Double Fires and Flying Brass - Help!

[Noveldoc]

I posted a while back and thank you all for a very interesting discussion re: double and slam fires from an M 1 Garand. My surplus Garand, good olde Private Ryan, had been working fine but I got worried about what the op rod recoil spring was going to do in that it was old, rusty and ratty. Did not want to damage an op rod. I got a new spring from Wolff's but all they had was a 2.5# over rated and they said I would have less recoil and thrown brass with it.

I guess that was true but every time I squeezed the trigger off went a two round burst. Not so good. I had tossed the old spring but found a new one on the net from Springfield guaranteed to be GI spec. Installed it and nice semi auto functioning again.

But the cases. We are taking brass rain here. All over the place at 15 to 20 feet. Son Matt got tired of looking all over for them so he got an old badminton racket out of the trunk and began batting them down as they went by. Great fun but hardly a solution.

We are going to cut a cardboard box to fit under the rest to the right of the rifle. But any other ideas?

I used light handload rounds with FMJ 150 gr spire points, 42 grains of Varget. Super flings with all rounds.

BTW, the clips popped out and landed near my feet like they were supposed to.

Help.

Tom

 

[Sunray]

"...All over the place at 15 to 20 feet..." The rifle lubed correctly?

 

[Noveldoc]

Son is former paratrooper. He lubed and cleaned via GI protocol.

Tom

 

[Ian Sean]

used light handload rounds with FMJ 150 gr spire points, 42 grains of Varget. Super flings with all rounds.

Hmmm.....I am leaning towards your powder here myself. Hodgdon lists 47gr. as start load for 150gr bullet...figure a grain or two lower for Garand use. Then again everything I have read and been told, has been that Varget and other slower burning powders are not good powder choices for Garands.

Most folks shy away from anything but 4895 or 4064 for the Garand. These powders mimic/the same as what was designed for Military ball.

What kind of brass are you using? Commercial or MilSurp? This will have an effect also.

 

[BADUNAME27]

If your rifle is doubling then chances are it's the disconnector in the trigger group as this is about the only part (to my knowledge anyway) that can create this problem.

It is potentially dangerous as a rifle that doubles is potentially out of time, meaning the bolt isn't in full battery when the striker falls on the primer. With M-4's and M-16's this can quite often result in a face full of parts and a rifle that has ejaculated it's guts through the magazine well. The path of least resistance always seems to win. . .

If it were me I would very, very carefully inspect your trigger group and/or take it someplace that has a solid reputation for working on these buggers.

Good luck.

 

[10X]

As you learned, you should not use a heavier recoil spring on the M1.
I used to shoot the M1 in service rifle competition and never needed anything other than a standard spring.

Doubling happens when the hammer hooks are not properly grabbed by the sear and trigger. This can be caused from wear or by someone honing the hammer hooks too much when trying to lighten or improve a trigger pull. Take out the trigger group. Use the heal of your right hand to cushion the hammer. Pull the trigger. Push the hammer back while partially pulling the trigger. If you can cock the hammer back without meaningfully engaging the sear and trigger, you need to replace either the hammer or trigger and sear. There needs to be noticeable resistance to both the sear and trigger when the hammer cocks.

Some M1s will throw brass into the next county, others won't. That is a function of operating rod velocity. Using 4064 or 4895 powder may help. Look for M1 loads in the manual or down load by 2 grains from the max for the bullet weight used.

 

[Noveldoc]

Hammer is new and has been tested with sear.

Must be the spring. Wolff said 2.5# upgrade but it was very tough to insert. Suspect a lot more tension than that.

But gun hums right along with a milspec spring.

Have not been able to get 4895 yet and Varget works fine with very good accuracy. Mainly using some Winchester store bought cases and assorted pick up non mil brass. I load an M 2 surplus pulled bullet usually. Was just shooting up the spire points.

Tom

 

[Jim K]

A heavy recoil spring can cause double firing (not slam firing) because the bolt going forward rams the receiver so hard the gun moves forward. When it does, the shooter's finger stays where it is and pulls the trigger, resulting in inadvertently firing another shot. The solution, as noted, is the standard weight spring.

I do wish folks would stop assuming that extra power springs are the answer to all gun problems. In some cases, they can actually destroy guns.

Jim

 

[Noveldoc]

Thanks Jim. That sounds like it. Matt was zeroing in off a rest and slow squeezing trigger.

Tom

 

[Maj Dad]

Jim Keenan's points are spot-on. Around 1998 or 99 I returned a Garand to CMP because it was doubling. Long to short, it had a new and stiff recoil spring (GI), grease on the hammer hooks, and I was limp fingering it on sand bags. They swapped the recoil spring for another new GI, cleaned the hooks, and I became a manly finger-puller. Since then the only extra power springs I have ever used are on 1911s shooting hot & heavy hardball. I peened the disconnector cut sides on a Combat Commander with hot loads - the hammer bounced from the sharp recoil & was hitting the cut, peening it. A gunsmith pointed it out when I was having some custom work, recommended a 22lb spring and now no problems. Nice thing about 1911s is that you can tailor your springs to the load.

 

[Slamfire]

I guess that was true but every time I squeezed the trigger off went a two round burst.

My first guess is something is wrong with your trigger group.

Regardless, get this fixed. If the hammer is following the bolt, you could end up with an out of battery slamfire.

 

[Jim K]

Hi, Major Dad,

It is not commonly understood, but even with standard loads the hammer of a 1911 bounces off the grip safety. The drawings show the slide gently pushing the hammer back and down, but high speed photos tell a different story. The slide hits the hammer with a hard, fast blow, knocking it down and out of contact with the slide. It then hits the grip safety and bounces back up until it strikes the bottom of the slide forward of the firing pin stop. It is not in contact with the sear until the slide moves forward.

Just FWIW, this is what allows another interesting situation. While the hammer is out of contact with the firing pin stop, the gun is in recoil and the firing pin is still forward. The firing pin stop is free to move and tries to stay where it is while the gun recoils upward. The firing pin stop thus "drops" and hangs the gun up, and the firing pin might come out. Doesn't happen often but when it does, a lot of people scratch their heads trying to figure out how it happened.

Jim

 

[Noveldoc]

Back when the old rickety 1911s were used to train GIs, runaways happened with it emptying the whole clip on one squeeze.

Tom

 

[Maj Dad]

Jim, very interesting about the 45 std load. My Commander had a standard spring (bought the gun new ~1986 or 7) and the gunsmith work was in 97. In those ten years I really hadn't shot it all that much, but I reloaded 230 gr slugs at full power, probably +P. I like the way it works now with the 22 lb, and function is 100%. Simplistically, it sounds like the extra-power FP springs they include with the xp recoil springs would help to minimize the stop falling & jamming, besides inhibiting forward motion at the end of the cycle.

The only time I've had a runaway/double with a pistol was on a GI Colt 45 at Ft Bragg when the sear split in half and 2 rounds got off. Wasn't a big thing with only two, but I had a glimpse into the catastrophe of a full-mag runaway. Without prior knowledge I don't think it would be controllable save for maybe keeping it rising to the vertical. Don't want to go there!