My 15 yo son asked if he could field strip my Garand today. The trigger assembly was removed but niethwr of us can dislodge the stock from the receiver. Any instruction/hints would be appreciated.

Btw he has Sucesscully stripped my 1911 Colt, andmy AR , so I was confident he could successfully do the same with the Garand. I have a feeling it has not been stripped since dad's return from ETO in 1946.

Disregard, thanks to Sgt. Major Choozoo he has completed this step. It is interesting to us to see the in we workings of this rifle that came home with my dad from Germany in early 1946.

I've never asked how he brought home his service rifle as well as a Luger. It's my understanding this was illegal, but maybe not for officers.

Funny story. My brother-in-law's grandfather was a soldier and either wanted to keep his side arm, or wanted to bring a Luger home, I can't remember. Either way, he broke it down after the way had ended and sent it home piece by piece to his father. A couple weeks after he had sent everything home, he got a package from home. His father had assembled the gun and sent it back. Don't know how true that story is, but it just reminded me of what you said about bringing it a service weapon home.

^

Big Truck,

I finally asked Dad how he got the Luger and Garand home after the war. He said it was very easy. He was the officer in charge of inspecting the baggage of returning soldiers for weapons and/or other war "souveniers".

Great story about the dad sending the Garand back in one piece!

Blue Bell...

I might be preaching to the choir, but if you or your son ever decide to shoot that Garand, do NOT run modern 30-06 ammunition through it without swapping the gas plug.

You're far safer to just dig around on the internet and find M2-ball ammo which is still readily available. Modern 30-06 rounds will over pressure the gas system. You might be alright, you might just bend the op-rod, or the whole damn thing might blow up in your hands.

If you can become eligible with Civilian Marksmanship Program, you can pick up surplus 30.06 pretty reasonably. Might even find ammo cans with bandoleers of loaded clips (not magazines) as well as loose ammo in the cans.