Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Garand KABOOM!

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This hurts! Have never seen an M1 - or any semi-auto - fire with the bolt not fully closed. Have shot my M1 quite a bit, but do not have a ton of experience with that design so have to ask from any of you experts - will this thing fire without the bolt being fully closed/locked?

I always check it when starting, but if this can happen, what would keep it from occurring during auto feed after the first shot, where we never check the bolt?

I was wondering that myself.

I'm not all that familiar with the Garand design, but pretty much every modern repeating firearm is designed not to fire unless the bolt is fully in battery.

Most kabooms of the magnitude shown in the video are from case head ruptures.

I just found out last weekend with an AR, if you don't get the bolt fully into battery, the firing pin cannot reach the primer.

Include yourself in with a bunch of other folk blowin' GAS, while actually knowing chit from bean dip about this "System".

No offense to any of the lame conjecture,....I haven't heard a damn thing about the "Lifter / Op rod" timing, and not having a copy of Kunhausen open in FRONT of me, I'll remain speculative, as to what ACTUALLY went down here.

"Always jams on the 7th,.....HMMmmmm.

The thing fired outta' battery, goddammit.

GTC

Really STUPID comment,.....the M1 inertia firing pin set up has DICK to do with the Stoner.

[bleep] sakes,....you guys are supposed to KNOW alla' this chit.

Need a BPCR guy explaining it ?

GTC

http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/safety.html

this site details out of battery issues with m1carbines and the two safety systems in the fire control group. Since the carbine and garand share a common fire control group it is worth looking at.
there are a LOT of really loose garands out there, with really worn parts. And people firing non spec ammo for the rifle. When in doubt have someone that knows what they are doing check the rifle.

"When in Doubt" ?

"non spec ammo" ?

"Worn parts" ?

Every swingin' RICHARD is an "Ex-Spurt" on M1s, Ron.

Let's cut to the chase,....don't pick one of these old clank wagons UP , without having a copy of this in hand, and being able to read English reasonably well.

"Covers all phases of inspection, critical dimensions, ammunition, sight work, stocking and much more. Complete accurizing and building match rifles information, too. "

Link: http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=...AS-OPERATED-SERVICE-RIFLES-A-SHOP-MANUAL

from the cmp forum regarding the same issue:
The 8th round fires out of battery and the case fails. Enough pressure is generated before it fails to fire the 8th round which you can see leave the rifle. The case head ruptures and the stock splinters.

The cause will likely be:

1. Defective or out of spec hammer lug. Maybe missing or broken.
2. Worn/broken/missing receiver bridge with #1 above.
3. Firing pin with broken tang combined with #1 above.

these rifles are old, and almost none i know checks parts to see if in spec. Yes, I have several shop manuals on garands that being a large part of my collection for many years. There are many loose as a goose rifles out there being fired with improper ammunition. The garand does have two internal safties to prevent out of battery detonations. That does not prevent them if the critical parts are out of spec. As to the garand, i don't claim to be an expert but i sure as hades have taken a lot of them down, own into the double digits, and associate with specific gunsmiths that specialize with garands. And know enough to have loaded with no issues ammo for the garand for about 30 years. Again, garands don't just "do" this, the you tube poster was talking about the brothers rifle and it's issues which should have been a tipoff, azgirl does not say where in arizona, but there is a garand crank at usury pass, named phil arrington that surely is qualified to check one out. I use the term "non spec ammo" on purpose because many are not aware that the garand was meant to be fired with a certain pressure curve. Which does mean your standard ammunition on sale at cabella's.

My "Staying up late" detail tonight was not really about old, clapped out, shaky military relics,firing the wrong ammo, Ron,.....all due romance, chicken blood and ashes offered up.

These are NOT "Rifles" ,.....they are a SYSTEM and any number of things can and DO go wrong with them. Read Roy Dunlap's "Ordnance Went Up Front" and get HIS take on em'.

WATCH that video one more time,ALL of ya',.... the thing was KICKIN' the piss out of her, and a well tuned M1 with the RIGHT ammo does not "Kick" like that.

For any possible number of reasons, that particular M1 fired out of battery, with predictable results,.....I'm glad she's OK, and hope some decent "Aftermath forensics" get posted..

Won't be holding my breath, though.

GTC

paul, if you go to the web site i linked, you will figure it out. But in essence it has a secondary sear hook as to the full auto part. If that secondary sear is messed up it can go full auto. There are a couple of things that can make it go out of battery, attributed to worn or out of spec parts. It is a testimony to the strength of garand's design, with the milllions of old rifles out there, it doesn't happen more often.

