AE 150gr and AE 150gr for the M1 Garand.....What's difference? Is there any?

jody_v

jody_v

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I not a reloader so my knowledge of comparing cartridges is limited as compared to many on here but I'm trying to figure out the difference between these two cartridges. I have an M1 Garand I like to shoot and lately after reading a lot about the dangers of shooting modern commercial ammunition in it, I started using American Eagle 150 gr for the M1 Garand. It works OK and isn't that much more expensive that the regular red box AE 150 gr but it can be hard to find. I've only found one place in town that stocks it and even at that they don't always have it.

I recently did some reading on a website that was mentioned in an earlier post this year about ammo for the M1 Garand and noticed that most of the numbers for both types of ammunition seem to be quite similar which makes me ask the question, "What's the difference between these two and is it safe to shoot regular AE in my Garand?" Peak port pressures appear to be very close, 966psi (AE) compared to 986psi (AEM1) and far lower than regular M2 Ball ammo that the rifle was designed for (1142psi - 1160psi). Additionally the total pulse is exactly the same for both 260lbf-ms and again lower than M2 Ball which ranges from 274 to 305lbf-ms.

So can anyone tell me if these two rounds are essentially the same?

(My source)

h ttp://www.garandgear.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106:shooting-commerci
 
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09outlander said:
As far as I know the Garand specific ammo is not as hot, so you don't bend your op rod.

Andrew.
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Based on the numbers above they seem almost identical and both under the parameters of M2 Ball. In fact the peak pressure for AE M1 is higher than regular AE so your statement doesn't seem valid.
 
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So doing a bit more research I came upon this:

American Eagle 150 gr for the M1 Garand

Muzzle Velocity = 2740 fps
Muzzle Energy = 2500 ft lbs

American Eagle 150 gr

Muzzle Velocity = 2910 fps
Muzzle Energy = 2820 ft lbs

So it seems there are some differences but which numbers are the important ones? Hopefully someone who understands reloading and ballistics can answer this for me.
 
jody_v said:
So doing a bit more research I came upon this:

American Eagle 150 gr for the M1 Garand

Muzzle Velocity = 2740 fps
Muzzle Energy = 2500 ft lbs

American Eagle 150 gr

Muzzle Velocity = 2910 fps
Muzzle Energy = 2820 ft lbs

So it seems there are some differences but which numbers are the important ones? Hopefully someone who understands reloading and ballistics can answer this for me.
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Major issue is pressure curve.Rifle is designed for certain pressure curve, if the pressure goes up above the peak the rifle is designed for you risk damage of your op rod. There is a graph online that shows pressure curves of commercial loads re M1 garand. My recollection is that Remington 150gr psp (plain green box) is ok. Most if all the other commercial 30'06 was NOT ( except those purpose made for garands (Hornady and I think make ammo labeled for Garand)
 
"...What's difference?..." It's tyhe Federal Cartridge Company's marketing department. Long before there was such a thing as the Internet, literally millions of rounds of any factory ammo was fired out of M1 Rifles with no fuss. Shot a box of 220 grain Silvertips out of mine with zero damage(they do astounding things to a ground hog though). In 40ish years, I've never seen nor heard of a rifle being damaged by the ammo.
"...M2 Ball ammo that the rifle was designed..." The rifle was designed to use .30 M1 ammo with its 174.5 grain bullet at 2640fps. There was no such thing as .30 M2 ammo with its 152 grain bullet until it was found that the M1 ammo had too much range for US National Guard ranges. .30 M2 ammo was developed and subsequently adopted as standard in 1940.
 
sunray said:
"...What's difference?..." It's tyhe Federal Cartridge Company's marketing department. Long before there was such a thing as the Internet, literally millions of rounds of any factory ammo was fired out of M1 Rifles with no fuss. Shot a box of 220 grain Silvertips out of mine with zero damage(they do astounding things to a ground hog though). In 40ish years, I've never seen nor heard of a rifle being damaged by the ammo.
"...M2 Ball ammo that the rifle was designed..." The rifle was designed to use .30 M1 ammo with its 174.5 grain bullet at 2640fps. There was no such thing as .30 M2 ammo with its 152 grain bullet until it was found that the M1 ammo had too much range for US National Guard ranges. .30 M2 ammo was developed and subsequently adopted as standard in 1940.
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BAD ADVICE! DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS! Firing a few regular 3006 loads through your M1 may not cause a immediate problem but regular firing will cause damage. These are great old guns, well built but stick to ammo that is designed for it. You can find proper load data as well if you decide to get into reloading. ( which I recommend of you want to shoot a m1 alot)

Do a search on the net and/youtube for m1Garand kaboom and you will see what happens when you feed the Garand the wrong spec ammo.
 
