I did one in 63.It was only tiny caliber gun I ever had.

Used BAR mag, ground out vertical rails that follower

slide in. Work great even with wire in sear.Even had gas cylinder set back so about half was inside front

end of the stock. I made bleed hole on barrel only a third the size of original,as pressures back there was three times higher.Sounded like a

a BAR also. Ed.

Has anyone ever fitted a detachable magazine to an M1 Garand rifle? Methods used and/or how-tos are appreciated.

I'm kinda wondering why ? I'd kinda miss the Ka-Ching.

Read up on the Beretta BM 59. This is exactly what the Italians did to the M1 Garand to try to score contracts with the countries that wanted a new main battle rifle, but were unsuccesfull and hence the M-14, FAL, and G3 were brought forth. There is a factory "how to" out there somewhere on the web that I have seen, but do not remember where.

Years ago the late 50's or 60's there were companys offering conversions using BAR mags. haven't seen any adds for a long time it can be done.

In addition to the above, I believe at least one early prototype of the M1 used a detachable 20-round box magazine, but the Army rejected it for two very cogent reaseons:



1. "Box interferes with the standard manual of arms"!!



2. "Box would necessitate modification of the standard prone position"!!



(The Army obviously was looking for a parade-ground/rifle range piece, rather than a battle rifle, so our troops got to reload after every 8 shots during WWII, rather than have 20 rounds available in combat situations!! Smart, what?? This is what's known as "military intelligence"!! ) The enemy liked that "kaching" too, since it told them when an M1 was empty!!

Thank you gentlemen! It would be of great benefit though is someone could direct me to an example, or a how-to write up. Basically, my plan is to convert a new manufacture M1 Garand in 308 from SA to use metric pattern FAL magazines.

I personally cannot stand the "klang" and the even worse "watch those thumbs" idosyncracies of a stock M1.

The Fulton Army webpage has the following (it is in frames so I cannot give you a specific URL):

"Hi, Clint, I was wanting to know if there are any conversion kits (e.g., the BM-59 parts kits being offered) or gunsmiths that can modify this rifle to accept M-14 mags."
Answer:
"To make the M1 Garand mag fed, it takes a substantial receiver modification, so part kits will do nothing other than provide a few of the easy parts. "It's the receiver, stupid"!"

"To make such mods to the receiver properly requires annealing the receiver so you can machine it (the exterior is file hard & while there are techniques to machine such materials, they don't come easily, nor cheap)."

"Then, if it's properly machined (and trust me, that's a real big "if"), then it needs to be re-heatreated. This step is even more difficult than the first! To get a proper heat treat is very difficult, especially when doing 1, or 5, or 10 at a time. The original Springfield Armory had its difficulties with heat treating millions of rifles, so, how do you think the local "Smith" is going to do? The down side is that the receiver could become a hand grenade, or a wet noodle. Neither is acceptable, both are dangerous, & a sorry waste of one of the finest rifle receivers ever made."

"So, in my humble opinion, if you want a mag fed Garand, get an M14/M1A type rifle. That's why they were made!"

Thanks for the valuable data. I have access to equipment that will cut hardened steel like butter, so hopefully I won't need to anneal and reharden.

P Dog is right there were M-1s modified to take a clip and were offered to the public as M-1-1/2s. I had one for a while. I am sure that all the TLC that Clint says is required was not done to these rifles. We couldn't get the one I had to shoot with a standard M-1 and it tended to misfeed and / or jam every fourth or fifth round. Too much fun for me. I found someone that thought the rifle was neater than I thought it was, and I traded it for something else.

Phantom Duck,

Thanks for the information. That is precisely why I want to use the metric pattern FAL magazines.

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.

Hi,
Mr. Werle makes what you want in .308
Look up "Buschenmacher" www.werle.com
Sahlein