M1 Questions

['88Scrat]

I have a couple of questions about my new M1. Before I fire any of my guns for the first time I do a couple things.

1. Field Strip and check for any obvious defects
2. Clean
3.Cycle rounds through manually to make sure operation is working.

I field stripped the rifle and found nothing that seemed to be out of the ordinary (though I am admitatly not an M1 expert) and all parts seemed to be well oiled.

I reassembled the rifle, loaded up an en bloc clip and inserted it into the gun (with safety on) and proceeded to cycle rounds manually. I noticed two things.

1. When the clip was completly seated the bolt would not always peel a round off the top of the en bloc on the first closing and sometimes I would have to manually pull back several times to chamber the first round. I am not sure what would cause this and the only thing I could think was that maybe the en bloc clips need to be broken in but that wouldn't make sense as the en bloc clips were distrubuted preloaded to soldiers.

2. Sometimes the extractor on the bolt would not eject the round in the chamber. I am not sure but I think this might be from manually cycling instead of normal operation but I don't know that.

I have not had a chance to actually fire the rifle yet so I can't say for certain that the "problems" I have identified are actually problems. That said I am not an expert by any means and I was hoping maybe you guys might have some explanations.

Thanks

 

[Dave P]

the bolt would not always peel a round off the top of the en bloc


Normal operation. Slam the oprod with the heel of your hand. Should close up tight.

Pull trigger; check target.

Repeat 8 times.

 

[Howard31]

M1 problems

First and foremost- I hope you are not cycling live rounds through your M1. Very bad idea with a free floating firing pin ,you could slamfire a round off even with the safety on.
Secondly,clips do not need to be broken in. In most cases clips were only used once.

It sounds as though you have a timming problem. W/O a timing block it is hard to tell. When you insert the clip it should go almost all the way down before the bolt releases. If the bolt fails to release or releases early it is a timming issue. Another scenareo may be that when cycling rounds you did not pull the bolt completely to the rear.

I suggest taking the rifle to the range and run 2 or 3 clips through it and see exactly what it does or does not do.
If it is a timming problem you can try a new bullet guide or take it to someone who knows Garands.

 

[pvt.Long]

run live ammo thru it and dont hand cycle just to break in anything. If you want to break in a weapon or anything on that weapon take it to the range with enough live ammo to satisfy yourself for the day.

 

[Charlie98]

When I lock in a clip of ammo, I just whack the op rod handle with my palm and it chambers fine. Hand cycling the Garand doesn't work very well.

The timing issue will make itself evident after the first clip or two... the clip will most likely fail to eject after the last round is fired and the bolt locks back. My Garand needs a tune up... my clip does not eject.

As some of the others suggested, now that it's clean and reassembled... take it shooting! That will tell you what you need to know.

 

['88Scrat]

Originally Posted by Howard31:First and foremost- I hope you are not cycling live rounds through your M1. Very bad idea with a free floating firing pin ,you could slamfire a round off even with the safety on.

I used some Snap Caps I got at Cabela's not live rounds.
Should have specified that.

 

[chris in va]

Go shoot the darn thing. It's not like a normal rifle, needs to be manhandled.

BTW I hope you're using surplus ammo like HXP. Do *not* use off the shelf hunting 30-06.

 

['88Scrat]

I'll be using some of that American Eagle M1 specific 30-06.

And I looked at the primer part of the snap caps and could see where the firing pin had hit them a little bit. I don't think it would have been hard enough to pop them but still glad I didn't use live rounds.

 

[jrothWA]

Detail the bolt, make sure ..

that the angled surfaces of the firing pin tang are sharp and well defined.

Look at the receiver rear section and locate a "bridge" under the rear sight area, look at the "slot" in the bottom of that "bridge" is it narrow(uniform width) with defines edges or varies in width and rounded edges.

This is a safety device, that as the bolt rotated to close, the slot with the tang angled surfaces, keep the firing pin back from moving forward by inertia.

Simple replacement of firing pin (ALWAYS HAVE A SPARE) will help here.

lightly lube with grease, the tang and the slot.

For extraction & ejection, make certain the extractor & its spring and plunger are clean and sharp to hold the groove, the ejector and spring are clean and LIGHTLY lubed with grease.

lube the front hooks of OP rod to have a smooth release.

When loading mine M1, I used the "knife edge" of handplaced against the OP handle to retract OP rod and simultaneously push down with thumb to keep the "en-bloc" clip from jumping out. When bolt rides forward, the thumb is pushed up and out not INTO CHAMBER.

Buy the Kuhnhausen manual for the M1 Garand & M14/M1A Rifles for solid info.

Enjoy the M1!

 

[kraigwy]

I don't think there are ANY M1 Garands left in the country that needs "broken in".

It's a surplus rifle and you can bet it has been broken in.

When shooting a match (CMP-GSM) you are required to load the rifle, then close the bolt on an empty chamber.

