T2 Garand - Part 1

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In my opinion, a lot of the Garands offered for sale in the EE are total bitsers assembled on bargain priced receivers using parts sourced from wherever, with or without reference to gauges, by individuals with unknown skills. Yes, a lot of questions would be a great idea.
Have never heard of one with welded over and ground lugs before though.
There appear to be real problems with this current lot of T2 type rifles.
 
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I just read all 83 pages in one shot. I laughed, I cried, I learned some things about Garands and have rethought some future purchasing plans. What a debacle, I sincerely hope no one is/has been seriously physically injured as a result of this situation.
 
Hitzy said:
I wonder if the barrels on these could be reamed back to 30'06 without causing timing problems? You would need a new properly fitting bolt first of course, but I'm just wondering if there is even enough meat of these barrels for that? Shoulder would only be moving a 1/2" forward. If the barrels were good quality it might have been an option... and if they were priced as unsafe parts guns and not as rare collectables of course.
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You can not ream a .308 chamber to 30-06 without cutting back the chamber end 3/8" otherwise you will end up with bulged 30-06 cases about 2/3 the way up the case. You would have to rethread and cut a new breach ring to set the chamber back to avoid the bulge. May not be enough meat of the breach if they were made to copy T2 barrels that were already 1/2" shortened.... and you would have to shorten both the oprod and wood. Much easier to rebarrel and rebolt it, but now your into the whole thing for an extra $400-500... Making it the most expensive M1 parts gun ever.
 
r_taylor said:
You can not ream a .308 chamber to 30-06 without cutting back the chamber end 3/8" otherwise you will end up with bulged 30-06 cases about 2/3 the way up the case. You would have to rethread and cut a new breach ring to set the chamber back to avoid the bulge. May not be enough meat of the breach if they were made to copy T2 barrels that were already 1/2" shortened.... and you would have to shorten both the oprod and wood. Much easier to rebarrel and rebolt it, but now your into the whole thing for an extra $400-500... Making it the most expensive M1 parts gun ever.
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Yeah, that makes sense.... these rifles are beyond any cheap fix then. You would need a new bolt and an actual T2 barrel if you could even find one... otherwise you are replacing too many parts, or having insane smithing costs to turn a regular barrel into a T2
 
polaris said:
The business (Marstar) has a great responsibility towards their customers, to advertise accurately and to sell (following all the rules of the law) a save product. That means the business must make sure that all the rifles are as advertised and save, not just a sample of the bunch.

Johnone was informed about these fake T2 Garands, but he refused to remedy the fiasco (not even for the safety sake), he even stiffed his late customers for the back shipping costs.

Hell, who wants to be associated to a business like this!

They make Badger Arms look like the business of the century.
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They stiffed me ALL shipping costs!!!!
 
Hitzy said:
Yeah, that makes sense.... these rifles are beyond any cheap fix then. You would need a new bolt and an actual T2 barrel if you could even find one... otherwise you are replacing too many parts, or having insane smithing costs to turn a regular barrel into a T2
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Citadel and criterion barrels are not to difficult to source, as is a new bolt. The problem with installing a 30-06 barrel is that the stock and oprods have been chopped 1/2" ... Again, way too much effort and cost for a parts gun.
 
Smitsauce said:
They stiffed me ALL shipping costs!!!!
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Even worse then, and this despite his reassurance:

"We may have to pay for shipping to return the rifle to you,that means we're out of pocket anywhere from $20-50."
Why does this keep popping up, our warranty is clear, if not satisfied or the item is not what you expected, not as described, whatever, we pay the shipping, so what is the issue exactly ?? We are well known to have the best warranty policy in Canada, so what are the issues ??
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John, we know that you are browsing through this thread at least three times a day.

What is your word worth nowadays?
 
tiriaq said:
A lot of the Garands offered for sale in the EE are total bitsers assembled on bargain priced receivers using parts sourced from wherever, with or without reference to gauges, by individuals with unknown skills. Yes, a lot of questions would be a great idea.
Have never heard of one with welded over and ground lugs before though.
There are real problems with this current lot of T2 type rifles.
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A very good point. A lot of these have been put together as a one time project by people with limited knowledge. Apart from the obvious concerns about correct barrel indexing and headspace, there are many other points for correct fit to ensure proper functionality and accuracy.I recommend the Kuhnhausen shop manual on the Garand for all aspiring Garand builders and owners. It's very comprehensive and is a small price to pay in comparison to the price of a rifle or all the parts and tools necessary to assemble one.

