Yesterday (Friday, 10/16) Darrow Gervais and I spent the day at the CMP warehouse at Anniston Army Depot (CMP South), cleaning, gauging, and sorting M1 rifles that had been test fired and were nearing readiness for shipping. I think some of the readers here will be interested to know what we saw.

     We arrived in the morning and met Orest Michaels, on whose invitation (extended to all CMP customers and M1 enthusiasts via Dick's posting to this board) we were there. Orest showed us around briefly before we started work. The CMP building at Anniston is a small warehouse. It really is not very large, but it is very full with all kinds of stuff that would make some of our hearts race. There are crates piled high with .22's, M1D's, and a few other "items" that the CMP will be selling sooner or later. And there are M1 Garands. Crates full of them, crates full of parts, boxes full of receivers, spare barrels, everything one can imagine. It is all there. They actually have on hand only a fraction of the M1's in the U.S. inventory, as these come in periodically from various military installations. Space is at a premium, as they are forced to pay rent to the Army for the use of the building.

     One of the first sights I viewed when we started looking around was an open crate of M1's as they are received from the Army. They are in a huge box, stacked one on top of the other, just laid into the box. No Styrofoam, no packing materials, just M1 rifles chest deep on top of each other. This crate has been moved around with a forklift, traveled by train, ship, and/or airplane from some other location, and has been jostled around quite a bit. But this is how military rifles are stored. Now, anyone who sees this and still can find it in himself to be surprised or indignant to receive a rifle with a stock that has a lot of dings and dents in it, is beyond help. If your own stock has lots of dings in it, check them out, and it is likely you will find that their size and depth matches the sight knobs, op rod handle, bayonet lug, or rear sling swivel of another M1 in whose embrace your rifle spent the past 30 years. If you go over there to help out as a volunteer, what they have you doing will depend on what needs to be done at the time. There are no guarantees that you will be up to your eyebrows in rifles all day. But as it happened, we were! Jerry, the armorer, had a pallet stacked full of rifles that had already been test fired. They were sorted into their shipping boxes and the boxes had a printed label attached with the rifle's serial number. But they were not graded yet or assigned to customers. We took each rifle out and stripped it. We removed all the wood and degreased it with a strong solvent that left it bone-dry. Then to restore just a little bit of moisture, we wiped the wood down with an oily cloth. I suppose this might be the origin of some complaints I have read about rifles arriving "oily" and "greasy". The alternative is that they either arrive caked in cosmoline, or else so parched from solvent that the wood is in danger of cracking. It was pointed out to us that the rifles have spent a long time in climate-controlled storage, which has dried the wood out badly. A new CMP customer should strip his stock and handguards down to bare wood with oven cleaner or such and re-oil it properly with a good preservative oil like Tung or linseed oil if he wants it to last. As it arrives it is too dried out. It goes without saying that the CMP staff preparing these rifles (one armorer and one young helper) do NOT have time to strip and refinish the stocks of the thousands of rifles they have to move.

     After cleaning up the wood and wiping it down, we cleaned everything on the metal that could be reached with solvent and rags. We did not clean the bores. We did gauge the throat, the muzzle, the timing, and the headspace. We color-matched the wood on ALL rifles, select or otherwise. This was not my intention; I came in expecting to handle the service grade rifles exactly as the Army would have handled rifles for issue to troops, which would not include fussing over cosmetic trivialities like the color of the handguards. But the armorers are sensitive to the complaints they receive about such things. When I put my first rifle back together with walnut stock and rear handguard but birch front handguard, Jerry told me to change out the handguard, and make it match, pointing to a pile of handguards to choose from.

     After cleaning the metal and when the wood was wiped down and ready, we reassembled the rifles. We showed them to Jerry and made a judgment of the grade of the rifle based on its throat reading, condition of the wood, and condition of the finish. This is probably the part of the story that will interest the most people. We were working through a stack of rifles, many of which had Leaderkenny rebuild marks electropenciled on the receiver legs. These rifles were mechanically "like new". They had NEW barrels. A number of them gauged under two. But out of all the rifles we went through, somewhere between 20 and 25 I think, we only turned out two that passed the cut as "select". This was mainly due to the lack of complete sets of wood that (1) matched color, and (2) were more or less pristine as far as dings and dents. You must picture the crates again, full of M1 rifles, and then realize that the United States Army DOES NOT HAVE very many M1 stocks that look like something Fajen would sell you. Since Jerry wanted the select rifles to have nearly perfect wood, and since they had to have "excellent" finish, meaning no visible wear, anywhere, and the bolt and op rod color matching the receiver, we had no choice but to send out a number of rifles with brand new barrels as "service grade". The two "select" rifles that we processed would certainly please anybody I know, but probably not everyone. They had new 60's rebuild barrels. Receiver, bolt, and op rod colors matched and Parkerizing were excellent. One was dressed out in a nearly perfect set of walnut and the other in an equally pristine set of blond Birchwood. Both were assembled with absolutely no regard for the manufacturer's ID on the parts. One was a well-mixed Springfield and the other had an H&R receiver, an IHC op rod, and everything else mixed Springfield. Both stocks were rebuild stocks with no original cartouches.

