M1 Garand vs M1A

hi before we get to today's presentation I have to take a moment for a very important announcement for the last few weeks I've been telling you that we were going to do a personal appearance on March 14th and 15th of 2020 and a gun show as of today with one day's notice they've canceled that due to coronavirus panic unfortunately that means I can only give you one day's notice the gun show has been canceled I dislike promising that I'm going to do something I'm half powers beyond my control canceling that so in the interest of consolation on Saturday March 14th at 1900 some of the crew and I will be out to dinner at Paddington's Pizza on Pine Street in Salem Oregon not near as fun as a gun show but at least we'll be there and of course those members of the crew that were single didn't want to disappoint those thousands of hundreds dozens ok those one or two women that actually wanted to come out and meet them so anyway I come out and say hi should be some fun although of course not nearly as much fun as the gun show so with that let's get to today's presentation [Music] hi we're out on the range today so please bear with gunfire here in the background today we're comparing the m1 a that's the semi-auto commercially available street-legal version of an m14 and the m1 this word right here and before we go any farther we have to discuss how do you pronounce that word well in many ways it's like tomato and tomato Caribbean and Caribbean Bernie Sanders and are you kidding different sources indicate different pronunciations I'm going to pronounce it garand because that's the way I've most often heard it so with that let's get started there are exceptions but most of the time an m1 garand is caliber 30.6 and most of the time M one ay is 7.62 NATO they'll also fire 308 Winchester ammunition what's the difference between 308 and 760 to NATO that's a topic for another time but let's take a close up look at these cartridges from your left to right or nine by nineteen five five six NATO seven six to NATO and 30.6 both have the same diameter projectile and you can see that the 7.62 nato is shorter than the 30.6 it may appear that the casing of the 762 is of greater diameter than the casing of the 30.6 that's an optical illusion at the base they're both the same diameter so we see that the 760 to nato is slightly smaller than the 36 but how do the two compare for power well if we were going to make a fair comparison of the power of the two cartridges we'd need different rifles these two have different barrel lengths if I read my tape measure correctly the m1 a has a barrel length of 22 and a quarter while the garand is 24 inches and that extra inch and three-quarter barrel might make some difference however today we're not comparing the ammunition specifically we're comparing these two rifles and so a comparison of power is fair so let's go to the chronograph and see what we can learn and we'll start with the Grande which I have loaded with military-issue Lake City 30.6 ammunition 26 69 2681 2690 2640 2686 and 2679 now let's see how the m1a compares and now the m1a which is loaded with military-issue lake city 7 62 nato a minute 27:35 2739 2759 2804 twenty seven sixty one twenty seven twenty and twenty seven fifty four let's try some different types of ammo now i've got the grand loaded with remington greeting yellow box 30.6 150 green pointed soft point 2861 2868 28 10 28 15 28 21 and 28 28 now let's see how the m1a compares to that and now I have the m1 a loaded with Remington green in yellow box 308 Winchester 150 grain pointed softball 27:91 2805 27 78 27 81 27 74 and 2802 let's go crunch the numbers well I crunched the numbers and here they are with our Lake City ammunition for 716 NATO we got a mean velocity of 27.53 and for the 30.6 2674 that means that the 7-6 - NATO is ahead by 79 feet per second but with our remington ammunition for 7.62 nato which was really 308 Winchester we got a mean velocity of 27 88 m to the 30.6 28 33 so the 38 6 is ahead by 45 feet per second now differences of 79 feet per second 45 feet per second might be significant when you're talking about handguns with velocities of 800 or 900 a thousand feet per second but with rifle ammunition where the velocities are above 2,600 feet per second these numbers aren't going to make much difference so our question which of these two rifles is more powerful looks like it has two answers one which one is more powerful is really going to depend on your ammunition choices and two no matter what your ammunition choices are the difference might not be enough to make any difference so how do these two rifles compare in terms of accuracy well I'll shoot the target on your left with the m1 a the target on your right with the m1 garand now there's a caveat here neither of these rifles are mine they both belong to a colleague of mine so neither of them have been zeroed for me so we want to concentrate on the size of the group not necessarily the location of it and I'll shoot from 60 yards I'm going to shoot off at 16 yards now before you send me any hate mail there's an explanation for this first offhand does not mean shooting with your non-dominant hand