Great choice for the daytime. I've added a Holbrook Device to my Garand to keep it from throwing away perfectly good clips, and I'm working on an article for Survival Blog on bringing Mr. Garand's gift to riflemen into the XXI Century.
However, it is nice to also have something that can use ammo you can get from friendlies if there are any, or from hostiles who don't need such things any more if there aren't, especially after the sun goes down, and the Garand's muzzle flash shouts *shoot grenades here.*
Yes, the Garand muzzle flash does amount to great big ‘Hidy ho!” to your opponents. The FAL is a bit more discreet in that regard.
I do have a small collection of AR15 types just for the reason that you mention. But I qualify at the local Appleseeds with the FAL. I’ve bee ntempted to take the Garand, but the mag changes that some exercises require are too fidgety for me. The Grarand’s designed to shoot 8, reload and then shoot 8 more. Yeah, I know there are 5 and 3 round ‘sleds’ but I never got around to getting them.
Been saving my stash of 30.06 Lake City black tip for the inevitable rainy day.