[QVE45]

Hi everyone, I'm new on this site and do have questions about the Italian made M1 Garands from Breda.

Does any of you know how many Garands the Breda plant produced?

In which time frame did they produce Garands at Breda?

I have heard rumors that the first 100 Garands from Breda should not have been sold, is anyone able to confirm this?

Thanks in advance

 

[stand watie]

QVE45,

I suspect that the only truthful answer about how many Garands that Breda produced is: A great many. = The serial numbers were repeated, starting over with #1 several times AND several foreign government's Breda contract rifles have NO identifying marks as Breda-made.
(I was told when I was stationed in USAREUR long ago that Breda "assembled" many more Garand rifles from "spare parts" than they manufactured.)

As far as I know all Breda Garands are FINE as to quality.,
(Over the last 3 decades, I've owned a pair of them & they were fully as good quality as the Beretta or any of the US contractor's rifles were.)
By the way, Breda rifles were first made on Winchester tooling./machinery.

yours, sw

 

[GunGeek]

Of all the Garands to have, I have always thought the Breda would be the coolest.

I assume yours is in .308?

 

[QVE45]

Thanks alot for the answer

I have a Danish Military M1 Garand made by Breda, it's in 30.06 and is of course marked with Crown & FKF,
it have the s/n 0012 thats one of the reasons why I did ask, have had it for years now.

Regards

 

[GunGeek]

Jim Thompson has a couple of books on the Garand.

Here's a forum thread where he discusses Breda Garands, and he seems to confirm what I have always suspected about Breda & Beretta Garands; the receivers were probably all made in the same place (one would assume Beretta), and then marked Breda or Beretta.

Breda/ Beretta - Page 2 - CMP Forums

Jim Thompson's book
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-M1-Garand-Jim-Thompson/dp/0873649842

I hope this is helpful.

 

[GunGeek]

I find what Thompson said about the Winchester machinery to be very credible as well. Several books about small arms of WWII has mentioned that Winchester was a mess in WWII. Most of their equipment was 19th century...and we're not talking 1890's.

My bet is, the Italians took the whole lot just so they could get the jigs, fixtures, gauges, etc. The actual machine equipment was a train wreck.

Since Winchester was only making small arms...and in each case, was one of several makers for the various small arms they made; they never did find themselves high enough on the priority list to receive new machine equipment. The government gave them their contracts, said you have to figure it out with what you have, and if you don't get it done; your company can be forfeited...No pressure though.

Winchester had a ROUGH time with the M1 Carbine specifically. They invented the thing, but they really weren't in any position to manufacture it. Inland division of General Motors was the savior of the M1 Carbine program.

 

[Paul Brodnax]

Yes indeed, Winchester’s production machinery was inspected by Berettas engineers and scrapped. The gauges, fixtures, and production flowcharts were the “gems”. Beretta designed and built the production machinery they used for M1 production in house, and had never done so beforehand. They started production using statistical process control, which I believe Springfield Armory hadn’t incorporated yet.


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[GunGeek]

Yes indeed, Winchester's production machinery was inspected by Berettas engineers and scrapped. The gauges, fixtures, and production flowcharts were the "gems". Beretta designed and built the production machinery they used for M1 production in house, and had never done so beforehand. They started production using statistical process control, which I believe Springfield Armory hadn't incorporated yet.

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By the 1950's Springfield Armory was a completely inept organization; hopelessly stuck in their old ways and completely unwilling to change for anyone. They fought the DOD for a long time and rather than getting things their way, they were shut down in 1968. It's really sad that we allowed that to happen, but it is what it is.

I have fired a few Beretta Garands and have found them easily the equal of any other service grade Garands I have ever shot. I have read from others that the Beretta Garands were superior in overall quality to US wartime Garands. There could be some truth to that, but I doubt the difference was really significant.

There are lots of tales of Beretta's being more accurate than US Garands. With good quality ammunition, I never found this to be true. Now if using USGI ammunition made before around 1970, then yeah, chances are most others were more accurate. The issue with the Garand's accuracy was never the rifle. But USGI ammunition in WWII was (in some ways) rather low quality. The overall cartridge was just fine, completely reliable. The issue were the bullets. I have pulled bullets from .30M2 rounds from 1940 all the way to the mid '60's and I have found as much as a .003 difference in bullet diameter! Not even Russian ammunition had bullets that bad. (in all seriousness, Russian 7.62x54 was very high quality ammunition, making Mosin Nagant's a bit legendary for accuracy).

Because of this, the acceptance standards for the Garand during WWII was 6 MOA (IIRC), which is a good deal less accurate than an AK. However, with good ammo, most would shoot about 2.5 MOA with no trouble.

The Beretta's I shot were every bit as accurate as any GI Garand I ever shot.