M1 Garand Receivers

[elitraut]

I got these two receivers from an estate. They belonged to a gunsmith and gun shop owner. I?ve never owned a Garand so I know nothing about them. The one appears to have been welded in a few places. Could these be made back into working rifles? Or are they just paper weights? What would they be worth? Thanks, Eli

[socal m1 shooter]

Welded demilled receivers are generally regarded as unsafe. The quality on the top one (M14 receiver) looks iffy but your images are not great quality.

The bottom looks to be a modified M1 Garand receiver. No rear sight base, that’s not an improvement.

=========== update ===========

Fulton Armory on the dangers of rewelded demilled receivers

[Striker62]

Receivers are cut in half for a reason. They are substandard in the eyes of CMP or a smith. Tight tolerances required for a Garand are not met and the two receiver halves may not be from the original receiver. I would not consider them more than a paperweight.

[glassparman]

I have one of those "Golden State Arms" M1A clones that were cut down Garand receivers made way back when in the 70's.

They were cut down and welded in the ejection area so you could use M14 bolts, magazines and such and a 308 barrel.

It works great and never had a problem. I'm sure there are still a few out there like mine. Not sure how many they made but the workmanship seems good.

Not sure why yours was cut down in the backend though. As others mentioned, it may have been to demill the item.

[Spyder]

Unless there's a particular thing about them that you want (serial number, family history, etc), you'd probably be better off buying a rack grade from CMP as a starting point over using one of those.

[NorcalGSG]

I'd buy for a display piece, but yeah not worth messing with for a functional piece IMHO. Guy was probably just doing projects with them etc. Back in the day many were cut up as part of demilling process and sold for scrap etc. That rear sight missing was possibly a scope mount project of some sort.

[Citadelgrad87]

There used to be a guy who re welded M14 receivers. He used M14 receiver metal as his welding material (I am ignorant of metal working terms).

They were excellent shooters. I fired one and you could barely see the repair, and only on the inner rails, IIRC.

Then there were M1 Garands that were welded together after cutting, my uncle had one, he's been shooting it for 50 years that I know of.

But, yeah, without specific information on who did the reweld and how, I would not put my cheek on the stock during firing.