This is the history of an AU Garand...
Semi-Automatic Rifle, Caliber 256, M1
1919 Canadian-born Garand went to work at the United States Army's Springfield Armory and began working on a .30 caliber primer-operated breech. In the summer of 1924, twenty-four rifles, identified as "M1922", were built at Springfield. At Fort Benning during the summer of 1925, they were tested against models by Berthier, Hatcher-Bang, Thompson, and Pedersen, the latter two being delayed blowback types. This led to a further trial of an improved "M1924" Garand against the Thompson, ultimately producing a positive report in May of 1926 from both the Infantry and cavalry boards.
13 August 1926, a Semiautomatic Rifle Board carried out joint Army, Navy, and Marine Corps trials between the .30 Thompson, both cavalry and infantry versions of the T1 Pedersen, "M1924" Garand, and .256 Bang, and on 21 September, the Board reported no clear winner. The .30 Garand, however, was dropped in favor of the “.256 fat” or what will be the iconic 6.5x39mm, based on a shortened 30-06 cartridge that is necked down to accept a 6.5mm 90 grain bullet. Especially after the first Ballistic Gelatin Experiments in October reveal that the .30-06 performance could be duplicated in the .256 with little effort and be more cost effective, lighter and have less recoil, allowing the construction of a smaller more controllable SAR.
Against strenuous objections from the ‘Big Bore Mafia” led by General MacArthur on 1 January 1927 the Ordinance board recommends that for the next US service Rifle for both the Army and Marines be chambered for the M1926 .256 caliber cartridge based on the ‘.256 fat’. The Ordinance Board also orders disintegrating link belt ammunition for testing a M1919 Browning Machine gun in that same cartridge caliber.
Further tests by the SRB in July 1927, which included rifle designs by Browning, Colt-Browning, Garand, Holek, Pedersen, Thompson, and an incomplete one by White, led to a recommendation that the T3E3 Garand be ordered for further testing in November 1928.
Twenty gas-operated .256 T3E3s Garands were made and competed with T1 Pedersen rifles in the spring of 1929. The .256 Garand was the clear winner of these trials.
7 January 1930 Patrick Hurley Secretary of War overruled Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur 5 January declaration on the 30-06 and accepts the 4 January 1930 recommendation of the SRB to order 225 of the .256 T3E2 for Field testing, with the addition of a twenty or thirty round box magazine based on the BAR type magazine in place of its fixed magazine, this weapon is to be designated the T3E3.
In a controversial move to lighten up the weapon to the target weight of less than seven pounds a composite fiberglass-graphite cloth stock in green and black, with steel and rubber inserts was used for the stock. This radical design cut the weapons weight in half and was nearly totally immune to climate and weather effects, even in the extreme cold and was praised by many of the weapons testers and users for lightening the infantries load. Marine Force Recon and Airborne Infantry used the M1A version which has a folding steel stock and a pistol grip that was well liked in both services.
On 1 November 1930, the T3E3 became the Semi-Automatic Rifle, Caliber 256, M1. In May 1930, 125 M1s went to field trials; 50 were to infantry, 25 to cavalry units and another 50 to the Marines. Numerous problems were reported, forcing the rifle to be modified, yet again, before it could be recommended for service and cleared for procurement on 1 May 1931, then standardized 9 March 1932. The first production model was successfully proof-fired, function-fired, and fired for accuracy on July 21, 1933. In 1935 the barrel, gas cylinder, and front sight assembly were all redesigned based on recommendations following significant field use and after action reports.
Production difficulties delayed deliveries to the Army and Marines until September 1934. Machine production began at Springfield Armory that month at a rate of ten rifles per day, and reached an output of 100 per day within two years. The M1 had very few vices and experienced surprisingly few problems in the field after the 1935 mods. Production of the Garand increased in 1937 despite various material and political difficulties, reaching 600 a day by 10 January 1938, and the rapidly expanding Army and Marine Corp were fully equipped by the Christmas of 1940, even with having large orders for the new rifles placed both by the Free French and the Free Poles after the fall of France. Finland and later the Scandinavian Defense League (Norway, Sweden and Finland in 1941) also licensed the M1 in 1936 and used them extensively in their Winter War with the Soviet Union (1939-40).
UK
Great Britain produced its own intermediate cartridge, the 280 in 1932 for its own radical Enfield M-2A bull pup rifle which it adopted as their replacement for the Lee-Enfield in December of 1936 and started production of that weapon at 450 a day by May of 1937. The BEF went to France in 1940 with this weapon and the 280 caliber Vickers Light machine gun or 280 caliber Lewis guns for its infantry. Radically increasing the firepower of the British infantry formations.