Moral-Flexibility.Net

Publicola has an excellent post about his M1 rifle up, go on over and give it a read. If you think I put some thought and effort into my FrankenGarand you’ll be impressed with the planning that went into his.

I own two M1 rifles (the “Garand” if you prefer). The first I bought shortly after I moved back to Toronto. Manufactured by Springfield Armories in 1942, the rifle was hardly in “fantastic shape” (the term “sewer pipe” would be accurate when describing the barrel in fact) when I bought it. My fault entirely as I suffered from a bout of buck-fever when I saw the rifle and plunked the money down after only a cursory inspection so thrilled was I with owning my first M1.

I bought a series of replacement parts (too many in fact) and with the help of Barney from CGN I reparkerized the rifle and replaced the barrel over the course of one winter Saturday, sticking the finished product in a Boyds Walnut Stock. We kept (with the exception of the barrel) the original parts, and this left me with two things; Almost enough spare parts to build a second rifle and the sudden a shocking realization that I could actually build my own rifle from the ground up.

Thus the idea of the FrankenGarand was born. I sorted out the spare parts I had, bought a Breda receiver from Districorp and began searching for an appropriate .308 barrel for my project.

It took a year, but in the end I accumulated the parts I needed, refinished them, borrowed the appropriate tools from another local CGN member and on a warm sunny afternoon I completed the final assembly (minus a single part I had forgotten on my checklist).

Of course it’s been 4 months now and the registration of said rifle is still incomplete leaving me in legal limbo as to the status of this firearm.

[Note: The original post was lost in the recent crash so this is, in fact, a back dated replacement]

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