Introduction

The M1 Garand rifle became the standard weapon of the US Combat Soldier during three wars, World War 2, Korea and Vietnam and was still in use at the end of the Vietnam War unofficially by US Forces. The M1 Garand was adopted as the standard infantry weapon in 1936 and held that position until 1957 when it was replaced by the M14 rifle, as said previously it still proved popular and was used all through the Vietnam War unofficially. During its production run more than 5,500,000 rifles were produced with more than 4,000,000 being produced during World War 2 alone.

The M1 Garand clip unlike that of the SMLE rifle of the British was not a stripper clip and was slipped into the weapon, when all of the rounds had been fired it would eject usually creating a metallic ping as it left. This sound started to be listened for by enemy forces and upon hearing it they would break cover to fire, the US serviceman countered this by hitting the rifle with a piece of metal to deceive the enemy; this action was supposedly most commonly used against Japanese forces. The advantage of the M1 Garand over most other rifles during World War 2 was that it did not have to be cocked between each shot. Legend Productions has released four different offerings covering the M1 Garand Rifle designed by John Cantius Garand in different set ups. The offering I am looking at here is the M1D Sniper Garand Set.

Review

This offering from Legend Productions is supplied in an end opening card carton with their usual package detailing. The carton in my case is covered with a shrink wrapped plastic that makes the carton quite resilient. Inside of the packaging is a Ziploc bag containing the resin goodies that make up this offering from Legend Productions. Looking at the rifles in this set I will say that there is a lot of clean up required by the modeller due to the number of gates used by Legend Productions to make sure that there are no voids in the finished item.

This offering is one of the 3D mastered offerings that Legend Productions has got into in a big way and is making good inroads into the market with. This set provides five M1D Sniper Garand rifles 2 of these have the flash hider in place. You are provided with 5 sniper scopes that need to be added to weapon. Legend Productions has also provided 12 ammunition clips, an aspect that I greatly approve of.

The M1D Sniper Garand rifle was not issued until very late in World War 2 and so not a common weapon seen in the field, it was however in regular use during the Korean War and then on its way out at the start of the Vietnam War. The sight for the rifle is side mounted due to the need for the ammunition to be fed in from the top and Legend Productions has that aspect spot on. Due to the sight being offset a leather pad was slide over the rifles stock in order to move the snipers eyes to the correct position to sight the rifle.

The details provided by Legend Productions are a very good match for the real weapon with the only complaint I could make being the lack of harnesses for the rifles which would have been a very nice addition to this set. The ammunition strips are a very well done item of this set with a beautiful level of detail provided. I like that Legend Productions has provided muzzles with and without the flash hider. The weakness of this weapon was the scope having only 2.5 magnification meant that the rifle had very little improvement over the base model Garand M1.

Conclusion

It is good to see the weapons used by the Allies during World War 2 getting attention in resin and these offerings from Legend Productions are well done, but the rifle shown here is more likely to be seen in a Korean War setting. I do have a gripe about the lack of harnesses for each of the rifles as it would have added that extra attraction for the potential customer.