M1 GARAND MAGAZINE

I remember reading an article on the M1 garand which stated "This weapon uses a 8 round magazine" which had me thinking: even for a semi-automatic rifle, that is not alot of ammunition. Do YOU think that it need a bigger magazine? I think it most definatly needed a magazine upgrade.

 

First off it was an enbloc clip, not a magazine. The M14 was an "upgrade" of the M1 Garand with a box mag., but very short lived in service at the time (Vietnam). The M14 has made a come back in the NATO caliber, but wasn't too popular in the 30-06 round.

Eight rounds in semi was much better than five in the bolt action (Mauser), and almost equal to the ten in Lee Enfield's system. Eight was about enough, this wasn't a "spray and pray" weapon, but a battle rifle where individual shots were supposed to be at least semi-aimed shots.

 

Well it's pretty hard to get a 500-600 round mag into a rifle. The M1 is a semi-automatic rifle and automatic rifles normally don't have more than a 30 round mag (for the reasons given above). You need a belt fed weapon to hope to get anywhere near the rounds per minute that an automatic rifle is capable of. The heat created then requires a cooling system (tripod mounted often had water cooling) on bigger fixed weapons platforms this wasn't a problem of course but a rifle is meant to be carried by a soldier and the soldier needs to be mobile. He was often restricted by the amount of ammo he could carry. So accuracy was very important which was why the WWII soldier was expected to be able to hit what he was shooting at, only having to reload every 8 rounds.

KTK

 

Well, that is because the M1 had an internal magazine, not a detatchable magazine. The magazine was loaded by inserting clips containing 8 rounds "En Bloc". It served very well in WWII, Korea, and Early Vietnam. Must not have been too big an issue.

 

Sorry Clint I was typing at the same time you posted.

 

In its original configuration it was supposed to be 10 rds of .276.

 

Its always interesting to follow Mag capacity discussions. As KTK said it is hard to put500 rounds in an mag of an rifle. It is always good to have enough ammo, but having a lot of them in one rifle makes the soldier wasting it, no matter if in single shots or fire bursts. This is shown in some statistics for the need of rounds per killed enemy during the wars. 8 rounds were enough for that time and the better the shooter the less ammo is wasted!

 

That is true, what was to become the Garand semi-auto was built around then-experimental .276 caliber (7mm) cartridge in the twenties, I suppose because it seemed that a lighter round would allow the ground pounder to carry more ammo (as became the SOP later), and still function as an effective warrior inside of the distance he usually fired his weapon.

The Canadian John Garand’s rifle was tested by the US Military against its main competitor, a .276 caliber Pedersen rifle, and was eventually recommended for adoption by US Army early in the 1932 due to its reliable functioning compared to the Pedersen design.

When this was presented to the US Army, General Douglas MacArthur felt (rightly to my mind) that the US Military should stay with.30-06 cartridge in its main battle rifle, not just for more "firepower" but to simplify logistics/supply. Garand himself had considered that as an option, and already had a variation of his design chambered for 30-06, with two less rounds . It was with little re-working that his new "weapon" was given the go ahead on January 6th, 1936, and the rifle was adopted by the US Army as the new standard; "rifle, .30 caliber, M1".

 

Well I think around the Korea era they made a few prototypes with box magazines. These later developed into the M14.

 

Well, there was a DIRECT copy of they garand know as the type 6 also the type 5

 

Explain this reference to the "6" and "5" types TT, the Garand action remained in service throughout the Korean, Vietnam, and even today remains in service.

 

I think that TT is referring to the Japanese prototype copy of the M-1 Garand late in the war Clint.

 

The copy had 10 round magazine I think. The action looked a little different also.

 

I'd love to explain what they are but i dont know -.-

 

View image: T5 Rifle

Looks like the guts of it are roughly the same.

10 rounds sounds like it gets refilled by standard issue stripper clips. That box magazine looks fixed.


I've heard a number of justifications for the 8 round capacity and fixed internal mag:

-If the magazine is only 8 shots it won't protrude past the bottom of the stock, and drill can be kept the same as with the 1903 as the rifle won't have a radically different shape.

-A longer magazine will make it harder to lay close to the ground when prone.

-Despite best efforts, magazines and other auxiliaries will get lost in the field, and it's far easier to mass produce clips than it is to mass produce magazines.

-Clips are lighter than magazines.

-8 rounds actually represented a substantial advantage over most Axis soldiers, who would be stuck with 5 shot bolt action rifles.

Take your pick. Does anyone have a casualty pie chart for WWII? I'm pretty sure the majority of all casualties were caused by bombing raids and the majority of military casualties were caused by artillery. WWII strikes me as one of those conflicts where the minutiae of personal armament was less important.