So, I decided to order one of the Garands from Royal Tiger Imports

I've always wanted a Garand, and for years toyed with the idea of getting one from the CMP. I never did, due to all the various hoops to jump through.

I didn't just want "a Garand", I wanted something with a little history behind it. I do have some older milsurp rifles, and I want the "been there done that" part, not just a pile of parts stuck into a brand new stock.

So, RTI has been listing guns in "original condition, unrefinished"... which looked fairly rough. They would list actual guns with photos, so you could see what you'd get.

For $899 (yeah, a little higher than CMP base prices), I picked this up.






It is a Springfield Armory, with all SA parts. The receiver dates to April 1943, the barrel is SA marked 1944. As I recall, the bore and throat erosion were both around 3-4, so shot quite a bit but not completely shot out.

There is really very little pitting anywhere. The parkerizing is worn but still present, lots of freckling but that cleaned up with oil and TLC, the gas port looks mostly in the white (as I understand, it's stainless and would usually lose the black finish in a hurry), it has post-WW2 sights and a late trigger guard.
The stock is dinged up but no cracks, and with a little care cleaned up nicely. I rubbed down with raw linseed oil, and a few applications seemed to help the wood a LOT.
I didn't remove the numbering, as I understand those are rack numbers, and just some more history.

These came from Ethiopia, and my understanding is the US sent them a shipment of about 10k-20k. So we likely arsenal refurbished, then sent them, and they stored them as-is. So my best guess is this is as-is from when we shelved the guns, I don't expect the Ethiopians did any further "refurbishing" or what-not.

I took it to the range recently and shot some S&B 30.06 Garand load ammo through it, ran great and seemed accurate enough to my eyes. Might not be a match-grade gun, but I'm not a match-grade shooter
No hangups, shots grouped where I aimed (no flyers, no indication of widening groups or keyholing).
I was a bit surprised at how soft it was, as I was thinking it would be closer to the 8mm Mausers I have, or at least harder recoiling than my Cetme (a Spanish 308 semiauto, basically same design as HK G3). It's softer than the Cetme.
Oh, and yeah- I did give myself a slight case of Garand Thumb , while breaking it down, cleaning deeply and reassembling it. Nothing too bad, but between being a lefty, and just trying to figure out how this gun works, it was bound to happen.

I'm really pleased with it, it seems to be exactly what I wanted- a WW2 weapon that was redeployed to Korea, then was lend-leased out; and then coming home with me in basically the same condition it was on the rack. That's worth the extra money, as I wanted a surplus, not "just a rifle". I didn't want a brand new gun.

That's my review and impression, if anyone is curious about them.

To add- yeah, they did stick an import stamping on it, as required by any importer. It's a very faint electropencil marking on the barrel, that you really have to look for to find. Right hand side, in the photo it looks like some frecking above the gas tube.