m1 garand ejector tuning?

[musketshooter]

Lubricant or lack thereof has nothing to do with the ejection position of MT cases. By cutting down the ejector spring, the position that the MT cases land in can be regulated until they land at about 1 oclock. Just take a little off and try it until you get it right for your rifle.

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[Dave Waits]

Lubricant or lack thereof has nothing to do with the ejection position of MT cases. By cutting down the ejector spring, the position that the MT cases land in can be regulated until they land at about 1 oclock. Just take a little off and try it until you get it right for your rifle.

Musket, clean all the grease off of your rifle or, load it up and see what happens with that carefully-manicured ejector-spring. You will change the position where the brass lands.

[JBS]

First I would suggest you not make changes to your original spring or ejector, put them in a oiled bag and save. Purchase replacements and reproduction is fine. Refrain from thinking about it as cut this many coils off and think in terms of spring length. Use a grinder, ether a bench with a fine wheel or a dremel with cutoff wheel, this produces a flat ended spring. Feed the spring end into the side of the wheel slowly. DO NOT allow the spring to turn red beyond the area being ground off as this removes the spring from the spring steel. I would say no more than half a coil at a time. You can also change by shorting the length that the ejector protrudes from the bolt face. Also how much the tip that contacts the case head is beveled or angled. By adjusting these features you can to an extent control the area that the expended cases land in. And by the way we would never intentionally adjust the ejector system to drop the hot fired case right on the shooter next to you so his score suffers, that would be bad form,,,, the firing line is not a friendly place when Targets Up rings loud.

[Neal C.]

A Garand in new condition cycles the op rod very vigorously, and on rebound it will usually strike a fired case as it is ejected, launching it forward. Brass marks will show on the oprod shoulder and case bodies will be dented where the oprod struck them. Dented case mouths which frequently appear on forward ejected cases are caused by vigorously extracted cases hitting the case mouth against the breech cone on the way out. The only way a case can be ejected forward is to have been struck by the oprod. Eject empty cases manually as fast as you can and you will find they go to 3 or four o'clock.
If you install an adjustable gas plug in a new condition Garand, you can have all cases eject to 4 o'clock because the action has been slowed and the case is out before the oprod returns to hit it on the way out.
When the gas system of a Garand is worn (may still be within limits) the effect on ejection is the same as bleeding gas off with a vented plug, and it will eject cases to 3 or 4 o'clock. Garands in average condition will sometimes throw cases to 3 or 4 o'clock if the shooter is not pulling the rifle in tight to the shoulder, or if the rifle is light (no tools in the butt). Failure to pick up the next round from the clip can also result. M14s can act the same way. This is why instructors watched where trainees cases were ejected. It can indicate poor form is being used.
I made quite a study of this because i built a new condition Garand with a McCann over-the-bore scope mount and had cases hitting the scope tube bottom and the windage knob. The scope had a side focus knob and could not be rotated to put the windage knob on top as some do. Installing and adjusting McCann's vented plug solved that for me and seemed to improve accuracy. The rifle had a very heavy stock and tools in the butt, plus the weight of the scope mount and rings, still i had friends who shot it without pulling it in tight and it short-stroked on them. The rifle had a Holbrook device, and I loaded seven rounds into the clip, which never ejected, in the rifle.