M1 Garand Scope Question

I was wondering I know that there was a scope for the M1 Garand, I was wondering how many were in place during world war ii, It seems to me the snipers would have used the Springfield as the primary Sniper Rifle. Also how accurate was the Garand with the scope compared to the Springfield.

 

This doesn't answer the question directly, but it implies that very few of the "sniper/scoped" models were in place in WW2, as the war ended just slightly after they were introduced.

The M1 was adopted as the standard issue rifle in 1932 and started to enter service in 1936, which led to constant refinement of the rifle. This precluded any work on a sniper version of the M1, but as the war broke out, there was a large demand for scoped rifles, and this lead to the adoption of the M1903A4 and also the authorization to produce a sniper version of the M1. Work was slow and finally the M1E7 and M1E8 were evaluated. In June of 1944 the M1E7 (renamed M1C) was adopted as the standard issue sniper rifle and replaced the M1903A4 making it "Limited Standard". The M1E8 (renamed M1D) was adopted in September of 1944 as a "Substitute Standard". The only difference between the C and D was the scope mounting system.

Only small numbers of M1C/D's made it to the frontlines in WWII, so they were never really battle tested, until the Korean conflict, when they were still the standard issue sniper rifle. There they proved satisfactory with the max range being about 600 yards, with fairly reliable hit percentages from 4-600 yards. Of course the 2.5 power scopes were a severe limiting factor to the max range. There was no military match ammo that was issued to snipers, so they just used standard ball, which I'm sure hurt the accuracy of these weapons also.

Goto:

US M1C & M1D Sniper Rifle