Powerfull, reliable, and fairly accurate. Only downside-the weight.

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The best infantry rifle in World War II. It was a 9 1/2 pound gas operated semi-automatic rifle firing the powerful 30/06 (7.62 MM) round. Eight rounds were held in a metal clip that was inserted into the receiver. When all eight rounds were fired, the clip ejected with a sharp sound. The rifle operated from gas bleeding off from the fired cartridge that went into a gas port in the barrel, pushing a piston that moved the bolt backwards to eject the spent cartridge and insert a new one . One criticism was that you couldn't top off the number of rounds in the rifle. For instance if you fired three, you couldn't add three because of the clip.

I own one and have shot it often.

*ping* The only bad thing about it can be summed up in that word. Still, the users turned the ping to their advantage by having their buddy ready to go with a fresh clip in his weapon, making the charge at the ping tactic a better way to die than anything else. Awesome weapon.

M1.... my favorite. So reliabale and with good power. defineantly better than a Karabiner 98K. Without a dumb bolt on it, its better and faster fireing (duh). Also. Germans, Japs and Russains had 5 round strip clips and americans had 8 round clips. LOVE M1s'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a fine weapon,semi auto,well made in large numbers,would like to know when it first came into use in the US forces,I guess about feb 42 may have been earler than that!had one of them good for shoting ROO`S

Saving Private Ryan really illustrated how this weapon really annihilated the enemy. Being that it was semiautomatic and did not require a cocking each time it was fired, it gave your average GI an incredible advantage. While the Germans had a predecessor to the AK-47 ready, there simply weren't enough produced to make a difference. In fact, I believe the Sturmgewehr-44 wasn't in huge production, for that matter, who knows, I didn't fight in the Big One.

Well, inasmuch as tboneya has anticipated my response word for word, I'll add a bit. The Garand went a long way towards giving the average US infantry soldier a better than competitive edge. It was a pretty simple, reliable weapon, fired an excellent cartridge, and probably gave the average grunt somewhat of a psychological advantage over opponents aremed with bolt-action rifles. It's synonymous with the WW II US GI, more so than any other piece of equipment he carried.