crashcollins said:
BAD ADVICE! DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS! Firing a few regular 3006 loads through your M1 may not cause a immediate problem but regular firing will cause damage. These are great old guns, well built but stick to ammo that is designed for it. You can find proper load data as well if you decide to get into reloading. ( which I recommend of you want to shoot a m1 alot)

Do a search on the net and/youtube for m1Garand kaboom and you will see what happens when you feed the Garand the wrong spec ammo.
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I agree. Shooting the wrong spec ammo in your M1 Garand can likely cause a premature failure but my original question was is there that much of a difference between American Eagle 150gr Red Box ammo and the new American Eagle 150gr for the M1 Garand. Lots of the information seems to indicate that they are very close. So far nobody has really seemed to answer this for me.
 
sunray said:
"...What's difference?..." It's tyhe Federal Cartridge Company's marketing department. Long before there was such a thing as the Internet, literally millions of rounds of any factory ammo was fired out of M1 Rifles with no fuss. Shot a box of 220 grain Silvertips out of mine with zero damage(they do astounding things to a ground hog though). In 40ish years, I've never seen nor heard of a rifle being damaged by the ammo.
"...M2 Ball ammo that the rifle was designed..." The rifle was designed to use .30 M1 ammo with its 174.5 grain bullet at 2640fps. There was no such thing as .30 M2 ammo with its 152 grain bullet until it was found that the M1 ammo had too much range for US National Guard ranges. .30 M2 ammo was developed and subsequently adopted as standard in 1940.
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Twenty rounds of 220 grain bullets does not represent the possible damage one could incur to your Garand rifle IMO. I guess sunray's opinion flies in the face of the NRA, the CMP and a host of other technically grounded websites that take into account that this rifle was first mass manufactured in 1936. I suspect it was many decades before handloaders took over the seen from cheap govenment surplus ammunition. And with advances in information technology and the spread of design corporate knowledge we have slowly become a more informed society.
 
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jody_v said:
I agree. Shooting the wrong spec ammo in your M1 Garand can likely cause a premature failure but my original question was is there that much of a difference between American Eagle 150gr Red Box ammo and the new American Eagle 150gr for the M1 Garand. Lots of the information seems to indicate that they are very close. So far nobody has really seemed to answer this for me.
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I believe it was answered as one load is slightly faster then the other but the big difference is in the pressure curve! as in the propellent burns at a different speed than the other. It may not be a hugh difference when you look at the bullet velocities but the big difference is with the pressure curve of the propellent.

Considering the age of these guns now I would not feel too confident shooting the regular 150fmjbt load through them. I stick with reloaded but when shooting new commercial I stick with the specific M1 loading.
 
big bear said:
http://www.garandgear.com/index.php...mercial-ammunition-in-your-m1-garand&catid=39

I think this article addresses your question, hope it helps.
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The link you posted is the exact same website that I refer to in my original post and doesn't answer the question but more importantly raises it. Is there any difference between American Eagle M1 Garand ammo and their regular 150 grain ammo? I think to date no one has given me a satisfactory answer. Some say its a difference pressure curve. Look at the charts below pulled from the website. If you overlay them they are almost identical. So somehow Federal is able to give their 150gr ammo 220fps more muzzle velocity than their M1 Garand ammo but maintain an almost identical pressure curve.

 
big bear said:
Sorry! missed that detail. Wouldn't a box of each, a Garand and a chronograph resolve the issue?
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No not really. Federal already tells us the muzzle velocity of each of the cartridges so running them each through a chrono should only verify what we alread know. What is puzzling is why the pressure curves for both cartridges are the same but the velocities are different. If the bullet weights were different I could see how this could be achieved but the bullet weights are the same in both cases.

Everyone seems to think that its the pressure curves that matter in a Garand so does it matter that the velocities are different?
 
Brutus said:
Nyet, I could post a guess........put I wonder if the charts are in error?
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I guess that is a distinct possibility but I doubt it. I'd have to think that when they created the chart they used more than one round of each cartridge type and the graphs represent a number or samples.

Good answer though.
 
The graphs look different (similar but definitely different) to me! They will look similar as your launching the same weight bullet at almost similar velocities. Don't forget here that you are talking milliseconds or microseconds in which things happen. Look at the 2910FPS load; the peak looks quite a bit fatter and rounder then the M1 load.

OP if your looking for a vastly different graph your going to be looking at a vastly different cartridge (or a different bullet weight). The regular load and the M1 load are close in specs but one is considered safe in the M1 and the other may cause problems with repeated use. The loads are different enough to make a difference! Don't know what else you might be looking for.
 
crashcollins said:
The graphs look different (similar but definitely different) to me! They will look similar as your launching the same weight bullet at almost similar velocities. Don't forget here that you are talking milliseconds or microseconds in which things happen. Look at the 2910FPS load; the peak looks quite a bit fatter and rounder then the M1 load.

