I posted this in the "Gunsmithing" forum, I figured maybe I would get some info posting down here too.

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Has anyone ever fitted a detachable magazine to an M1 Garand rifle? Methods used and/or how-tos are appreciated. Basically, my plan is to convert a new manufacture M1 Garand in 308 from SA to use metric pattern FAL magazines. I have decided against using BAR magazine for the following reason. The BAR was known to be a temperamental creature, aka a jam-o-matic, with the magazines supposedly to blame (of course with that antique POS I think it was a fundamental design problem as well since the problem was with how the magazine was fitted to the weapon). My understanding is that the magazines where not properly supported aka loose in the mag well and this causes all kinds of alignment issues, which lead to failures to pick-up cartridges, cartridges which did not rise up high enough to enter the chamber and impacted low, etc, etc. As I said earlier just a bad design. Hency my desire to use the FAL metric magazines (they are plentiful and cheap to).

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Any information you guys may have on this type of conversion is really appreciated.

At one time Smith Enterprise did M1 conversions to M-14 magazines, but their website doesn't show such a service now. Perhaps a call to them would be informative.

http://www.smithenterprise.com

The goverment looked at doing this conversion,because of thr huge surplus of garand rifles. The idea was dropped. The m14 was adopted.

If I were you, I'd buy a copy of Hatcher's Notebook, and read up on some of the conversions that were done both in the field, and by the ordnance dept during WWII and Korea, using the BAR magazines. It should give you some background on what you are undertaking

West Texas Ordnance makes such a creature.

You'd be dollars to donuts ahead if you simply went out and bought a BM-59. Which is basically an Italian made rifle with a gas system like a Garand and a box magazine like a M14. They are not too scarce and run roughly $1800 in decent condition which is less than you would have in any kind of cobbled together M1 Garand/DBM conversion of dubious reliability and even less marketability/resale value.

Kentucky Nimrod,

You wouldn't happen to have any lines on a BM-59, would you?

ASS_CLOWN