Garand barrel installation cost?

Usually price of barrel + $150 bucks or so. Or you can do it yourself, it will cost a bit more at first but then you can sell the reamer and gauges on the EE and make your $ back so it will be less. It all depends on your level of comfort doing it yourself vs. finding a competent smith to do it for you. Elwood Epps and Jason Spencer at GunCo in Ottawa would be my first choices if I were paying someone.
 
This was something i wanted to do as well so i picked up a barrel vise, and pull through reamers in .308 and 30-06 and the action wrench. The only other thing you will want are GO headspace gauges. This was all in the last four months or so.

So far I've done up two garands in .308 and another in 30-06. Pretty straight forward. I figured i would invest in some tools as i know this hobby of mine isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon.

Greg
 
I would suggest getting a No Go and a Field too. All very well that the bolt closes on the Go, but you want to check that the chamber isn't too deep. It has happened, even using a good pull reamer.
 
For all aspiring Garand builders I suggest the first investment be Gerry Kuhnhausens's comprehensive and excellent shop manual for the M1/M14. Its the best single source of info going on these fine rifles. Knowledge is important, especially considering that its quite easy to dique up a new $400 barrel if you don't know what you are doing.

I've had a copy of Kuhnhausen's manual for the past 17 years and its been my guiding light for several dozen Garand builds. A couple of other useful references are the US Army 1947 TM manual on the Garand which is available in reprints and the M1 Garand Complete assembly Guide by Walt Kulek. There are a couple of big head scratchers in Kulek's booklet though. In the first case he states that its acceptable to have the barrel sit up to 60 degrees off vertical index before tightening it. That's waaaay too much. Secondly, he states that the bolt should be lapped to get sufficient engagement between both locking lugs and the lug seats in the receiver. Lapping was never done in military service, but its OK as long as you know exactly what you are doing.
 
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