This hurts to watch! Watch it to the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn0KBzK2Kho

She pushed the bolt forward and it diden't lock. It has to be pulled all the way back and released to slam forward in order to lock..it will happen everytime.

Not the recommended way to field strip a Garand...

OUCH!

I shot and been at many service rifle matches, and never heard of an M1 kaboom.

It must have been from firing on an open bolt.
Hope she got away with out an injury.

Betcha five bucks she's got herself a nasty flinch.

Hope she's alright.

wow.

My 5 M1s will chamber and lock from about half back every last time....doesn't mean others will, but the bottom line, even if you slam the full bolt length you have to be smart enough to check things before pulling the trigger

Damn! That's going to leave a mark!

Wow..... sure hope she was only scared and not hurt....

Could have been a reloaded case that wasn't sized down enough too.

If you read the comments, they were firing new factory ammo--no reloads.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that current commercial factory ammo should not be used in Garands.

Generally not a good idea, but Hornady makes Garand safe ammo.

No, it's okay. You should probably stick to 150s though instead of 180s as that they are hard on the op rod.

It's not bullet weight as much as pressure vs. time where the gas bleeds off to run the action.

Not good.

WOW! I hope she is alright. I've shot a lot of M1's many of them shot out and have never seen that happen before.

garands have one strong action. The issue with the ammo is the pressure curve on ignition, garands are built for a certain pressure range and that is why it is said not to use commercial ammo other than the hornady made special for the garand. You can also get a different gas jet to allow for heavier bullets. On seeing the video, it seemed she got a case jamed on the sixth round, and threw it to the ground. I am assuming that the round fired. She did NOT check the barrel and could have had a squib round. It looked to me like she did not push the bolt forward from a partially open position. Translated, and from the comments on her brothers rifle, she needs or her brother need to see a garand crank like phil at usury pass and have the remaining rifle checked.
i am thinking squib load

look again, she removed her hand from the op rod and let it go forward.

you look again . she was touching the slide as it went forward. something we were preached to not do when I was in training.

bump

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

The whole deal gets a wee bit more complicated than JUST geometry, IIRC, I think that a Brinnel Indent will be found on ALL original Arsenal Built Op Rods, and that would have to do with "Springiness v Hardness" engineered for the Time / Pressure event.........

Of course, being a Government deal, the mantra was to REPLACE the Op rods. Lots WERE replaced, and NOS is looking fairly scarce, I sure hope alla' those depots in Korea are not going to be trashed, and that some NOS will turn up.

A bud and I kinda' share a copy of Jerry K's book,....lemme see what's in there for specs, and I WILL get it over your way.



That casual advice "Oh just use the lighter bullet Sporting loads" has done a lot of old M1s no favors whatsoever,.....

GTC

Other than doing oddball work for M1 owners the extent of my knowledge about the rifle is that you point the skinny end at a target, pull the trigger and it goes boom. I stick to simple things like bolt guns...

I have a Chinese knockoff of an M14 (it was too cheap to pass up) I was going to load for in the coming months. Besides headspace checks I will only load moderate loads, with powders of correct burning rate recommended for it. I've always heard the same warnings about Garands.

This will make sense to only one other member of the 'fire, but that's Wilma Kaboom.

That looks like way more than an excessive port pressure issue from firing a heavy 180gr load with a powder in the 4350 range or slower. I'd expect a broken op rod from that, but not other parts flying all over and a snapped stock! Slamfires abound with thin walled primers,high seating and old parts, but the shooters said it was factory ammo in the comments on the video. Even with an OOB fire, I'd expect an oprod break and brass blowing out, but not the barrel,stock and handguard damage that I'm seeing in that video. To me, a round following a squib stuck in the barrel seems most likely. Wish I could see the rifle remains.

I THINK it was either a recent Handloader or Rifle magazine that had an article on the DCM and talked about a boatload of NOS parts and rifles coming back from Greece and had a picture of an unopened case of IH Op Rods.

