Just got my first M-1 Garand home and when I stripped to grease and oil it before going to shoot this weekend I found my Op rod is bent not horrible and I can see it has been fired lots with the bend (right at the point it enters the gas tube. I am guessing probably was fired with too hot a load. so I am asking and hoping someone in Canada or willing to ship one to Canada has a spare around or can point me to someone that does. please any help would be great
Thanks In advance - - -
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Without actually having it in my hands, I would say your op rod is fine. They do have slight bends in them. Put your rifle back together and shoot away!
I agree with Guts. Like I said in the other post, shoot it and I'll bet it works fine. This bent op rod hype is getting out of hand. Try it before saying it's broken. Your spring is probably fine too.
I hate to admit it but when I bought my first Garand I did the same thing, thought I had a bent op rod. I even tried to straighten it outand thankfully couldn't because I was trying to bend it with just my hands. This is how we learn and remember our best lessons.
Thanks for the advice guys must sound like a nervous nelly but after a two year search for one last thing I wanted to do was have it shred itself the first shot as I am sure you can imagine like everyone you hear so much of the worry about a bent op rod especially up here where we cant buy milsurp ammo at allso all are shooting commercial lucky I found the one place in town that carried the American eagle m1 specific rounds . So if you all agree that is fairly normal I will grease and reassemble and take it out today. wish me luck and Ill let everyone know how it went.
IIRC, the highest paid production job on the floor of Springfield Armory was the op rod tube bender's.
Isn't there a sticky by tonyben showing the "tilt test"? It may be for the M14, but the concept's the same for the M1. (I'm using the "what's new" feature, so no "sticky" header!)
---------- Post added at 10:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 AM ----------
Ach, zo!
This may help. but you'll have to remove the follower as well. Basically the first couple of minutes apply. Concept's the same, but there's no gas piston weight to help unlock, so don't be alarmed if it takes more tilt to get things moving..
If you strip the wood off you rifle and check out the relation of parts to one another. From the side you will see the op rod's bend is critical to function. How would it work otherwise?
thanks to all who replied I do think mine is a little bent more than it should be but it does cycle. in fact possibly too well.also when i reassembled it this morning it did try the tilt test and it passed.
I went out and fired three clips of rounds through it from 2 different en-bloc's and all three times the first 5 rounds were perfect but when the 6th fired it also ejected the 7th with it unfired ,right out of the rife on 2 times and the third it was caught by the bolt pointing straight up so i checked the barrel and no blockages but of course empty chamber so had to recycle to load the 8th and it fired and ejected its brass and the en-bloc, anyone have any idea what on earth would cause this??? I did notice the op rod spring in it is approx 20.6 inches uncompressed and fired American eagle 150 gr FMJ M1 specific rounds
I went out and fired three clips of rounds through it from 2 different en-bloc's and all three times the first 5 rounds were perfect but when the 6th fired it also ejected the 7th with it unfired ,right out of the rife on 2 times and the third it was caught by the bolt pointing straight up so i checked the barrel and no blockages but of course empty chamber so had to recycle to load the 8th and it fired and ejected its brass and the en-bloc, anyone have any idea what on earth would cause this??? I did notice the op rod spring in it is approx 20.6 inches uncompressed and fired American eagle 150 gr FMJ M1 specific rounds