M1 Garand The M1 " Garand " was a semi - automatic service rifle designed in 1924 , and adopted in 1936 in the United States by equipping all its infantry , with the exception of one man in each squad who used a bolt action rifle for precision shooting / sniping , so that the American infantry was the only fully equipped nation on earth with a semi - automatic rifle during the war . General George Patton declared the M1 as " the greatest battle implement ever devised " . In 1957 , with the advent of NATO in the late ' 40s , the military ' s adoption of the 7 . 62x51mm cartridge , and the general issue box magazine fed rifles made the 30 - 06 , clip fed M1 obsolete in the now - changing world of military service rifles . It was replaced by the M - 14 in 1957 , but saw frontline service until 1965 , and is still used by the American military as a drill and ceremonial arm . The M1 Garand is widely regarded by firearms enthusiests , and historians as the greatest and most respected American service rifle of all time . Description . The story of the first semi - automatic rifle ever widely - adopted as a standard military arm began after the end of the First World War , when the firearms inventor John C . Garand ( Canadian born , then American citizen ) began to develop a semi - automatic self - loading , gas operated service rifle . This new rifle , was designed to replace the Springfield 1903 rifle , as well as required to outshoot and outperform all existing bolt action rifles in the world . The main rifles the new rifle was designed to outperform was the Springfield rifle , the British Enfield , German Mauser , Japanese Arisaka , and Italian Carcano , the new American rifle must shoot faster , have better , easier sights , load , unload , and reload faster , have less recoil , have an effective range of 700 yards or higher , must be able to field strip faster and easier without tools , be user friendly and extremely simple to operate , and must be extremely reliable and depenable in the worst conditions . With these requirements in mind , Dr . Garand worked at the government - owned Springfield armory and during the 1920s and early 1930 developed a number of designs . Early rifles were built using somewhat rare system of the cartridge primer blowback , but due to some reasons this system was unsuitable for a military rifle , so he switched to the more common gas - operated system . He filed a patent for his semiautomatic , gas operated , clip - fed rifle in 1930 , and received an US patent for his design late in 1932 . This rifle was built around then - experimental . 276 caliber ( 7mm ) cartridge . At the same time , his rifle was tested by the US Military against its main competitor , a . 276 caliber Pedersen rifle , and was eventually recommended for adoption by US Army early in the 1932 . But a little bit later an US general MacArthur stated that the US Military should stick to the old . 30 - 06 cartridge . Foreseeing that , Garand already had a variation of his design chambered for 30 - 06 . Finally , on the 6th of January 1936 , after 13 years of development , the U . S . military officially adopted Garand ' s rifle , and it was designated " US Rifle Cal . 30 M1 " . When the USA entered the World War 2 , the mass production of the M1 rifles was set at the Springfield armory and at the Winchester . During the war , both companies developed over 4 million M1 rifles . The M1 Garand was by - far the most mass - produced semi - automatic rifle of World War 2 . During the war , the M1 Garand proved itself as a reliable , accurate and powerful weapon . There were minor attempts to improve it during the war , but these did not left experimental stages , except for two sniper modifications , M1C and M1D . Both were approved for service in the 1945 and both featured a telescope sight which was off - set to the left due to the top - loading feature of the M1 . After the end of the WW2 the production of the M1 in the USA was stopped , and some rifles and also licenses to built it were sold to other countries , such as Italy and Denmark . With the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950 the production of the M1 for US forces was resumed early in 1952 . Rifles were manufactured at Springfield armory , and also at Harrington & Richardson Company ( H & R ) and International Harvester Company . Those companies manufactured M1s until the 1955 , and Springfield Armory produced the Garands until 1956 . With the official adoption of the new rifle and ammunition in 1957 , M14 and 7 . 62x51mm NATO , respectively , for US service , the M1 rifle became obsolete . It was still used during the later years , however , due to the lack of M14 and M16 rifles , and saw some service during the early period of the Vietnam war . Later , many M1s were transferred to the US National Guard , used as a training weapons by US Army or sold to civilians as a military surplus . Few M1 are still used by all branches of the US Military as a ceremonial weapons . Other than USA , M1s were used by Italy ( where these rifles were lately redesigned and rebuilt into 7 . 62mm BM - 59 rifles ) . Denmark , France , Greece , West Germany , Indonesia , Korea and multiple other countries , largely replacing their current service rifles such as the Lee Enfields and Mauser rifles . There also were attempts to rebarrel the M1 for 7 . 62mm cartridge in the USA and to adopt a detachable 20 - rounds magazines from Browning BAR rifles , but these were less than successful and haven ' t seen any significant service . The M1 was fed from the integral box magazine , which was probably the best part of the whole design , it allowed fast semi - automatic firing , and fast loading and reloading . The magazine was fed using only the 8 - round en - bloc clips , which stayed inside the magazine until all 8 rounds were shot . As soon as the magazine ( and clip ) became empty , bolt was stopped at its rearward position by the bolt catch , and the empty clip was automatically ejected from the magazine with the distinctive sound , this automatic ejection and clearing of the magazine was faster than box magazine fed rifles , that required the shooter to manually remove the magazine . The clips could also be manually ejected from the rifle at any time , simply by pulling the bolt back and holding it in place , then pressing the clip latch , once the clip ejects , the shooter loads in a fresh clip , this procedure took around 5 seconds , far easier , practical , and faster than topping off with clumsy single rounds with bolt action rifles , giving the M1 even more of an edge in combat . Topping off the M1 with single rounds was also possible , but was slower than simply ejecting the clip then reloading , topping off the M1 wasn ' t done often . M1 featured a wooden stock with separate handguards and a steel buttplate . The forwardmost part of the muzzle served as a bayonet mounting point . Sights of the M1 consisted of the front sight with dual protecting " wings " , dovetailed into the gas block at the muzzle , and the adjustable peephole rear sights , built into the rear part of the receiver . Sniper versions ( M1C and M1D ) also featured scope mounts on the receiver , offset to the left from the axis of the rifle , so it was possible to load it with clips and also to use its iron sights with scope installed ( in the case of the scope damage , for example ) . There were some attempts to make a handier and more compact version of the M1 by shortening the barrel by some 6 inches ( 152 mm ) , with standard wooden or skeleton metallic buttstocks , but these attempts never left the experimental stages . Some short barreled " tankers " M1 rifles , appeared in the post - war period , are not the genuine designs , but the " sawed - off " variations of the standard " long " rifles .