My dad had recently given me an M1 Garand. My brother had given this to dad sometime in the 1980's. It's an H&R that came back from Korea. My brother had it totally rebuilt from a well known Garand expert at the time. As far as I know he's no longer around. I remember after the rifle was built we took it to the range where it functioned flawlessly. My dad cleaned and greased it then put it away. The other day I was demonstrating to a friend how it worked. I was using 8 blanks that I keep on hand for just such occasions. When I threw the op rod back to extract/eject the round the rifle was jammed-up. The op rod would only come back about 1/2" and stop. After pushing on it repeatedly with increasing force it finally opened up and ejected the "spent" cartridge. This continued round after round. This weekend I tried to isolate the problem by swapping parts from the problem Garand with parts from a fully functioning Garand. I started with the op rod moving on to the smaller parts and finally the bolt. I switched one part at a time reassembling the rifle each time and then trying a full clip of blank rounds. The rifle kept jamming up every time. I thought that the problem might be the clip or the blanks themselves. This wasn't the case. I used various clips and even put the blanks in the "good" Garand without any problems. I'm totally baffled by this. Has anyone out there ever run into this problem? I'm trying to solve this myself. I'd rather not have to send the rifle off to someone else if it just needs a new part installed. One other thing: I even checked the receiver to see if it was cracked etc. No problem there. I'm stumped. Thanks.

Keith

The problem may be that the problem Garand simply has a tighter or shorter chamber than the "good" Garand. Try the blanks in the good Garand.

Also try some live factory/milsurp rounds in the problem Garand.

A lot of Garand experts are over on the CMP Forum.
A good place to find answers to issues like this.
You will have to find it yourself, however, as the rules here prohibit linking to it.

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

did the gunsmith install a 308 barrel on the gun or does it retain the original 06 barrel?

Yep , I've had fired blanks stick in my Garand and M-14. That's why it's best to use a blank adaptor. A light coating of grease or oil will help manually cycling sometimes.

Check the chamber to make sure that there is nothing in it.


If the blanks are fired rounds, and if you reload 30-06, re size the blanks and see if they still stick. I would also try a previously unused clip with surplus ammo.

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Corripe Cervisiam

I would make a few dummy rounds and see if they cycle thru the action before doing anythings else, or have you done that already?

Blanks don't do well hand cycled in Garands.

You likely also would do well to do a good chamber cleaning on the gun. There is a nifty cleaning tool made just for the Garand, and it uses the bolt and op-rod spring to put the right pressure on the brush. Make sure you use the 30-06 size on guns chambered for M2 ammo. There is a 308 version that is used for 7.62 nato chambered barrels and on M-14s.

Go to the CMP site, they have an excellent page on lubing the Garand. After a good cleaning, lube as per that page and take it to the range with some M2 ball ammo and have fun.

Get eight properly sized .30-06 dummy rounds and a good clip. They should cycle correctly. They will do well for training on how to keep you thumb out of the breech too.

I have dummy rounds for each caliber I use. They make dry-firing less of a risk and they make training a little more safe.

Russ

Without a "Bland Adapter" (a muzzle restriction to increase pressure) blanks do not reliably function a Garand's action.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244