New Crown

[Rifleman]

I decided that it was time to do the crown on the 5.7 HRA. It has a MW of .5 but shoots terrible and will only hold the 7 ring...sometimes. I have tried everything else to make it shoot with no luck so we will see how this works out. The tool I used is the M1 Garand Three-Faceted (1964) Crown Tool from Pacific Tool and Gauge. Here are the before and after. I will post a range report next week.

307before.jpg307crown.jpg

[nf1e]

Looks pretty nice.
Have been using the Dave Manson crowing kit for a few years. Makes a significant difference it the crown was bad.

Semper Fi
Art

[bruce]

Just found this post. Will follow thread with interest. Sincerely. bruce.

[Rifleman]

Art I have looked at the Dave Manson crowning kit and it is on my wish list for sure. Bruce I'll hit the range Wednesday, if not then Thursday for sure.

[leftyo]

with how that original looked, im guessing you made an improvement.

[Sunray]

A pretty crown isn't going to fix an accuracy issue. Far more to accuracy than the crown. And that one doesn't look bad. How's the trigger, sights and bedding?
"...the 7 ring..." On which target?

[Rifleman]

The target is a SR1 @100 yards. The rifle has received the works trying to correct the issue including a parts swap with another rifle to no avail. Well, it has a new crown now so we will know the answer to that for sure tomorrow or Thursday.

[Rifleman]

Ok...Today I was able to make it to the range a test the new crown with one change in the plan. I had a second rifle that was not a very good shooter so I decided to do the crown on it also. I did not think that it would be fair to only do one rifle then give a report if the results where negligible or made it worse.
So the rifle that started this post (HRA 5709150) now shoots a 2-3/4" group. As mentioned above it was wild and as I was re-cutting the crown I could see that the muzzle was not square which explains why it was throwing bullets wildly to the left. It has it's factory SA barrel which was surprising to me, I would not expect that from SA.

HRA 5709307 was next. Before it was re-crowned it would shoot a 5" group with a crazy flyer every few shots, a poor shooter for sure. But it had a MW of 1.5 and a bright bore and original HRA barrel and like 150 I had done everything I could think of to get it to shoot. It now shoots a sub MOA group, shocking. Both where fired using a bench rest @ 100 yards using SR1 targets.

Really what is there to say, I had two terrible shooters, did a re-crown and now they are ready to shoot a match. The results speak for themselves and it is very easy to do. I have been into M1's for 25 years but this is the first time I have done a re-crown and frankly that was a mistake. Only someone with a very keen eye would ever be able to tell it was done. I am planning to do a couple more M1's and I'll take pics along the way and do a post on that so you can see how easy it is to do and that the process is really fool proof.

P.S. Ammo used was PPU.

t4.jpgt3 (1).jpg

[nf1e]

You have learned one of the simplest ways to improve most rifles accuracy. Sometimes, all that it takes is a simple nick in the crown of a barrel to throw things off.
Even the rounded edge that happens in time to all crowns is easily cleaned up to, better than issued condition at times.

Semper Fi
Art

[togor]

Another reason to like flash hiders on the newer models.