WRT to the Marstar Tipo 2 knock-offs, these are beyond redemption on account of the trash barrels and butchery of the bolts. God only knows what else is wrong with them. They are really only useful as parts sources after the barrels and bolts are discarded. You could use the parts, incl the shortened stocks and op rods, to assemble a Tipo2 style rifle, but the limiting factor would be locating a bona-fide Italian Tipo2 military barrel in serviceable condition. If a proper Tipo2 barrel isn't available then the shotrened stock, op rod, op rod spring, and rear handguard are useless for assembling a standard length Garand.

If the German proof marked receivers are re-circulated there will be some degree of confusion and stigma about them. To this point no-one has reported the receivers being modified, but they will bear close inspection, especially in the areas of the threads, face and bolt lug seats. Any grinding or welding in any of these key areas means that they have been rendered unserviceable.
 
I didn't see any modification of the receiver on the one delivered to me, but I only really looked over the bolt lug seats, and the barrel appeared squared up with the receiver....
 
If (a big if) a well breeched and indexed barrel on one of these rifles passed a NATO field gauge, I could live with just dropping in a new bolt.
 
Op rods could be repaired/modified with a new tip installed. Columbus Machine in Ohio can install a 1/2 " longer part, check out the rod for alignment as well. Added costs for sure but again, nobody makes new oprods.
 
Claven2 said:
If (a big if) a well breeched and indexed barrel on one of these rifles passed a NATO field gauge, I could live with just dropping in a new bolt.
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These rifles are stamped .308 Win so in theory they should not have headspace in excess of the .308 Win "field reject" dimension of 1.638. And ideally they should have headspace less than the .308 Win "no-go" dimension of 1.634.

The 7.62 NATO "field reject" headspace dimension is 1.6455, almost 8 thou greater than the .308 Win. Apart from the boogered bolt lug issues, people should expect the headspace to conform to .308 Win specs, especially seeing how these rifles were "theoretically" headspaced, proof fired and stamped for .308 Win. In most cases a .308 Win round should be OK in a smaller than "field reject" 7.62 NATO chamber. Cases will fire form to the larger chamber and there shouldn't be much incidence of case separation with good quality brass, but again we are getting back to quality, safety, and truth in advertising concerns.

There are variations in Garand bolt lengths due to manufacturing tolerances and wear, and the desired headspace in a bona-fide Tipo2 military barrel can be set by selective fitting of bolts. I like mine to run around 1.633 ( within .308 Win "no-go" specs, but a very thin coont hair less than the 7.62NATO "go" dimension of 1.6355). I've experimented with a range of .308 Win commercial ammo and 7.62 military ammo and found that a 1.633 chamber will allow the bolt to close on all of them w/o resistance.
 
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Claven2 said:
I'm not referring to price, I'm referring to safety. My personal view is the price is overly high for a fake T2.
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I agree that headspace isn't too scary of an issue, look at all the Nork M14's floating around that are 15-18 thou over .308 minimum and no issues.
 
purple said:
These rifles are stamped .308 Win so in theory they should not have headspace in excess of the .308 Win "field reject" dimension of 1.638. And ideally they should have headspace less than the .308 Win "no-go" dimension of 1.634.

The 7.62 NATO "field reject" headspace dimension is 1.6455, almost 8 thou greater than the .308 Win. Apart from the boogered bolt lug issues, people should expect the headspace to conform to .308 Win specs, especially seeing how these rifles were "theoretically" headspaced, proof fired and stamped for .308 Win. In most cases a .308 Win round should be OK in a smaller than "field reject" 7.62 NATO chamber. Cases will fire form to the larger chamber and there shouldn't be much incidence of case separation with good quality brass, but again we are getting back to quality, safety, and truth in advertising concerns.

There are variations in Garand bolt lengths due to manufacturing tolerances and wear, and the desired headspace in a bona-fide Tipo2 military barrel can be set by selective fitting of bolts. I like mine to run around 1.633 ( within .308 Win "no-go" specs, but a very thin coont hair less than the 7.62NATO "go" dimension of 1.6355). I've experimented with a range of .308 Win commercial ammo and 7.62 military ammo and found that a 1.633 chamber will allow the bolt to close on all of them w/o resistance.
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Add to that Marstar has them listed as 7.62x51, while like you stated they are marked .308 and were supposedly proofed as such in Germany.
Just a clown show from Marstar all around on these rifles... most unprofessional shop I've ever seen with this entire mess. They haven't attempted to do one single thing to make their complete #### up right for the customers they misled. Even screwing them on shipping, just the lowest of the low.
 
Just had a chance to look at mine last night, Same ground lugs as every one else. Mine went back in the mail. So I lose shipping both ways. Out a bit over $100 not counting insurance put it on in case Marstar trys something.
What I would like to know from the site managers, Why after screwing over nearly 200 folks if that was the number of rifles sold. Is Marstar still not banned. Others have been banned for less than what Marstar has done. Wantonly selling a rifle that could injure or kill the person using it deserves a harsh punishment.
 
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