it means shooting from a standing unsupported position secondly many people will say that the comparison of accuracy is rendered invalid when I shoot offhand because I add too much of a variable to the equation well in this particular case both the m1 a and the m1 garand have well deserved reputation for being highly accurate platforms the real question is not how the rifles to compare to each other in terms of accuracy but how do they compare to each other in terms of accuracy winning in hands of the average shooter if I were to keep from the bench rest position then things like the weight and the balance would be for the most part taken out of the equation so in this case comparing the two shooting offhand is called for so with that I'll start with the m1 a now let's try the grand and now the grand let's take a look at the targets well here's our targets and they show us a couple of things first remember neither of these rifles are mine they belong to a colleague they were zeroed by and for someone else and I'm not going to change my colleague zero and we see that just because something is zeroed for one person does not necessarily mean it's zeroed for the next we also see that with an m1 a I've got a pretty good group one flier that's just me but the group is significantly better than the group I got with the garand now of the two platforms I have a lot more experience with the Grande than I do the m1 a I owned a garand at one time when I was in the military I had the opportunity to shoot the Army's qualification course with a grand a qualified expert I got if I remember right 39 out of 40 but the Army's qualification course is fired depending on where you are from a fighting position where you have arrests or from the prone when firing offhand a lot of shooters myself included find that the grand doesn't fit us as well as the m1 a does and these targets show the results of that now I've changed locations but when I'm doing that side-by-side drill even though I'm shooting offhand I'm trying to do slow deliberate well aimed fire what kind of results would I get if I were trying to shoot a lot faster what kind of results would I get if I added a magazine change to the drill let's try that and see what happens but first let me show you a close-up of how these rifles are loaded the way the garand loads is interesting pull the charging handle back and the bolt locks to the rear then engage the safety and then you'll use this eight shot clip which locks into the rifle now you may notice that when I put that clip in that the bolt comes forward a little bit usually that round will stop it sometimes it doesn't and your thumb gets caught in there giving you a case of what's called garand thumb then pull the charging handle back and let go and it should chamber around sometimes it doesn't and you end up hitting that charging handle forward you'll see that if you watch the movie Saving Private Ryan now the way this rifle unloads is also interesting pull the charging handle to the rear and try to catch that round pocket that and then hit your clip release and usually you're not going to catch that and you end up with the rounds on the ground but what's even more interesting about this is the way it reloads once you fired it until it's empty the way the garand reloads is very interesting I have one round in it and when I shoot that last round like most Auto loaders the bolt will lock back but what happens to the clip that's inside it let's find out it pops out of the rifle locking the bolt back put the new clip in and you're ready to go by contrast the way the m1a loads is not very interesting for the charging handle to the rear hold it engage the slide lock engage the safety and then load with a detachable 20 shot box magazine unlike an AR where the magazine goes into a mag well the m1a will load similar to the way in mini-14 or an ake a platform loads the magazine is rocked into place then hold the charging handle back release it chambering the round now this being typical of semi-auto is when I fire the last round the bolt will lock back then you release the magazine for the mag release behind the magazine and then reload with another 20 shot detachment magazine the m1a also lends itself to top off loading much more so than the garand does so now that we see the loading and reloading procedures I'll go back 25 yards and I'll shoot the target on your left with a garand and the target on your right with the m1a putting a mag change into the equation and shooting as fast as I think I can hit and see how the platform's compare and we'll start with the garand now let's try that with the m1 eh now the m1 a has 20 shot detachable box magazines but in the interest of consistency I have my magazines loaded with 8 rounds each let's take a look at the targets so comparing the results of the grand and the m1 a the group with the m1 a might be a little bit better but because the m1 a has detachable box magazines that lend themselves to top off reloading and because there are 20 shot magazines the m1 a can put a lot more rounds downrange in a lot less time so far what we've seen is that comparing the m1 garand and the m1 a they both have