I'm not a 100 percent sure, I would have to get mine out and look, but I think a Garand also has a floating firing pin. Sometimes, if a case is improperly sized, it will stick in the chamber and the firing pin will then slam into the primer and ignite the round stuck half in and half out of the chamber. That clearly isn't what happened in this instance, but it is a danger with the Garand.

I got a good scare like that with some of my reloads and that is where I learned the value of sizing them really well if you were going to shoot them in a Garand. The shell didn't ignite, but getting stuck halfway like that gave me goose bumps when I figured what could have happened.

number of years ago had a guy want to fire one of my m1carbines. He bought some factory ammo, and was really rocking and rolling, when it slam fired. Took it to a former navy armorer locally and had it inspected. It was just on the verge of being off the scale on go, don't go. Still shootable, but not the way he was doing it.
I have in possession a camp perry national match, several "white bags" which are military rebuilds from the early 50's put in white bags and never touched since, a complete rebuild from a Greek lend lease in .308 with a douglas air guage, and some others that are certainly not your "rack grade" condition. I also participated a number of years ago when about 4000 of them were brought back into the country minus the recievers and the parts sorted. A win13 came out of that using the best of the best winchester parts.
Most of these rifles were obtained in some way from the CMP, the exception being duffle bag rifles, the new rebuilds with cast recievers, and spent a lot of time somewhere else. I believe there is a couple hundred thousand in south korea, if they can ever get back into country, and a similar number in turkey. I am sure it would be considered profiling but you can often tell somewhat what condition they are in from the country they came back from. My Greek garand had the stock so gerbiled i kep pictures of it before having it rebuilt by Dean. Interesting enough with the exception of one or two parts, the inside was okay. Another thing that is happening these days is people switching out parts to get an all "winchester" or tractor gun, etc. More interested in the manufacturer of the part rather than if it really works.
Most have never really shot a high end "tuned" garand. Huge difference than the more common parts gun running around. And many are shooting them that have no conception of the way they work, wear points, ammunition requirements, etc. When I run accross people wanting a garand one of the first suggestions is to buy a manual, or something that explains how the sucker works.
Ammunition even in the mil surp can be an issue, in that certain years of the south korean stuff floating around is problematic, while other years is just fine. there also has been sold through the cmp in the last couple of years early 50's production U.S. ammo, some good some bad.
I think you have a point on her shooting the rifle as I think about it. I have had in years past a 12year old granddaughter fire mine with no issues. But she wasn't using 3000fps commercial ammo in it either.

it does have a floating firing pin, and the pins were changed as were many of the parts during the production cycles. One of the issues around reloads is a "high" primer where it wasn't set in the pocket properly. Also soft primers.
I might add i use a forester go no go guage on stuff for these semiautos after having some issues with M1A's.

Shy of having a BRAND new Op rod, in it's original packing tube to comparate your used ones against you HAVE to have Kunhusen's book open on your bench, or the BIG Military TM.

One need a DEAD FLAT surface, and GAGE BLOCKS to verify that the geometry is correct, and Mikes, Calpers and Gage pins to verify the Piston Gas cylinder general health.

Now I've HEARD that there is (*was ?) actually an "Armory Guage" ,....but have NEVER seen one,.....if you see Mr. Arrington , could you ask him, Ron ?

Proper function STARTS with having decent op rod geometry, and it's actually RARE to find one that's "Just Right".

I won't TOUCH one of those things without Jerry Kunhausen's book open on the bench.

GTC

"it does have a floating firing pin,"

......that I foolishly called an "Inertia Firing Pin" last night,......in a sleepy haze.

GTC

Friend of mine who is a regular at Camp Perry has told me there is definetly a gage to check op rods. He said that in past years the Navy team had the gage, would check their op rods each day after competition. We did a cursory check into the gage with the idea of reproducing it, didn't locate a lot of information or specifications for the gage.

Thanks for the lead, certainly something that bears looking at, isn't it ?

gTC

He seemed to think so...

I was hoping to find some pictures, blueprints or diagrams of the gage to make it easier to reverse engineer the thing, doesn't appear it's going to be that simple. One would think there's government specifications or patent drawings to work off from.

Dammit - cut that chit out. Quit beating around the bush and tell us what you really think

we were just discussing mishaps in AR's a few days ago, as to why it was on my mind