It's easy to do on a Garand, sometimes you may have to push the loaded clip in a tad with your thumb, but often not.

When ready to shoot, and the rifle is loaded, simply pull the action back and release. You may or may not have to hit the Op rod handle.

Go to the CMP site on the M1, pretty much all the information you'll need on the Garand.

http://www.civilianmarksmanship.com/

 

[medalguy]

I don't think there are ANY M1 Garands left in the country that needs "broken in".

It's a surplus rifle and you can bet it has been broken in.

+1 on that!!!

 

[Achilles11B]

When you load the ammo in to the clip, what side is the top round on? My Garand won't load properly if the top round is on the right side. Hopefully that helps.

 

[dmazur]

I read somewhere that there is a picture of John C. himself doing the "Garand bump" during a demonstration.

My understanding is that there was more friction on the 8th round than anticipated. My Garand shows this behavior, too.

And yes, while surplus rifles are broken-in, the clips are sometimes in new condition and have sharp edges. These sharp edges can be broken and I've found this reduces the frequency of "bumps". But doesn't eliminate them.

I don't believe it is common to pull the op rod handle back and release it, but just to gently bump it to get the round started out of the clip. Once it is moving, bolt motion and chambering usually proceeds normally.

Something worth reading up on is single round loading. Without the friction of the clip and follower, the bolt can move faster than intended and this can be a contributing factor toward slam-fires.

There are modified clips (SLED's, I believe) that are designed to hold a single round. As these decelerate the bolt, I believe these are preferred to dropping a single round in the chamber and letting the bolt fly from the full open position.

An alternative procedure (single round without a SLED) is to allow the bolt to close approximately half way before releasing it.

 

[Chris_B]

When you load the ammo in to the clip, what side is the top round on? My Garand won't load properly if the top round is on the right side. Hopefully that helps.

Not standard function of the rifle. Something is wrong with it. Remember, this was a military rifle, the standard Arm of the US military's infantry. There was no want or need to verify which side the top round was on before loading. In fact this would be a huge negative in battle or in the dark

My recollection is that on pre-production rifles there was an issue with receivers and if the top round was on one side or the other it would cause problems, but that was certainly rectified before the gas-trap rifles were supplanted by gas-port rifles; it's about 99% certain if not more that you have a gas-port rifle, anyway

In your rifle's case, I suspect something is wrong with the bullet guide, the follower, or the follower slide

 

[AK103K]

I don't think there are ANY M1 Garands left in the country that needs "broken in".

Oh, Ill bet they can still come up with a few NIB guns if they bother to look around.

They sent me an absolutely brand new, never fired H&R when my first rifle slammed and blew up. Now that was the early 90's, but Ive seen some of the guns the now CMP has been selling for a nice premium, and they too are pretty nice, but they werent $500 rifles either.


Back when they were still the CMP, most all the guns they were giving out looked like they drug them back from where ever behind the boat the whole way, and then put them in a box and sent them out. Then again, they were only $165 then too. They did still "give" you ammo then though.


Oh, if youre using snap caps to test function, be prepared for a lot of "failures". More often than not, they dont always work like the real thing.

 

[Chris_B]

Interested in how you could tell it was never fired before, and if the cause of the failure was ever discovered

 

[AK103K]

I suppose theres really no way to prove it was "unfired", perhaps I should have said "unissued". The gun looked "as new" when it came out of the packing, and it was packed slightly differently (more carefully/different type box and packing material) than the others we had (My wife and I each got guns at the same time. Back then, you were still limited to "one each").

There was no finish wear at all where there normally is on the guns, like where the bolt and op rod come in contact with each other and the receiver. I started to see the beginnings of typical finish wear the more I shot it. The stock was pristine, and the gun was matching and correct.


As far as the first one and its cause? Never was "officially" determined. The said they would get back to me, and they never did. When I called, after I sent it back and didnt hear from them, I basically got the run around. I dont even know if they even looked at it.

I suspect it was due to loading singly without a sled (Ive used one faithfully ever since, but thats how we were taught to shoot them back in the 60's), and the bolt allowed to go home on the loose round in the chamber.

The gun was stripped and cleaned when I first got it, but the one thing I didnt do, was detail strip the bolt. I did blast it out with Gunscrubber though, and everything seemed fine.

Ammo was DCM issue LC69, and no other problems with anyone else and the ammo. They did recover my brass from the previous strings and found a couple of rounds with the necks in various stages of being blown out. I did have a couple of "doubles" in the rapid fire sting, which I do remember thinking was odd. I never had that problem before, or since, and I suspect now, it was probably the gun firing out of battery. Other than the double, noting felt or sounded really any different.

Luckily, it didnt come lose then, as the back of the receiver was blown off from the serial number back, and with the gun in my shoulder, it probably wouldnt have been good. All I ended up with, was a nice tear in my palm from the op rod handle and a bunch of stitches, and a good ringing in my ears for a while.