Hello, everyone -
Yesterday, I went out and "shot" my M1 Garand for the first time. I put "shot" in quotations, because I was only able to shoot one round off.
Before I get into the problem, I feel I should give some background information.
I had my Garand rebarreled for a .308 cartridge. I was shooting commercial ammo, so I bought and installed a Schuster adjustible gas plug. I left the plug in the "wide open" position so that I could eventually adjust the gas pressure so that the Garand would fire commercial ammo without damaging the op rod.
I loaded an enbloc clip with 8 rounds of .308, tapped the op rod, and fired that first shot. Boom! What a feeling! Nothing wrong so far. The casing didn't eject, as expected. I pulled back on the op rod, ejected the spent cartridge, and ejected the enbloc clip - since I didn't want to make the necessary gas plug adjustment with a loaded gun.
After making the gas plug adjustment, I loaded another 8 rounds into the enbloc clip, tapped the op rod and got ready to fire. Click. Nothing.
Worse, when I tried to pull the op rod back to eject the unshot round, it wouldn't budge. I couldn't move the op rod back no matter how hard I pulled. Thankfully, the shooter next to me had a hammer so we were able to carefully hammer the op rod back enough to "unjam" it and eject the unshot cartridge and the enbloc clip.
I field stripped the Garand just to see if everything was all right. Realizing that I had no idea what I was doing, I put it back together again and hoped it was just a dud round.
I then loaded a single round (without the use of the enbloc clip) into the barrel, tapped the op rod, and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. Same thing - the op rod was jammed and wouldn't pull back. I felt like an idiot asking the shooter next to me if I could borrow his hammer again.
At this point, he mentioned that I should have had a "spacer" to help load the .308 round into the barrel, since the .308 is shorter than the .30-06. However, I'm not sure if that's entirely the problem. That doesn't explain how the gun malfunctioned when I loaded a single round by hand into the barrel.
I'm also pretty sure the gas plug had nothing to do with the problem, but I could be wrong.
My only guess is that I must have damaged something when I successfully fired that first round. I field stripped the Garand when I first got it, so perhaps I didn't correctly put it back together again. But why would the rifle fire the first time and not the next two?
Any help or advice would be extremely appreciated! Thank you.
Yesterday, I went out and "shot" my M1 Garand for the first time. I put "shot" in quotations, because I was only able to shoot one round off.
Before I get into the problem, I feel I should give some background information.
I had my Garand rebarreled for a .308 cartridge. I was shooting commercial ammo, so I bought and installed a Schuster adjustible gas plug. I left the plug in the "wide open" position so that I could eventually adjust the gas pressure so that the Garand would fire commercial ammo without damaging the op rod.
I loaded an enbloc clip with 8 rounds of .308, tapped the op rod, and fired that first shot. Boom! What a feeling! Nothing wrong so far. The casing didn't eject, as expected. I pulled back on the op rod, ejected the spent cartridge, and ejected the enbloc clip - since I didn't want to make the necessary gas plug adjustment with a loaded gun.
After making the gas plug adjustment, I loaded another 8 rounds into the enbloc clip, tapped the op rod and got ready to fire. Click. Nothing.
Worse, when I tried to pull the op rod back to eject the unshot round, it wouldn't budge. I couldn't move the op rod back no matter how hard I pulled. Thankfully, the shooter next to me had a hammer so we were able to carefully hammer the op rod back enough to "unjam" it and eject the unshot cartridge and the enbloc clip.
I field stripped the Garand just to see if everything was all right. Realizing that I had no idea what I was doing, I put it back together again and hoped it was just a dud round.
I then loaded a single round (without the use of the enbloc clip) into the barrel, tapped the op rod, and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. Same thing - the op rod was jammed and wouldn't pull back. I felt like an idiot asking the shooter next to me if I could borrow his hammer again.
At this point, he mentioned that I should have had a "spacer" to help load the .308 round into the barrel, since the .308 is shorter than the .30-06. However, I'm not sure if that's entirely the problem. That doesn't explain how the gun malfunctioned when I loaded a single round by hand into the barrel.
I'm also pretty sure the gas plug had nothing to do with the problem, but I could be wrong.
My only guess is that I must have damaged something when I successfully fired that first round. I field stripped the Garand when I first got it, so perhaps I didn't correctly put it back together again. But why would the rifle fire the first time and not the next two?
Any help or advice would be extremely appreciated! Thank you.