     Of the rest, we turned out one "collector" and the rest were "service grade". The collector was a very nearly complete H&R that Darrow pulled out. All the rest were "service grade" rifles. Some of those were very interesting in their own right, to me at least, and I did not see any rifle that I would not have been happy with. All had dinged stocks (see: M1's stacked like cordwood together in big crates) and none that I noticed were strikingly rare with any unusual cartouches, although there were plenty of DAS stamps and such. None were gouged enough to allow the wood to splinter; we culled one stock for that reason and replaced it. We matched the color of all wood on the service grade rifles as well as the select.

     Of all the rifles I handled, two throats gauged between four and five. The rest were mostly between two and three. The most common throat reading was about 2.5. All had tight muzzles, all had proper timing, and all had intact and functional rear sight assemblies. There were a couple of "service grade" rifles that approached the standard of a higher grade but did not make it for one reason or another. I already mentioned the ones with BRAND NEW barrels, which could not go out as "select" because the finish was not perfect or we could not pull together enough pristine wood. There were also some substantially original pieces that lacked too many parts to call them "collector grade". I processed an H&R with its original barrel, bolt, and trigger group, but with a Springfield op rod, rear sights, and a nondescript walnut stock. The throat gauged around three. Another service grade rifle I prepared was a Winchester with its original bolt, op rod, lock bar sights, wide wing front sight, and its original 1942-barrel; but with a mixed SA trigger group and a nondescript stock. There was one other Winchester with original WWII barrel but it was less complete.

     Another thing that might interest some people. As mentioned, the CMP is VERY short of wood. There is virtually no spare wood sitting around to pick from. This is in fact the reason why they have taken all wood off the price list. However, contrary to some people's belief, when one chooses "service grade less wood", these do not come out of a pile of abused rifles with bad wood stripped off. On the contrary, serial numbers are assigned to customers up in Ohio with no idea of the wood or woodless state of the rifle. If an order comes through for a service grade rifle with no wood, they take the service grade rifle assigned to you and pull the wood off. There is NO difference in quality between the service grade and the service grade without wood. They do in fact come from the same pool. As a matter of fact, I do not myself think that the old military wood the service grade rifles come with is worth $125 so I intend to go with the service grade less wood option myself in the future.

     A word about pitting. All pitted parts were culled and replaced while we were there. We replaced a few minor parts but also culled one receiver due to what I honestly considered minor pitting. Certainly in any military context it would be laughable to reject the parts that we pulled due to pitting. It was done solely to keep the customers from pitching a fit. But it was done to all rifles that we processed if they had any pitted parts.

     While we were there a customer who lives in the area showed up with his rifle complaining that it would fire but would not extract. He brought some of his ammo to show what he was using. His problem was that he was firing 7.62x51 ammo out of his .30 cal. M1 rifle. Anyhow, Jerry the armorer spent about half an hour with the guy at his bench giving him a personal little walk through with his rifle, showing him how to strip it and take care of it, explained the ammunition needs of the rifle, gauged all the parts for him, and sent him away happy.

     Based on my day at Anniston, I made several conclusions. First, I will take my chances with service grade in the future. Most of the service grade rifles are in very good condition as they have always been, MECHANICALLY. However I was told that most of the irate complaints they receive about "boat oars", etc. are due to the wood. There seem to be a certain number of people who simply don't know what a military rifle is supposed to look like and want a perfect one, or nothing. Fine, those people are given refunds without delay if they desire.

     Secondly, I myself will be going with the "no wood" option. Despite Fajen going under, I expect that someone else will be making affordable new drop-in service grade M1 wood in the future. If I can get a brand new walnut set smelling of fresh linseed oil for less than $125, as opposed to a 40-year-old rebuild stock from the bottom of one of those giant shipping crates, then that is what I prefer.

     Third, if you choose "select grade" because you want an excellent condition shooter, and you find that you are waiting two or three months for your rifle while "service grade" customers are getting two week turnaround, thank the guys who get a "select grade" rifle, then whine about the wood or the Parkerizing. Your TE 1.0, new 60's barrel, mechanically perfect select grade rifle probably went to some service grade customer instead of to you because the stock was dinged up or the bolt was a different color from the receiver, and that is why you get to wait a little longer.

     Fourth, the CMP staff are a great little group of people who work hard to turn out these rifles. They make every effort to satisfy the customers. If you ask them for something that they are able to give you, they will give it to you. If you ask for something that just doesn't exist in the pool of rifles they have at hand, then you will be disappointed. But not because they didn’t do their best for you. I intend to pick up all my CMP rifles in person henceforth, as I know now that if there is any genuine problem with the rifle that can be fixed with new part or such (if one is not picky about date or markings, that is always possible, even if the rifle needs a new barrel), they will fix it, or let me fix it, right there before I leave. If I drive all that way over to Anniston, I'll make a day of it and spend another day working in the warehouse.

     Fifth, The CMP South branch is very shorthanded and welcome volunteer help. If you ever wanted to spend a whole day up to your neck in M1 rifles, this is your chance. E-mail Orest and set it up.

     Oh, one more thing. The staff at Anniston read this page and is aware of the comments. They are not trying to cheat anyone and sincerely want to do their best to satisfy the customers. If you get a rifle that you are not happy with, I recommend that you contact Orest "FIRST", and see if your problem can be simply and quickly SOLVED to your satisfaction.