Mr. Garand’s Opus
Canadian born John C. Garand went to work at Springfield Armory in the early 1920s and by the mid ’20s was tasked with developing a semi-auto main battle rifle for the U.S. Army. Practically everyone who ponders the M1 Garand in its final form simultaneously thinks “.30-06” but more specifically it was U.S. Caliber .30 M2 Ball. This particular permutation of U.S. ammunition fired a 150-gr. FMJ bullet at approximately 2,740 fps muzzle velocity.
The first prototypes of Mr. Garand did no such thing. They chambered an experimental .276 round sometimes also referred to as .276 Pedersen — named for the other famous weapons designer. The .276 fired a 120-gr. bullet at about 2,700 fps. Also interesting is the bullets were not 0.276″ though it was the bore diameter of the rifles meant for it. Their groove diameters were nominally 0.284″ as were the bullets in the .276 Pedersen rounds. So when considered by today’s cartridge terminology, the experimental cartridge was actually a 7mm.
One day in 1932 must have been a dismal one for Mr. Garand. His brand-new rifle was ready for submission and official testing. At this time the U.S. Army Chief of Staff was General Douglas MacArthur but he rejected it primarily because of its .276 cartridge. General MacArthur made many mistakes in his legendary career but this wasn’t one of them.
One reason was the United States had enormous stocks of U.S. Caliber .30 ammunition left over from World War I. Another reason was if America’s main battle rifle became a .276, what about all the .30 caliber M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) and M1917 and M1919 Browning machine guns in service? Would or could they be rebarreled? Or, should the U.S. Army supply two different, full-sized rifle cartridges to its combat units? Mr. Garand was instructed to return to the drawing boards and make his rifle accept .30-06.
Meanwhile, John P