What I suspect is sensitive primers and an out of battery slamfire. This mechanism controls slamfires solely by primer sensitivity. If you were to look at primer sensitivity specs for the US military, the M1 carbine had the least sensitive primer of all the small arms. This was due to the heavy, round firing pin used in the carbine. The M1 Garand and M14, their firing pins were scalloped to reduce weight to minimize the risk of a slamfire. Since 30-06 and 308 ammunition was used in other weapon systems, making the primer less sensitive for the Garand/M14 would have caused misfires for the other weapon systems. This was not an issue for the Carbine, it was the first, and last of its class.
I will bet Aquila does not know this, primed the ammunition with standard small rifle primers, and guess what, your carbine is now ruined with their ammunition. In my opinion, Aquila owes you a rifle.
it's possible that grunge inside the bolt caused light strikes, and then, possibly, a stuck and protruding firing pin
Unlikely, all Garand type mechanisms have a firing pin retraction cam which positively cams the firing pin back. It does not prevent firing pin contact with the primer prior to cam down, which is why these mechanisms slamfire out of battery.
Here are other examples of out of battery slamfires. Federal does not admit that their primers, the most sensitive primers on the market, were the root cause of the blow up of the first carbine in the list. You will find this denial all the time with Corporations, they will not admit fault and will lie and mislead, what ever it takes, to shift the blame.
You however, even though the ammunition was defective, you shot the rifle, and your friend is going to expect you to replace the rifle. You should try to get Aquila to replace the rifle, but, I expect, they won't. In which case, you and your friend will have to come to an accommodation.
Out of battery Slamfire in M1 Carbine with Federal American Eagle Ammunition.
http://www.thegunzone.com/ij-m1carbine_kb.html#nb2
I first found The Gun Zone while researching my new Glock 21. Yes, I am a Glock Fanatic, but I have to say that I do appreciate this site and I like to see that all points are covered. Nothing is perfect. End of story. To say otherwise is at best hyperbole. I'm still a Glock fanatic because I've had nothing but outstanding results with them. I'm also a 1911 Fanatic, and a S&W revolver fanatic1. I'm also a guy who like to have every scrap of information I can. Thank you for providing the other point of view.
Above are some photos of an Iver-Johnson M1 Carbine that self-destructed while my wife was shooting it. As kB!s go it was pretty mild. However I think there should be some kind of warning out there about these old carbines. Every one of them I've picked up will fire with a partially open bolt. This is not a problem until they get dirty or use bad ammo. On this day we were using brand new Federal American Eagle FMJ rounds. The bolt failed to close all the way and, well, kB!.
We had been having a nice family outing at the range. A friend, the actual owner of the carbine, brought along a few guns for my wife to try out to find something with which she could plink.
We had fired about 75 rounds from the carbine prior to my wife trying it. On her third round the gun emitted a small blast from the breech and blew a chunk of the stock off the right side. My wife and I got our faces full of assorted crap flying out of the gun, and received a few minor burns. Luckily no one was seriously hurt.
The bolt was blown apart and the stock split along the operating rod. I recovered as many parts as I could locate and packed up for the day.
I do not know the DOB of the Iver-Johnson other than it's a "50th Anniversary (1941-1991)" reproduction, so I'm going to guess it's probably very late '80s, early '90s.
The ammunition was American Eagle. No surprise there I'm sure. The rifle, remaining ammunition, and spent casings were sent to Federal for testing. Federal came to the conclusion that the failure was due to a malfunction of the Iver-Johnson2. The rifle did not close properly prior to the ignition of the cartridge. The casing showed no signs of an overpressure load.
After receiving the carbine back I was able to repair part of the damage with a new bolt, but I had trouble finding a replacement stock.
Even with the new bolt the carbine would still fire prior to full lockup. I've seen more than one M1 Carbine lately that will do that.
Iver-Johnson's demise prior to this incident left me with no ability to obtain comment from them.
The pictures are from two days after the event and show the damage to the gun from various angles. The owner took them prior to sending the carbine to Federal as a "CYA" measure.
The other photo shows the case that failed, a fired case from the same box, and an unfired cartridge, also from the same box
M1 Carbine out of battery slamfire
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=455111
Witnessed 'powder burn' at the range today
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Yikes. Gentleman was renting an M1 carbine from the range store and the 15th round of PMC blew off the base sending unburned powder into his face. He came into the store a bloody mess.
Fortunately he was wearing safety glasses and the 'freckles' were just superficial. Scary to witness though.
They figured the gun fired out of battery somehow. We saw the case head and it had broken off about 3/8".
