We’ve all heard it at gun shows or with friends: The M1 Garand was the first rifle that brought true semiautomatic firepower to the battlefield, but it came with a fatal flaw – the ping, which would alert German soldiers that the hapless GI was out of ammo, allowing them to pop up and strike!

(For some reason, it’s always German soldiers, never Japanese, or Italian, or anyone else. I guess Germans just have better hearing.)

Of course this idea is a little far-fetched to begin with, but still, it’s something worth testing, and that’s where we turn to the Bloke and Chap of the YouTube channel Bloke on the Range. Will the dastardly German soldier (played by Chap) get the better of the brave American GI (Bloke), or will John Garand’s tactical egg timer prevail? Check out the video below, to find out!

No surprise, of course, the Chap doesn’t get far before the Bloke stuffs in another clip and is ready to go. For a couple of reasons, taking advantage of the “ping” sound created by the M1’s clip ejection isn’t very practical, including that it’s difficult to hear things when your ears are ringing from the sounds of battle, that the M1 reloads very, very quickly, that in many cases the ground won’t be hard concrete, and of course that under normal circumstances a US GI who has exhausted his clip is unlikely to be alone.

Given these reasons, it gets increasingly hard to imagine a circumstance where the ping would be a liability. Perhaps in house to house fighting where the ground is hard and the GI is out of view of his German foes it would make some kind of difference… But the M1’s quick reload and the support of other members in the squad still come into play there.