Ed

it dident blow until she pulled the trigger,cannot be a slam fire. a slam fire wont blow up the rifle just shoot extra rounds.I had a worn out remington semi 22 rimfire it would sometimes empty all 15 rounds from the magazine tube in less than a second.

My godfather bought a brand new Springfield Garand about 8 years ago. We were out at the range shooting it and my little brother who was about 6 at the time, just got done shooting it. I got a good rest on the bags and shot two rounds, and on the 3rd round, the rifle blew apart just like in the video. Blew the stock in 13 pieces, knocked the bullets out of the live rounds in the magazine, and scared everyone to death. I just got a little powder burn on my hand and a bruise on my cheek from something. My godfather got a cut on his cheek because he was sitting on the other side of the bench to my right spotting for me. Springfield replaced the rifle but we never found out what caused it. I have no problem shooting any rifle but wont touch another garand.

Looks like maybe the bottom-line answer is "yes", even a new one will blow like that. Not good.

I had an old fn49 do that to me one time.turned out the firing pin had broken on the previus shot,and was jammed in the "fired" position.It fired the next round out of battery,with predictable results.

I would do a little research into the norinco, i had one for a very short while, gave it back to the retailer, and bought a early springfield with military parts, the exception being the reciever.
As I remember, the barrels are pinched in, and the bolts are soft. I think smith here in phx has a cottage business correcting some of the deficiencies.
As to the op rod, without pulling the reference books, they went through revisions too. Almost all of them were either made with a stress relief cut, or were later cut that way mainly due to issues with rifle gernades.
An unaltered WWII op rod commands a pretty good premium these days, enough that i have replaced the ones i have and set them aside.
Some source i was reading stated that at springfield during production of the garand the highest paid guy in the factory was the one working with op rods.
As i have stated in this thread, I HAVE several rather special garands, one of which was a mid 50's springfield set up for camp perry, it was previously owned by a nationally ranked perry shooter, and was built by an old army armorer in a little town outside of Fort benning.
I tripped accross a couple of "white bag" garands last year, now mine, that were arsonel redone in the early 50's put in white bags, and have stayed that way up until this day. And no, i ain't gonna shoot them.
I have others pre WWII, up until about the end of the Korean war. I am not afraid of them.
But i am sensitive to their working condition, and the stuff they eat.
I have pulled fire control groups and found cracked parts, barrels that would swallow a bullet, op rod springs that were scrap 50 years ago and so on.
As to a guage for the op rod, i have heard of them but haven't seen one. There is a guy I know that has torn literally thousands of them apart, built them, rebuilt them etc. When I can catch him i will ask him as to that question. I know he has a lot of tools that i would love to get my hands on.
I have a m1A sitting in the shed that is one of only a few hundred built by a california company long time ago. Military parts but a cast reciever. When i first pulled the op rod back, it slipped out of the channel. oops!! it is going to sit there until it gets checked out by someone better than me.
As to a new springfield blowing up, remember those are cast reciever, or were, made i believe in lithgow australia. Ain't the same as a U.S. army.
One other thing that i am pretty sure about, my first two garands came from the D.C.M. back when you could only have one per lifetime. About 175 a piece if i remember right. Had my wife qualify down at three points to get the second rifle. Those two rifles obtained back in the 80's are by far head and shoulders above in quality what are being distributed today from returns from greece etc.
You are getting the bottom of the barrel more and more.
the exception to this are the italian and german return m1 carbines that were really well maintained. The german ones other than being reblued, stocks varnished, look pretty much the way they must have looked in 1945 when patton turned them over.
I have several carbines in the white bag too. They are MUCH different than the south Korean blue sky ones you see floating around these days, or those released through the NRA years ago that were considered shot out by the army.
I also do know a lot of people will buy one of these rifles, too many WWII movies, and then run out and buy commercial ammo not suited for the old girls. Or reload, with no idea of what the original military specs to powder and so on were. These are available by the way on the internet.

these rifles have been messed around with so much very few have seen an original condition garand. They are scarce as hens teeth. There is ONE in prescott, that i have had the chance to handle, never been fired, absolutely brand spanking new. And he won't sell it to me. Nor could i afford it. In the last few years some of these have surfaced as returns from greece, and at cmp auctions, they have brought prices with quite a few zero's attached.

by the way, i am not trying to play "see what i got" when i mention some of these rifles. But it does give one the chance to see what they are suppose to look like and how they are suppose to function.
I have one that stumpted just about every one including canfield. A local guy who at various time provided the rifles for the pictures in a lot of the reference books on garands finally told me what it was after trying to buy it from me.
A pre wwII springfield, later taken into the italian army, and return here, how, I don't know. Pretty special because of all the prewar parts.

