collector https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006EQKE0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RfcrDb027R9N6

War Baby! The U.S. Caliber .30 Carbine, Vol. 1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0889351171/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ddcrDbWHCNXAB

I would assume that Winchester also had milled trigger guards, as they were producing the Garand early on. My knowledge of Garands doesn't extend much past knowing what would be accurate for which time period.

However, if you're really curious, I know there are several books about M1 collecting. I've been told that Scott Duff's book is the go to book for collectors.