KYwoodworker

[bruce drake]

Back in February, KyWoodWrkr sent me a email offering me a Garand barrel for my 43rd birthday because I had done a Pay It Forward for another shooter out in California. His gift was a Barnett 7x57 Garand Barrel that had been sitting on a shelf at his house for a long time.

Floored by his out of the blue gift, I promptly sent my oldest Garand and the new barrel off to Tim Schuff's Parkerizing/Gunsmith shop in Michigan for a rebarrel. It came back in under 6 weeks with the new barrel mounted. Tim didn't chamber the rifle for me as he wasn't certain it would be a viable cartridge for a Garand but I was the customer so he did the rebarrel as professionally as any other barrel job. I then put the rifle back together and using a stripped bolt and a 7x57 finish reamer from www.reamerrentals.com, I finished the chambering and got it back together and then loaded some generic 7x57 ammo for it and got it out to the range with those jacketed loads (40gr I4895/140gr Remington Corelokt) to do some function tests.

First loads didn't cycle with the stock .070" gasport but I reamed the port to .093" and installed a Schuster Adjustable Gas Plug and dialed it into function on a second and third trip to the range over the last couple of months.

It now rests in a Champions Choice polymer stock with the buttstock filled with lead shot and the recoil is just over a 30-30 with the heavy stock absorbing the recoil very easily.

Yesterday evening I got to go out to do some more testing with a ladder test and it looks like I might be dropping the powder back a bit more from a starting load of 40gr of IMR4895 a more accurate load at around 38.0-38.5gr for this 140gr bullet. I'm going to try another string of 5 shot clips at 37.5gr and 37gr later this month to determine how low I can go before the Garand fails to cycle a fresh round from the clip.

If I had to shoot this rifle for a rifle match at this point, the 38.0gr load would be my choice as the top shot in the group was a called flyer.

I'm having a hard time attaching pictures to this message but I have a good picture of 4 in the black out of a 5 round clip on a SR-1 highpower target.

Bruce

[MtGun44]

Great cartridge, and a personal favorite, but this the first Garand conversion to it that I have heard of.

Congratulations - should be a great rifle.

What a wonderful gift!

Bill

[bruce drake]

Thanks. I'm calling it my 7mm Heretic!

Most Garand guys I know get freaking crazy when you mention re-chambering to a cartridge other than 30-06 or 308Win.

Once I get the loads tweaked for a jacketed bullet, I intend to see what it can do with cast.

Bruce

[Mk42gunner]

A 7X57 Garand sounds interesting to me, I liked the cartridge in the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight that I had back in 1987. 140 grains always struck me as being kind of light for the 7mm, I wonder how a heavier bullet would shoot?

Robert

[bruce drake]

I've read that 160gr Round Nose was the original loading but finding any decent jacketed 7mm bullets here in Indiana is a little difficult right now. I do have a steady supply of 140s so that is the weight I'll be working with for now until I get a boolit mold for the caliber.

[MtGun44]

175 gr FMJ RN was the original loading, DWM Bell used it to kill in the range of 1,000 elephants with
brain shots due to the extremely deep penetration of the ultra-high sectional density bullet.
He also used the 6.5 160 gr RN military FMJs the same way, but preferred the 7x57 (.275 Rigby)

I loaded some 7x57 ammo with the Hornady 175 RN at 2400 fps that was used in Africa for plains
game more recently. It took 7 or 8 trophies with one shot each, only recovered a few bullets. Still works like it
has for well over a century.


Bill

[bruce drake]

What mold would be the best recommendation for that heavier weight bullet. I see Lee has a 130gr but I'm thinking the heavier weight would fit the window of use on this rifle.

[Bjornb]

Bruce,
There's a GB going on right now for a 170 gr. boolit from Josh at ACE. Otherwise I'd be happy to send you some RCBS 150s to test out.

[2Tite]

The Garand was originally designed for a cartridge called the .276 Pederson. The army insisted on it being 30 cal. As best I remember the .276 would have been very close to the 7mm Mauser in dimension. Good on ya.......f

[Dutch4122]

Here's a link to my group buy for the ACE 7mm Heavy designed by Badgeredd. Hope this helps.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?239641

[TNsailorman]

It wasn't necessarily "the army" which didn't want the .276, it was Douglas MacArthur. Procurement was under his command and he did not want a different caliber because he saw the waste of hundreds of thousands of rounds of 30-06 while the country was in a "depression". It was probably the right decision for the time. The .276 would have been closer to the .270 Winchester than the 7x57. Great Britain wanted to develop a similar round just before WW I but had to back off because of the coming war and not enough time to make the switch. The SMLE would have been done by 1914 and the P14 in .276 would have become their regular issue except for the march of history. my memory anyway, james

[DeanWinchester]

Thanks. I'm calling it my 7mm Heretic!

Most Garand guys I know get freaking crazy when you mention re-chambering to a cartridge other than 30-06 or 308Win.

Once I get the loads tweaked for a jacketed bullet, I intend to see what it can do with cast.

Bruce

7mm Heretic? That's a good one! LOL!

If I had money to burn I'd build one in 7,92x57mm just to really kick up the dander of the ridiculous purists out there. I loathe people who act that way. To tell someone what they can and cannot do with their own stuff is just childish. I watched a guy at the gun range several years get so berated by a couple of old farts, he packed up and left. All on account he was shooting smokeless jacketed loads in a sharps style 45/70. I'd love to sock one of those hotdog vendors in the mouth cause they tell people you CANNOT put ketchup on a hotdog.


I too have never heard of a 7x57 in a Garand but I bet my hat it's one super sweet shooting rifle! Very nice.

[Mk42gunner]

Since we have drifted to the .276 Pederson M-1, I remember reading an article by I think Chuck Karwan several years ago in which he stated that he had held one of the few remaining .276 M-1's. IIRC he said that it was a lot lighter and slimmer than the .30 caliber ones and that it had a better balance.

Robert

[bruce drake]

Well, I've gone to the heavy side as the loads I had started with (40gr of I4895/140gr Corelokt) with the polymer stock were slapping the doghairs off of me. I took the buttplate off and loaded the empty interior with lead shot. It has definitely eased the recoil into a nice push. The rifle is as heavy as the original wooden stocked M1 now.

Bruce

[bruce drake]

Recent ladder tests have shown that 38.5gr of IMR4895 will be the load for 140gr bullets in this rifle. I have a match next weekend (5th July) that will be its first foray into High-Power Rifle matches. Wish it luck!

Bruce

[UBER7MM]

The .276 would have been closer to the .270 Winchester than the 7x57.

TNsailorman is correct about MacArthur killing off the Peterson cartridge. Same thing happened to the P-14 in 7x57. The wars made what was worked in the past the standard.

The .276 Pedersen is a 7mm (.284") and more like a 30 Remington necked to 7mm or a narrow based 7mm'08. I saw a few in a gun shop display about 30 years ago. I should have bought a handful. They'd be worth triple now what they were going for then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.276_Pedersen

Mr. Drake,

7x57 is an interesting spin on a M1 Garand. I'd like to hear how it compares to a M1 in '06 when you have the time.

[bruce drake]

Here a couple of pictures on the early rounds for the Garand and the P13 Enfield were originally chambered for before they were changed to meet Army standards of both the US and the UK.

Bruce

(Picture links were bad. I'll add them back in tonight. when I get home.)

[bruce drake]

Here are the pictures I mentioned.

[bruce drake]

Today's 10 round string. One of them just squeaked out of the black.
Bruce

[catmandu]

Good shooting Marine. Very interesting choice for a M1G.

Paul in WNY