The Guns of Garand, Part II — The T1 and T3 GarandIn case you missed: Part IAfter the failure

The Guns of Garand, Part II — The T1 and T3 GarandIn case you missed: Part IAfter the failure of his primer actuated action, John Garand went back to the drawing board, beginning work on what would become the M1 Garand in 1926.  By 1927, he had built a whole new rifle, which was designated the T1 Garand (pictured above). The T1 was a semi automatic rifle in .30-06, which featured a gas operated system in which expanding gas from the discharge of the rifle was vented off from a small port near the muzzle into a gas tube, (located below the barrel, hidden by the stock), the force of which worked the action.  The new T1 featured an eight round magazine which was loaded with an en bloc clip. One major external difference between the T1 and the M1 Garand was the addition of a barrel shroud to provide cooling ventilation for the barrel.The new T1 Garand was to be entered into US Army Ordnance trials in 1931, however, Army Ordnance threw a big curveball similar to the one which doomed Garand’s primer actuated rifles; a change in caliber.  In the 1920’s and early 1930’s, many military officials believed that a new small caliber, high velocity cartridge should be adopted.  Thus in the 1920’s, the .276 Pedersen cartridge became popular, invented by John Pedersen, then a competitor with Garand. US Army Ordnance requested that Garand redesign the T1 to fire the new .276 cartridge. The new .276 Garand was called the “T3”.  Because it fired a smaller caliber cartridge, the T3’s magazine could hold ten cartridges rather than the T1’s eight. The T3 was entered for testing in Ordnance Trials in early 1931. The T3 outcompeted dozens of rival designs, until eventually it was a competition between the T3, and a toggle lock design by John Pedersen.  The T3 easily outcompeted the Pedersen rifle, which suffered serious reliability issues and needed to use greased cartridges in order to feed and cycle properly. The T3 was to be adopted by the military, but there was one more twist in the main development of the M1 Garand.  At first, the US Army was gung-ho for the adoption of a rifle in .276 Pedersen. Literally a day after the completion of Ordnance Board Trials, Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur intervened, detesting the adoption of the caliber because the Army had enormous stocks of .30-06 ammunition on hand. On February 25th, 1932 Adjutant General John B. Schuman ordered all work on .276 caliber rifles to cease.  As a result, the older T1 Garand was approved for field trials, and was adopted of the “Semi-Automatic Rifle, Caliber 30, M1”.  After the identification and correction of various design flaws, it was finally officially adopted in 1936. -- source link

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