The M1 Garand is a military grade rifle that comes with a magazine that holds eight rounds of .30-06 Springfield, .308 Winchester, and 7.62×51 NATO cartridges, and was used predominantly in both World War II and the Korean War. As with every military grade weapon, rumors and myths begin to develop, especially when it comes to war stories, and the M1 Garand has its share of them.
This rifle in particular has one about soldiers being killed because of the signature ping noise (similar to a cymbal) created as it fires its final shot alerted the enemy to that soldiers location.
Fact or Myth
Fact: Yes, the M1 Garand’s magazine change can be loud enough to alert a nearby enemy—if they’re close, there are no other distractions, they recognize the sound, and can act quickly before the person has reloaded.
In a war zone or combat area, these circumstances are highly unlikely, so although it could happen, this one sound in particular likely would not result in getting soldiers killed. On top of that, a skilled shooter can change the magazine in under 3 seconds so the enemy would need to locate the direction of the ping and get a round off perfectly before the new magazine is loaded.
It is also likely there will be someone who has the soldier’s back while they reload. If the enemy made themselves a clean mark because they had to readjust to locate the direction of the noise and aim, the person covering may be able to pick them off.
This makes it unlikely that the ping sound from soldiers changing the magazine on the M1 Garand would have caused soldiers to get killed by identifying their location. Let’s dive in a bit more.
The noise from firing an M1 Garand is 168 dB when fired at 1 meter according to Lasalle University, so the enemy would need to know what the sound was like of the cartridges being fired and then recover their hearing to hear the ping.
In addition to the M1 Garand, the Sten and MP40 (Maschinenpistole 40) sub machine guns were used on the battlefields. Both are about equal and potentially louder than the M1 Garand, so they could drown out the noise of the ping with the magazine.
Yes, it is possible that the M1 Garand could give the location of a soldier away in a battlefield, but is highly unlikely. There would have to be a perfect scenario, and the enemy would likely not have enough time to aim and get a round off in time to hit their target. So we call this one a myth even though it could technically have happened.