very well deserved reputations for high levels of accuracy ruggedness dependability but that accuracy when applied to being in the hands of the average shooter the m1 a seems to be the winner in terms of power that depends a lot more on ammo than it does the rifles themselves but no matter which ammo you select there isn't going to be much difference in terms of the ability to put rounds on target quickly the m1 a is the clear winner and that seems to be the bottom line here the m1a is the clear winner however although I've tried to make this comparison as fair as I can the question comes up how relevant is it let me see if I can explain what I mean the m1a or the military version the m14 is a much newer design than the grant in fact it was intended to replace the grand as the United States military's main battle rifles so we would hope that it would be an improvement and it seems to be but if you look at the context in which these two rifles were used the m1 garand was in the American Arsenal for a long time but its main use was in the Second World War and look at the rifles that it was going up against for example in the Vermont now of course they had submachine guns but so did the American military the Vermont had the Sturm Guevara but in all reality that rifle was never issued in very large numbers so your main straight leg infantryman in the Vera democ was usually armed with a bolt-action rifle and that's what the m1 garand would have gone up against most often while by contrast even though m4 teens are being used in the American military even to this day in the time that the m14 was the main battle rifle the rifle it would have gone up against would have been an SKS or even more often some version of an a k platform so how will these two rifles the grand and the m1 a compare against their contemporaries let's see if we can put that to the test so we've got two new targets set up at 25 yards I'm going to shoot the m1 garand and Chuck is going to shoot an eight millimeter Mauser bolt-action rifle five shot magazine that he'll reload with strip clips and dressing in some German camo does help him shoot a little better now the m1 holds eight rounds but I've got it loaded with seven and then I'll reload with one eight shot clip so we'll each fire fifteen rounds and let's see who can put those rounds on target faster on your command fire [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] even though I had to clear a malfunction I got my rounds off a lot faster now let's take a look at the target so here's Chuck's target with the eight millimeter Mauser here's my target with the m1 garand a lot faster and significantly more accurate now the first thing someone's going to say is well that's because I'm a better shooter than Chuck well I'd love to tell you that I am but last week we went to a shooting competition where he and I got the exact same score so we see in this venue the grand is a clear winner over its main competition now we'll put up some new targets and let's put the m1 a through this same drill now Chuck's gonna shoot the m1 a and I'm going to shoot an a K platform specifically a Wasser 1063 the m1 a again has a well deserved reputation for accuracy and is a far more accurate rifle at long distance but we're only shooting half-size silhouettes at 25 yards now the m1 a has 20 shot detachable box magazines and chuck is loaded with 20 rounds per mag a K platform rifles typically have 30 shot magazines but for the sake of consistency I'm also loaded with only 20 rounds per mag on your command fire [Applause] [Music] [Applause] let's take a look at the targets obviously the AKS the clear winner and remember the a K has 30 shot magazines but before we start stroking our aks too much remember part of this result is due to Chuck's familiarity or lack thereof with the m1 a platform so let's put up some new targets and try this drill again now Chuck's gonna shoot the a K I'll shoot the m1 a he has 230 shot magazines loaded with 20 rounds each I have 220 shot magazines loaded for 20 rounds each on your command fire pretty close in terms of time let's take a look at the targets and this time our scores were a lot closer in terms of group and time so m1 grand versus m1 a as I said before power pretty equal accuracy both are outstanding but in the hands of the average shooter the m1 a might be a little bit better the ability to put more rounds downrange in less time m1 a is a lot better comparing the two the m1 a is the clear winner comparing them in the vain of shooting them alongside their contemporaries then the winner isn't so clear so as always don't try this at home on what you call a professional and thanks for watching the m1 grand vs. m1 a video you

Channel: Paul Harrell

Views: 585,608

Rating: 4.9061856 out of 5

Keywords: paul harrell, paul harrell m1 garand, paul harrell m1a, paul harrell m14, m1 garand, m1a, m14, paul harrell m1 garand vs m1a, paul harrell m1 garand vs m14, m1 garand vs m1a, m1 garand vs m14

Id: y0rC-rJ_nIg

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020

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[u/superjared]

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