I was at the range today and there was a fellow there that I know that just purchased a Garand and was attempting to shoot it. I saw he was having problems and went over to see if I could help. I looked the rifle over for anything obviously broken and found nothing and then I checked to see how it was greased and that was also good. The rifle was loading kind of hard and when the clip got to the point where it should lock the clip latch and release the op rod catch it took a pretty good push to achieve this. I loaded the clip popped the bolt forward and fired, then tried to squeeze another one off and, "click" the hammer falls on nothing. I pulled the bolt back and locked it and observed the chamber was empty. I racked the bolt forward and fired again, and when I squeezed the trigger agian I got the same "click". The rifle would not strip the next round off the clip and chamber it. I fired four rounds and of the four two stove piped. I took the rifle apart and checked the op rod spring length, it was 21 and 1/2", way out of wack. I had one of my Garands along so I stripped it down and switched out the op rod spring. I assembled everything, loaded up a different clip(just in case the clip was bent and was causing the hard loading)and when I tried to fire it I had the same result. I looked the op rod over and saw a couple of shiny wear marks so I changed out the op rod and the spring and when I fired it I got the same result. I disassembled the rifle again and tried a field check on the timing to see why the clip was loading hard. I loaded a clip with fired cases and pushed it in till I heard the clip latch lock and saw that the op rod catch was not releasing at the bottom. The op rod catch in his rifle is a milled Winchester piece and it didn't seem to catch the op rod just right so I switched it out and checked the timing again with the clip of empties and it seem to release the op rod catch just after the clip latch locked and load a lot easier. I put the rifle back together again and loaded and fired and had the same result as when I started, it would not chamber the next round. I then looked over the gas cylinder and plug for signs of pressure escaping and found none. I then started to wonder if he had a bad reciever so I changed everything over from my rifle to his, gas plug, gas cylinder, gas cylinder lock, op rod, op rod spring, op rod catch, follower arm, bullet guide, follower, and bolt. I loaded it(it loaded like it should)and fired, squeezed and fired and when the last shot left the chamber the clip ejected like it should. I have his rifle at the house now and I'm trying to figure out which part is the culprit(I know I could have changed out each part one at a time, reassembled and found out but I didn't have enough time). At the risk of sounding dumb, is it possible the bullet guide could be causing any of the problem, it's a milled Winchester part and it binds in the reciever instead of sitting in it's spot with a touch of play. Here is a picture of the pressure the bullet guide will take before it falls down.
Here is the wear on the edges and it still fits tight.
Will a Garand fire without the clip being latched all the way down? That's why I wonder if the bullet guide was not letting the clip latch all the way down and then the rifle couldn't strip off the next round.I wish I knew which part fixed the chambering bug.
Thanks!Information
Warning: This is a relatively older thread
This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.