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Old 09-26-2016, 02:33 PM
Nyles Nyles is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 921
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I don't follow US prices very close, but up here that's a hell of a price for a Garand. Can't remember the last time I saw one for less than $1400. Makes me chuckle to remember paying $400 for mine (sometime around 2003) and thinking I overpaid.

I finally got my 35M on Friday. It's not as nice as the 43M (which makes sense, seeing as it probably went through Stalingrad), but quite decent. The bore is frosted, but has strong rifling so it should still shoot OK. It's made in 1940, so it would likely have gone through the entire Eastern front from the invasion of Yugoslavia on.

I snapped a picture of the two together, the 43M on top and the 35M on the bottom, with a clip of ammo for each (8mm Mauser on a stripper clip for the 43M, 8mm Mannlicher on an en bloc for the 35M). You can see most of the differences, with the two different magazine systems, the straight vs bent bolt and the finger grooves on the 35M stock. The 35M looks to have a walnut stock, whereas the 43M is beech or birch. If you look really close you can see the hump on the receiver of the 43M for the clip guides.

I had army all weekend so I haven't had time to take detailed pictures, but plan of getting a whole set showing the differences between the two for one of my collector's boards. If there's any interest I'll post them here too.

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