Praxis: Repacking M1 Garand food and Desiccant pack

From a friend:

This will be two practical posts in one.  The scope of this is repacking ammo and desiccant.

Those of you with M1 Garand rifles probably are familiar with the “spam can” of M2 ball ammo that can be purchased from CMP. 192 rounds, 4 bandoliers, 6 en bloc clips, of 8 rounds each. It’s combat packed, right out of the can. The spam can is presumably well sealed and everything inside is clean, dry, bright and shiny. Right? Not necessarily. A friend of mine was telling me that he had a sealed spam can that he opened up and found evidence of water infiltration. But the spam can is also not what you want to be fumbling around with at the moment of need. And it is possible to get into a mess while opening the can if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing.   Like so...

So your spam can opening operation went poorly? Got tin snips?

Now you’ve got it open, inspect the inside of the can. How does it look? Clear, bright, shiny? Good, your ammo is probably likewise.

Now what?  Well how about repacking that M2 Ball into some 30 cal cans? What if you’ve got some M2 AP to mix in as well? Then you have two operations to perform. “Mixing” the M2 Ball and M2 Ball AP and repacking to the 30 cal can.

How to mix? In this case, there was enough to mix the ball and AP at a ratio of 2:1 respectively. I chose to do mixing in each bandolier.  Each bandolier will have 2 clips of AP and 4 of ball.  Keeping in mind that you want to be able to handle this smoothly in the dark, how will you know that you are grabbing a clip of AP or ball?  I repacked the AP without cardboard and the ball with cardboard. This provides a tactile indication of what you’re getting-if you pay attention when you’re grabbing it.

I also used a visual cue for daylight hours. A simple black dot on those pouches where I have AP.

(Black dot equals black tip? Should be easy to remember) A final note, I placed the AP in the same two pouches on every single bandolier packed. Consistency.

Now how much can you fit into a single 30 cal can?  Read on for my answer

Fold the bandoliers in the same way that you found them in when you opened the spam can. Like so:

Insert the bandolier into the can with the bullets facing across the width of the can. Be aware this will be a tight fit. You will have to be careful, gentle, and patient, but it will fit. Slide it to the bottom at one end of the can. Repeat for the other end of the can.

Now what kind of desiccant are you going to use?  (You are going to use desiccant, right?)  You can buy small pouches which are great for their small size-especially for densepacks like this.  Or you could buy a bag of silica gel from the Hobby Lobby for $5 and make your own silica gel containers.

Ta-da! An old medicine bottle drilled out in many places with the smallest drill bit you have will be big enough to let air to pass through, but keep the silica beads from getting out. Carefully spoon in some silica gel, close it up, and you’re done.

I put the “vitamins” in the very center of the pack where there was the most space. I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to fit that thing in there as tight as everything else was going in. But it did work.

Closure is tight and solid. The can feels like a brick and those bullets inside are not going anywhere until they’re removed from the can.

That’s 64 rounds of AP, 128 rounds of M2 Ball for a total of 192 rounds of M1 Garand food in en bloc clips, in 4 bandoliers, in a 30 cal can, combat packed, with desiccant.

Bon Appétit!