The tremendous popularity of competing with the M1 Garand continues unabated. In response, the Civilian Marksmanship Program and Creedmoor Sports have collaborated once again to produce match-grade .30-06 ammunition tailored to the M1 Garand. Composed entirely of top-tier components, CMP’s new ammo features a Berger bullet atop a Lapua case stuffed with Vihtavuori powder. Good stuff.
Back near CMP’s beginning in 1996, the Program began offering match grade M1 Garand ammo under the Creedmoor Sports banner, ammunition that featured the excellent 167-grain Scenar bullet. In testing that load from the bench back then, I found it halved my as-issued milsurp Garand’s group sizes at 100 yards compared to milsurp M2 Ball. CMP, however, discontinued the Scenar offering.
BC trumps velocity
Unveiled earlier this year and now available from the CMP e-store, CMP and Creedmoor Sports are collaborating again to bring Garand competitors a new match-grade offering, CMP Creedmoor Sports .30-06 Springfield Berger 150-grain OTM. This newest load features a brand new Berger .308 150-grain OTM (Open Tip Match) bullet launched from Lapua brass and propelled by Vihtavuori powder. The bullet is of tangent ogive type, a best- choice for factory loaded ammunition intended for semiautomatic rifles as it has an excellent ballistic coefficient (BC) and is not fussy about how far it has to “jump” to reach the rifling lands to start down the bore.
Standard M2 Ball ammunition, introduced in 1940 and remaining on US active duty into the Vietnam War (and still being employed today by insurgents, from the Middle East to the Philippines, in M1 Garands), features a 152-grain flat base FMJ bullet. US Army Technical Manual TM 43-0001-27 lists 50 grains of IMR 4895 producing 50,000 psi (CUP) to launch the 152-grain bullet at 2,740 fps. The US Army actually calculated velocity at a point 78 feet away from the muzzle because it utilized the mechanical Boulenge chronograph; measured with a modern electronic chronograph, M2 Ball velocity is approximately 2,790 fps at 10 feet from the muzzle.
A ballistic table on the back of the new ammunition box lists a muzzle velocity of 2,500 fps. While significantly less than M2 Ball’s nearly 2,800 fps velocity, Berger’s 150-grain OTM bullet has a G1 BC of .458, compared to the M2 Ball 152-grain flat base FMJ bullet’s BC of .390, which more than makes up for the difference in velocity. Competing at fixed, known distances we aren’t really concerned so much about bullet drop, but we care very much about wind drift. According to Berger’s online ballistic calculator, at 600 yards in a 10 mph full value wind, the M2 Ball bullet drifts 39.47 inches, compared to the 150-grain Berger OTM drifting 37.80 inches. Berger’s OTM outperforms the flat base bullet where it counts even though starting 300 fps slower.
Tighten groups
For functional testing of the new ammunition, I used my as-issued M1 Garand. The new ammo functioned flawlessly in the rifle, and group sizes, unsurprisingly, were reduced from those of M2 Ball. For accuracy testing, however, I employed my scoped M1903A4. My DCM Garand’s front sight, for some reason (possibly due to its age?) has become a bit fuzzy since I tested the Scenar ammo load some 25-odd years ago, so I went with the scoped rifle here to reduce any sighting errors. The 2.5x magnification is still mighty minimal by modern standards, but all 10-shot groups fired at 100 yards from the bench held the 10-ring with 50 to 60 percent of shots in each group clustering into single, somewhat elongated holes.
Though CMP-sanctioned John C. Garand matches are fired at 100 or 200 yards, teammate Jason Hook and I shot CMP’s new ammo in his M1941 Springfield rifle (with 8x magnification) during the 300-yard stage of CMP’s Western Games Vintage Military Sniper Rifle competition held at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix, Arizona, in October. In a light but swirling wind, I squeezed a 97-1X from the new Berger-Creedmoor Sports-CMP M1 Garand ammunition through desert mirage that alternated between laying left and right and boiling straight up. Clearly, the new CMP Creedmoor Sports .30-06 Springfield Berger 150-grain OTM load is fully capable of cleaning 200-yard targets from a good M1 Garand in capable hands.
Those who replace worn-out GI Garand barrels with new, match grade barrels will benefit from CMP’s new ammo. Certainly, there’s a point of diminishing return when shooting match grade ammo in any unaccurized, as-issued, semi-automatic military rifle, yet you can easily demonstrate for yourself at your local range that, compared to milsurp or even new commercial M2 Ball reproduction ammunition, this new match grade ammo can, indeed, improve your as-issued Garand scores by tightening up groups. That also serves as a confidence booster, knowing that our rifle and ammo potentially shoots better than we can.
For the Springfield, too
Neither CMP nor Creedmoor Sports loads their own ammunition for retail sales, so who makes this ammo? Learning the answer was perhaps the easiest investigative journalism I’ve ever done. There’s only one American company that deals in Berger, Lapua and Vihtavuori components and that also manufactures loaded precision ammunition, and an email to Capstone in Mesa, Arizona, confirmed that Capstone, already skilled and reputable in the manufacture of Berger match grade bullets and ammunition (as well as being the US importer of match grade Lapua and SK ammunition), is the maker. I also learned this new Berger bullet is exclusive to CMP Creedmoor Sports .30-06 Springfield Berger 150-grain OTM factory ammunition and is not available as a handloading component at this time.
Of course, CMP’s new match ammo is eminently suitable for the M1903 and M1903A3 Springfield rifle shooters, and the M1917 rifle shooters, as well, who compete at 200 yards (or 100 yards on reduced targets), the same as the Garand guys. Vintage Military Sniper Rifle shooters who compete at 300 and 600 yards with the M1C, M1D or M1903A4 or M1941 tend toward heavier bullets of 168 or 175 grains but, still—especially if you don’t handload—this new 150-grain Berger load is worth checking out. And if you do handload, well, now you’ve got a pile of excellent Lapua brass.
When you purchase CMP Creedmoor Sports .30-06 Springfield Berger 150 Grain OTM ammunition from CMP (the only place to get it), you are supporting CMP’s outreach to youth competition shooters. Twenty-round boxes are available for $43.80, and a case of five boxes is $219 ($2.19 per round, either way.) For information on other ammo offerings from CMP, including $25-per-brick milsurp Remington .22 Long Rifle, visit their e-store website.
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