No I have not but it sounds interesting. Being from Manitoba, we tend to have to do things on our own or with the help of friends. "snip"
Excellent point Tinman...and spoken like a true Manitoba farm boy.
I got into serious building/re-building Garand stuff, incl Parkerizing, when living in the big part of Manitoba that exists outside of the Winnipeg perimeter about 15 yrs ago. There just wasn't anyone available to do this, so do without or DIY was about the only route.
The best single tool for this is knowledge and the best single source of technical info on the Garand is Kuhnhausen's comprehensive Shop manual on the M1 and M14. I bought this shortly after it came out 20 yrs ago and it still can't be beat. After that it was a matter of procuring some specialized tools incl a barrel vise, shop press, action wrench, pull thru finishing reamer, rear handguard band tool and a barrel indexing fixture. I already had headspace gauges, a bolt stripping tool and other commercially available shop tools so I was good to go.
For those who are disdainful of buying a "home built" Garand vs an arsenal rebuild, there really isn't a difference if the build is done to specs per Kuhnhausen. Over the yrs I've owned and repaired/rebuilt many arsenal assembled rifles and have had to correct a number of problems related to misaligned or worn out parts. These have included an under-indexed barrel, unserviceable op rod springs, barrels, trigger housings and internal parts, worn op rods, stocks and handguards, all internal receiver parts, gas cylinders, gas plugs, gas locks, excessive/insufficient headspace, rear sight components, etc. Parts do wear out and many of these rifles last saw military technical surveillance 50 yrs ago. As a group some of the best maintained and lightly used Garands are the Danish surplus ones incl their surplus WRA, SA, Breda and Beretta made rifles. Keeping the rifle clean and lubing it properly before firing are always good insurance.