OP if your looking for a vastly different graph your going to be looking at a vastly different cartridge (or a different bullet weight). The regular load and the M1 load are close in specs but one is considered safe in the M1 and the other may cause problems with repeated use. The loads are different enough to make a difference! Don't know what else you might be looking for.
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Yes the graphs are slightly different but I don't think but as much to make a huge difference. If you look at some of the graphs of some of the other ammo they tested they you do see a huge difference.

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As you can see the Prvi 150gr graph that I downloaded spikes at almost 1200psi whereas the M1 Garand is just under a 1000psi and the American Eagle slightly less than that. The M1 Garand ammo even seems to have a longer sustained peak pressure than the regular American Eagle. I see by looking at the other graphs of peak pressures and total impulse data where lots of 150 gr ammo is vastly different than M1 Garand ammo but I'm just not seeing it for the regular American Eagle.
 
jody_v said:
The M1 Garand ammo even seems to have a longer sustained peak pressure than the regular American Eagle..
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I think you have that backwards. A rounder fatter peak means a longer sustained peak pressure. Yes the 2 loads are close; I'm not debating that. I'm only saying that one load is designed to be fired and be safe in the M1 Garand. The other isn't! It's slightly faster and it's pressure curve is slightly different.

SAMMI sets the standards by which commercial ammo is loaded. Few manufacturers will load to SAMMI max pressures and that might be why the loads look so close. They achieved their goals with the commercial load and probably didn't have to stray too far from that to come up with the Garand safe M1 load. (My speculation only)

Other manufacturers will be using different powders ect to achieve the same thing for a SAMMI or CIP 3006 load so of course you will see different graph profiles. Just keep in mind that the commercial AE load has been around for quite a while and the M1 load is fairly new. As surplus has dried up milsurp shooters have been asking for a M1 safe load to shoot. Therefore with the existing load they already had on the market they may not have had to stray too far from that load to come up with the M1safe load.

Other manufacturers may not have been so close in specs to a M1 loading but are well within specs for a safe SAMMI load. Safe SAMMI loads also can use heavier bullet weights than a unmodified M1Garand can use because the powders used with the heavy bullets are just too slow burning for safe use in the Garand.

You've asked great questions and done some looking so this has been a great discusion but your always going to get People disagreeing with you and I disagree that the 2 loads are so close that there is no difference between them.. I choose to use M1Garand spec'ed loads and/or my reloads in my Garand; others must choose for themselves and will be ultimately responsible for that decision.

Thanks Brad
 
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Brad,

No problem with you disagreeing with me on some points. This is exactly the discussion I was looking for. I will agree with you on one thing that the graphs are slightly different but given that both AE cartridges have peak pressures below the M2 Ball ammo, I think its a mute point. It appears that the M2 Ball tested runs hotter than both.

After researching this some more and having some discussions with my son (3rd Year Physics Major), to me it would seem that the more important aspect would be the total impulse that the peak pressure generates on the piston. After all what we really care about is how much force the op rods sees right? I've never heard of anyone blowing up their gas cylinder due to higher pressures. It's all about what the op rod can handle. In the test cases both AE cartridges had the exact same total impulse (260lb/f ms) and both cartridges were below the M2 Ball cartridge (274-305lb/f ms). I not disputing the fact that there is some differences in the two AE cartridges I just disputing whether both are actually safe for the M1 Garand.

I missed this on the website before but in the 'Final Thoughts' section they say. "When possible choose ammunition that doesn't exceed M2 ball in both peak pressures and total impulse" Interesting analogy for someone trying to sell vented port plugs.

As for my nagging question about how both cartridges can have similar gas port pressures and total impulse but have different velocities, I think I found the answer to that as well on the website:

'Bullet velocity plays an important role in determining the final peak pressure seen in the gas cylinder. As bullet velocity increases, the time to transfer gas into the gas cylinder decreases. This factor is often overlooked and under appreciated. The time spent in Stage 1 decreases as bullet velocity increases. This effect moderates the possible peak pressures. For example, if two bullets are fired and each reach the gas port with the same barrel pressure but different velocities, the slower bullet will produce higher peak pressures in the gas cylinder.'

So if the slower bullet produces a higher peak pressure with the same barrel pressure, and in our case the peak pressures are nearly the same (966 & 986psi), the it must be that the barrel pressures that are different. So to me this explains the velocity difference but it seems that this shouldn't matter as most think it's gas port peak pressure and total impulse and their influence on the op rod that is important.

If ones looks at everything this is what the data appears to present. Both cartridges have different muzzle velocities and barrel pressures but relatively the same peak pressures and total impulse. The latter two would see to be the important ones with regards to the op rod and the operation of the Garand.

Anyway that's my slant on all of it after much reading and discussion. Again I'm not an expert on this stuff and welcome other viewpoints. Will I use regular AE in my M1 Garand? Probably not if AE M1 Garand ammo is available. I was really more interested in the discussion that this data might bring.
 
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