TINCANBANDIT's Gunsmithing: Where was your M1 Rifle made?

In America we have two groups of gun owners....those that own an M1 and those who want to own one.....I belong to the former group.

For the last several years I have been posting a series of stories about old firearm factories, I recently included one that was used only during WWII.

During the war, many manufacturers of durable goods were contracted to make guns or gun parts. This was because all the gun manufacturers were already at capacity making guns for the war.

Because July is the birth month of America, I decided to dedicate this months "Firearm Factory of the Month" to those factories that built was was arguably the greatest small arm to be used in any war: The M1 Rifle, so let's take a look at where the M1 was made.

The Springfield Armory

We will start with the Springfield Armory...no not the private company from Illinois co-opting the name, but the real Springfield Armory in Springfield Massachusetts.

The Springfield Armory is the birthplace of our beloved M1 Garand.

It was here on November 4th, 1919 that Saint Jean Le Baptiste Cantius Garand (aka John C. Garand) went to work at the Armory to finish a design for a light machine gun that he had submitted for review during the Great War.

It wasn't long before the Army gave him a new task. Create the "greatest battle implement ever devised"...well they didn't put it that way, that was what General Patton called the M1. What they wanted was a replacement for the M1903 rifle.

It took Garand 15 years to perfect the rifle and on January 9th, 1936 the U.S. Army officially adopted the rifle as the "Semi-automatic, Caliber .30, M1 Rifle".

Back to the story of the Armory. It was in 1777 during the Revolutionary War that General George Washington scouted and chose the sight for a new armory where the firearms could be produced for the new republic. He felt it was a perfect location as it was at a cross-roads for by-ways heading to New York, Boston, Albany and Montreal. It was also protected from water navigation as the only navigable river had a large falls preventing any vessels from getting close enough to attack. The river(s) close to the armory would provide the power to run the machines.

The armory was originally intended for the manufacture of ammunition and other materials as well as a storage for weapons. It wasn't until 1795 that the Armory began producing weapons. The model of 1795 Flintlock Musket was the first firearm produced there.

Nearly every engagement fought by the United States between 1795 and 1968 featured a weapon made at the Springfield Armory.

In 1937 the Armory began producing the M1 rifle. By the time production ended in 1957, some 4,188,669 M1 Garands were produced there, including my M1, serial #18798XX, made in 1943.

In the photo below workers at Springfield in 1942 are performing the final assembly of M-1 Garands.

Today the Springfield Armory is a National Historic Site, the main arsenal has become a museum and a technical college also resides on the campus.

Winchester Repeating Arms

Winchester Repeating Arms Company was the only other manufacturer of the M1 during WWII. Winchester's involvement with the M1 started on April 4th, 1939 when Winchester was provided with a "educational contract" to produce 500 M1 rifles. Later that year on September 20th a second contract for an additional 65,000 rifles was issued. Internally the M1 rifle was known as the model 39 (for the year of the 1st contract I assume).

In the photo below, taken January of 1941, John Garand test fires a Winchester produced M1 while Army brass looks on.

By the end of the war in June of 1945 Winchester had produced 513,880 M1 rifles.

If you have never been told the story of how Winchester became one of the largest gun makers in America, I'll give you the brief run-down.

In 1855 Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson decided to partner with Courtandt Palmer, who owned the rights to a previously designed lever action type rifle. They set up shop on Hollyhock Island in Norwich, CT.

The team sought investors and a shirt maker by the name of Oliver Winchester took the bait. A year later the company was in financial trouble, so Winchester bought out (or forced out) the other partners and moved the operation to New Haven, CT. He set up shop just a few blocks from Yale University and called his company the New Haven Arms Company. He then hired some talented gunsmiths and the rest is history....

Meanwhile Horace and Daniel went on to form the Smith & Wesson Revolver Co. In Springfield, Massachusetts, about 3 miles from the Springfield Armory discussed above.

Later New Haven Arms was reorganized and renamed the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. After "winning the west" with their model of 1873, they helped millions of hunters around the world put food on the table.

The New Haven plant produced millions of rifles and shotguns between 1857 and 2006.

