Need help with recently purchased Tanker

[bam bam]

Hello Guys;
Even though i am an old guy and have been hunting and shooting since i was 8 yrs old i never had the chance to have a Garand.when i came acroos this Tanker i recently got,couldn't hide the urge to get it so i went right onto it and bought it.
I didn't even knew how to put the bullets in the enblocks but after finding a bunch of info on the Web i learned all the tricks.
However i have a bit of a problem,that nifty little rifle is not ejecting properly,every 2 or 3 bullets it'll stay closed and not extract,once i fire all the rounds it won't stay open nor it will eject the enblock,so i have to do it manually...
Am i doing something wrong? Should i try and adjust the gases? Is there any springs or parts that i should look up to or change?
Any help will be much appreciated.I cleaned the rifle very well and put a couple of oil drops where needed,and i don't know if being stored for 35 years damaged something that needs to be replaced.
Again Guys please help me out in tthis or point me to the right direction,there's nothing i want more than to fire that little devil.....

Information

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[Live4therut]

Hi folks new to the forum, nice to be here, I've spent a the last few days going through the threads and I must say there's a wealth of knowledge and some very nice firearms being displayed here. I mainly collect garands, 1911's and m1 carbines. The Garand is a fine piece of engineering and was designed with a 24" barrel and Works best with m2 ammunition. Being that it's a "tanker" and if your using modern commercial ammo could both compound the problem. What kind of condition is your op rod in? Cut or uncut?
Cheers
Patrick

[Rick Cummelin]

It appears, from what you posted, that your rifle is short-stroking, meaning that the op rod isn't travelling back far enough consistently. There can be MANY possible causes for this, such as:

Using reloaded or commercial ammo.
An op rod spring that is too long, or too stroing--very common in tankers--you may need a custom-made spring.
A worn op rod piston.
A worn gas cylinder.
An op rod that isn't bent properly--another common problem with tankers--could be rubbing somewhere causing undue friction.

Lastly, any combination of the above.

I personally don't care for tankers. Most are poor conversions and suffer function problems--like yours. Although they're sort of cute, the government never produced any due to the horrendous flash from the shortened barrel--unburned powder--discovered during testing. You will likely need to find a VERY competent Garand expert to fix yours properly. Good luck!

[Bob Seijas]

MANY were made from torched receiver halves welded back together. If they didn't get the dimensions right, they don't work very well. Look for irregularities or weld pits on both sides, especially in the clip latch well.

[oneshot onekill]

Tankers are cool little Garands but can suffer from any of the problems listed above. Don't be dis-heartened. The guys are giving you mostly worst case scenarios in the interest of "no surprises". Hopefully it's just the ammo you're using. I know the 30-06 Garands are pretty particular about the ammo they like and much of the commercially available "Hunting" ammo is no good for use in a Garand. You may just need to find the ammo that is hot enough to run your action but not so hot that it beats it up. Figuring that out is your job. Good luck with it!

[emmagee1917]

After 35 years of storage , there could be a lot of crap and dried grease in her . Learn to stip her and give her a good cleaning . You'll find referance to several places that will need a smear of grease to help fuctioning. As was said , these are commercial varaints , so a lot depends on who did it and how good a job they did. I agree with the above about what could be worn . Look up how to do a tilt test and do it to see if someting rubs. Check you gas port ( it was redrilled because the place were it was is no longer on your rifle ) . Make sure it lines up with your gas cylinder , it is clean , and is the right size for a tanker ( closer to the chamber prob'ly means it's a different size than normal and they made these in 30-06 and 7.62 / .308 which may also be different ) .
I agree it's short stroking , so it's either not getting enough power ( weak ammo , small port ) or it's getting enough but some factor is sucking too much energy away ( gas leaks , friction , etc. ) .
Chris

[bam bam]

Thank you for the reply's guys.
When i checked the inside i didn't see any welds at all,i'm using Remington UMC 150 gr since i don't have much to choose where i live,can you direct me to who or where i can get the parts you told me about?I'm going to try greasing it up and cleaning and adjusting that gas knob and ports .Also wich ammo should i use?
I will try one thing at a time to eliminate variables along the way...Thanks again my dear people

[ABPOS]

Do you know how to post pics?????

Would love to catch a glimpse of her.

[AZPhil]

I always found remington ammo to be littie on the weak side. I would clean and lube.
then find some M2 ball ammo for that Garand. CMP sells it ,also look up Orion7 they have a decent deal on the M2.
Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

---------- Post added at 05:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:18 PM ----------

I would take it apart and grease it up .then you can find some M2 ball here.

ammo | Search Results | Orion 7. Please Note: If you are not seeing the pages below, please update your browser to FF 7.x + or IE9.x +, or equivalent

[Rick B]

I had this on two of my Tankers one in 308 and one in 30-06. I had to tighten the gas cylinder against the guard as the hole on both rifles was to far back. Try measuring the hole distance from the end of the barrel and check where it is when the cylinder is all the way on. Let us know.

My Uncles did this and it was the spring being to long so we cut a few links and kept cutting more off until it felt right while hand pulling the rod back and not firing it until we were happy. Let us know the outcome. Rick B

---------- Post added at 06:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:57 PM ----------

One other note I forgot is if the op rod catch looks good and the op rod also where they catch when the rod is pulled all the way back then the spring is to long and will not let it go far enough back to lock open. Rick B