If i wanted a good garand by the way, for around 1000 bucks i would go for one of the cmp garands with new wood, new barrel, and put together by one of their armorers with military parts. I would be pretty comfortable with that. Also knowing i could hardly duplicate the price doing that myself.

Just say no to op rods.

All that PLUS a squib in the bore would surely look like that.

I have indeed heard about the soft bolt bodies on some of them, so the headspace gauges will check it. My first times shooting it it did nothing great, so if I decide to rebarrel it I'm sure I'll just have the bolt done at the same time.

This guy seems like a good smith for Garands, and similar critters...

http://www.warbirdscustomguns.com/

http://www.m1-garand-rifle.com/garand-troubleshooting.php
this link goes into a number of the malfunctions and causes from the original tm's.
The two areas that i think are of interest in this discussion:
BOLT FAILS TO CLOSE TIGHTLY AND LOCK INTO PLACE
a. dirty chamber
b. dirty locking recesses
c. lubrication
d. damaged /deformed bolt or reciever
e. extractor/ejector
f. op rod binding
g. weak or broken op rod spring
h. damaged or or bolt/reciever
i. insufficient head space

SLAMFIRE IN THAT GUN FIRES ON ITS OWN AS BOLT CLOSES OR OUT OF BATTERY:
OR UNINTENDED FIRING WHEN BOLT NOT CLOSED
a. defective ammo/wrong ammo
b. incorrect head space or chamber demensions
while it is doubtful to me it would be present in the kaboom, the forestock was modified on these rifles with a little cut to prevent op rod binding with the cut on the right rear.
what is interesting is that the shooter admits brothers rifle was having seventh round issues.
Which made me wonder if it was one of the first 30 000 or so that had the recesses cut too deep and later corrected with a little weld. Probably doubtful.

I haven't had any work done by him having had access locally to garand cranks as i call them, but he has been around for a while, i remember him from quite a few years ago. There are not many around so they get pretty well known if they do it right. I do notice he mentions smith enterprises. DGR is another one
here is a link to his site:
http://www.dgrguns.com/

check out some of the wood:
I had my gerbiled greek return HRA done by him. All parts checked and reparked, douglas .308 barrel, french bastogne wood, It is PURTY.
he doesn't show the bastogne wood anymore, but here is a link to the wood he has now: Some of these are really nice:
http://dgrguns.com/New-M1-Garand-Stocks.htm

Damn, I though MY lathe looked a little "rough".

NEAT site, thanks.

This thread has ended any inclination I might have harbored towards owning a Garand.

Other than the op rod, how many other components of a Garand can cause them to blow fuggin' up if they're a little bit out of spec?

Hey, ask somebody that RUNS em',.....

I had a "race gun", an M1 in .308 that shot into the same hole,....when in tune.

If you farted loudly near it, it started acting up, and was HORRIBLY "Delicate". I get to see the entire other spectrum, as well. My "CMP" was an oil soaked DOG, made up out of a whirlwind of salvaged and mismatched parts.

BTW, I shot in Canada with issue FN RACK RIFLES, and missed as frequently as I can with an M1.

The FN is about FORTY TIMES as reliable, IMHO.

I'd say not much more than my M1 A , though. There's a few here at the fire have shot it,....ask them.

GTC

I wonder if the Garand in the video has one of those Peice o' [bleep] cast receivers?

Springfield Inc. used some pretty bad ones as did Century Arms. Lithgow was one of the vendors for those cast turds.

Those rifles are pretty much only good for stripping parts from to build up a USGI forged receiver.