During WWII they produced the M1 Garand along side its little brother the M1 Carbine was well as their model 70 rifle, model 12 and model 97 shotguns.

While Winchester's future seemed bright, they had undergone several re-organizations and a buy out by Fabrique Nationale. On January 17th, 2006 it was announced the New Haven factory would close after 140 years of production.

The Factory sat empty until it was purchased and turned into apartments and offices. It is now called "Winchester Lofts".

A side note to this story, when Winchester ended production of the M1, the U.S. Government retained ownership of the tooling and shipped the lot to Italy where Beretta manufactured the rifle known as the model of 1952 for NATO troops in Europe, They later redesigned parts of the rifle into what became the BM59, much like the M14 was developed in the U.S. from the M1.

International Harvester

When most people hear the name International Harvester they think of combines or the Scout vehicle, but during the Korean War IHC was provided a contract to build the M1.

International Harvester was formed in 1902 when McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, the Deering Harvester Company and three other small companies merged. The new enterprise was headquartered in Chicago. While they had plants in many cities across the "rust belt", the plant in which they built the M1 came along later. It was originally built to manufacture planes for WWII.

In March of 1942, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Republic Aviation announced they would build a new plant adjacent to the Evansville, Indiana airport to produce the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane.

The plant was massive, covering 70 acres and nearly 1 million square feet of production space.

During the war, Republic produced more than 15,000 P-47s.

On August 20th, 1945, with the war over, the need for the P-47 was gone, the workers were informed the plant would close.

On January 4th, 1946 International Harvester bought the Republic Aviation plant for $5 Million. They intended to produce refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners to supply the massive post war demand.

On June 25th, 1950, North Korean Communists invaded South Korea sparking another war. The U.S. entered the war at the urging of the newly formed United Nations.

On June 15th, 1951 The U.S. Ordnance Dept. issued International Harvester a contract to build 100,000 M1 Garand Rifles. IHC was chosen, not because of their firearms making prowess, they had never built a single firearm, but because of their production capability and their location.

Previously Winchester and the Springfield Armory were the only two producers and those two plants were only about 60 miles apart, whereas Evansville was over 1000 miles away (by road).

Despite subcontracting many of the parts, IHC had trouble meeting deadlines and in the end had to buy out their contract. All told they produced 337,623 rifles.

One road block was the parent company had sold the Evansville plant to Whirlpool Corporation in Sept of 1955.

Whirlpool operated the plant until foreign competition (and NAFTA) pushed them to relocate to Mexico. In 2010 the plant was closed.

The old plant still exists, on Route 41 next to the Evansville Regional Airport, it is now occupied by several tenants.

Harrington & Richardson

Harrington & Richardson is the last of the manufacturers on this list. H&R is a name most gun aficionados will recognize. For many years they produced good quality, value priced revolvers and shotguns.

Formed in 1871 as Wesson and Harrington by Frank Wesson (brother to Daniel B Wesson of Smith & Wesson) and his nephew Gilbert Henderson Harrington. They set up shop in Worcester, MA to build a variety of pistols and shotguns.

In 1874 Wesson sold his shares and a year later William Augustus Richardson bought a 50% stake in the company. The company was renamed Harrington & Richardson.

After bouncing from one facility to another the company built a new factory in 1894 on Park Avenue in Worcester. The plant would be expanded over the years taking up most of the block.

With the problems in setting up production at International Harvester, a contract for 100,000 M1s was given to H&R on April 3rd 1952.

When it was all said and done, H&R produced 428,600 M1 rifles. They are considered by many to be the best post WWII production M1s. During the War H&R also produced the M50 Reising submachine gun.

In 1986 H&R filed for bankruptcy and the factory on Park Ave was torn down.

The company reformed a few years later, but it was not to last, eventually H&R was bought out by Marlin, then Remington then absorbed, never to be seen again......then Remington went bankrupt and its subsidiaries were sold off. The parent company of Palmetto State Armory purchased the rights to H&R. Rumor has it they plan on producing an M1 copy using the H&R name again.