Special Rack Grade available again

[burke]

I wants in .308 Should I wait or grab this?

[Shomway]

Originally Posted by burke

I wants in .308 Should I wait or grab this?

Special .308's haven't been available in over 3 years. Mark Johnson said 3 years ago that they would make a come back, but don't recall if they ever did. If they did this would likely be something that might show up at the store and not mail order.
I wouldn't hold my breath for the return of the .308 version...

[DP68]

There were five on the floor this morning at TMP. I bought one primarily for the barreled receiver for a project, so did not really care much about condition of the op-rod, gas cylinder, sights, etc. Of the five, three were pretty darn rough examples but all I would say meet the criteria defined by the CMP, IMHO. I think just as long as anyone mail ordering one goes into that with eyes wide open as to what the minimum criteria are (and that may be what they get), then all should be good.

[burke]

Originally Posted by DP68

There were five on the floor this morning at TMP. I bought one primarily for the barreled receiver for a project, so did not really care much about condition of the op-rod, gas cylinder, sights, etc. Of the five, three were pretty darn rough examples but all I would say meet the criteria defined by the CMP, IMHP. I think just as long as anyone mail ordering one goes into that with eyes wide open as to what the minimum criteria are (and that may be what they get), then all should be good.

Post pics?

[ZvenoMan]

Originally Posted by burke

I wants in .308 Should I wait or grab this?

Mr. Johnson's predecessor Orest said many times when in doubt you should grab what is available; predicting the future is risky.

The worst that will happen to you is you will acquire a 30.06 special and then have to buy the .308 special.
If you need $, the 30.06 special will be worth more than the CMP cost of the 308, for sure. But you will probably keep both, get a divorce, move into your parents basement as you buy other CMP offerings.

HG

[Yeoman007]

Originally Posted by Shomway

I'm willing to bet they sure are, and expect the "Specials" to be the future of sales. Interesting they have time to build enough Specials to offer for mail order, yet Field Grade orders are pushing a 5 month backlog. I'm thinking that now that they can offer Specials for mail order, the Field Grades will be posted soon as sold out. This happened with Service Grade orders when they were posted as sold out and Field Grades almost immediately became available.

I suspect they're offering the Special Rack Grade Garands because of what the armorers have to work with at the moment.

As I understand it, the armorers open a crate of Garands and work on what's in there. If what's in there is not suitable for Field Grade but is suitable for some other grades, then some other grades will be what are made.

The only way to turn out only Field Grades would be to open a crate, pull out all the rifles, sort out the ones suitable for Field Grade, repack the leftover rifles back in the crate, pull the next crate, and repeat the cycle. That's very labor intensive and will generate fewer total rifles over that period of time compared to working on whatever is there regardless of condition.

I think the armorers have probably opened a crate with a lot of rifles suitable only for Special Rack Grade. They're probably getting only a few rifles that are better than that. That's likely why some Service Grades and other grades show up in small quantities in the TMP store.

Just my best guess; I could be wrong as I have no special knowledge.

Rick

[MLD]

Originally Posted by burke

I wants in .308 Should I wait or grab this?

Why not grab one of these and change the barrel to .308?

[DP68]

Below link is to some photos of the Special Rack Grade I purchased from TMP today. As mentioned earlier, my main reason for buying is I need a barreled receiver for a project, so my selection of the five available was based solely on the receiver. I believe yesterday there were ten available, so likely this one fell somewhere in the middle of the original ten, but pick of the litter today:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...V9?usp=sharing

[pcke2000]

Originally Posted by ZvenoMan

As it is a refinished receiver with a new barrel and stock, assembled from parts plucked from bins in the CMP armory does it matter where the receivers came from?

Seriously, does that make them a better deal or worse?

JH

Yes, if chance of getting a heavily pitted receiver is higher with the Philippines returns.

[pcke2000]

Originally Posted by DP68

Below link is to some photos of the Special Rack Grade I purchased from TMP today. As mentioned earlier, my main reason for buying is I need a barreled receiver for a project, so my selection of the five available was based solely on the receiver. I believe yesterday there were ten available, so likely this one fell somewhere in the middle of the original ten, but pick of the litter today:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...V9?usp=sharing

It actually looks better than some 'ugly' Service Grades recently posted here.