Does someone make an aftermarket firing pin (with spring) for M1 Garands

[Ole]

Something like this? I have 2 SKS's and they both have these installed as a margin of safety.

I would gladly pay someone $30-50 so I don't have to worry about closing my Garand's bolt too fast on a soft primer.

Yes, I realize I can make my ammo with CCI#34's. Reality is I have some ammo that I made with the regular (soft) primers.

I don't know if anyone makes these, so I thought I'd ask you guys.

Thanks.

[zomby woof]

Bring the bolt half way forward and then let if drop on a chambered round. I've been doing it that way for years without incident. You'll be fine.

[oneokie]

Unless you used Federal primers and are not feeding from the enbloc clip, I wouldn't worry too much about a slam fire.

[Multigunner]

I'd heard that the main cause of slamfires with the Garand was distortion of the rear of the firing pin and deformation of the rear of the bolt due to hard contact of the bolt with the rear of the receiver during cycling. Main cause of that being a too high gas port pressure due to unsuitable ammo or propellent.

Any autoloader can be ammo sensitive.
The Garand is one of the truly great designs, but its also one of the earliest sucessful military semi-auto rifles, so it requires ammo suited to the action and close examination of all parts to spot possible future problems before they can develop.

[Gtek]

Please re-think your train of thought. You can cycle picking round from clip with hard primers and still leave small indentation on primer. The loaded en-bloc upward force also slows cycle rate fairly evenly through 8 rounds, letting it go home single feed is playing with fire. There is designed into weapon firing pin retraction as bolt rotates and drops into battery. The results of ONE out of battery or close could be a life changing experience. I know it stinks, sounds like a good excuse to get 03, 1917 in the house if one does not live there already! Bullets, propellors, chain saws, and un-clean women, etc. only have to touch you once and will put something on you Jesus may not be able to take off! Gtek

[SlamFire1]

Some mechanisms, like the FAL have a firing pin spring to reduce the inertia impact from the firing pin. Chinese SKS's don't have a firing pin spring but Russian SKS's do.

The original Garand firing pin used this rare round cross section firing pin. Evidentally the Army had too many slamfires with this heavy firing pin and, as they did with the M16, they controlled slamfires by lightening the firing pin and using a less sensitive primer. Adding a spring was one part too many for the military.





I don’t know a spring loaded mechanism for Garand firing pins, heard of them, never saw one, don’t have a picture or a source.

I had two out of battery slamfires in Garands, both with Federal primers and both were from the clip.

The second time, I had ensured that primer pockets were reamed to depth, like .008 to .010" below casehead, but a with a combination of slightly fat cases and a new match chamber, that rifle slamfired out of battery and blew the receiver heel into my face.

That is when I figured out that primer sensitivity was a real issue in these things.

I believe that reducing slamfires in Garands is a process.

The first thing to do is buy small base dies and size the cases to gage minimum. I use Wilson type cases because they are simple. A case that is too long or too fat is bad.



You need a gage case to set up your dies because you will never size your cases between these ledges by following “size to the shell holder and add a quarter turn”



You must use a decent lube with small base dies. Spray on dies will stick a case. I use RCBS water soluble or Imperial sizing wax.

For decades the technical experts writing for the American Rifleman, the vast majority being retired Ordnance Officers and retired Ordnance Department employees, they published all sorts of high primer slamfire warnings and worn receiver bridges. They never mentioned primer sensitivity or suggested tight cases, long cases, as a cause. The only warnings were "high primers and your worn out gun". Now, after decades of studying this, I think they were covering up the design deficiencies of Garands and M14’s, basically any semi auto rifle with a free floating firing pin. Given a really sensitive primer, these mechanisms will slamfire. There are lots of inbattery slamfire accounts with Garands there are fewer out of battery accounts, but they do exist. Given tight cases (crunch fit) the probability of an out of battery slamfire increases because the firing pin is rebounding off the primer before the lugs are engaged.

There are all sorts of posts of AR15’s, SKS’s, AK47’s slamfiring with new commercial ammunition, the primers of which are more sensitive than military primers, the mechanisms of which use free floating firing pins, so we know the high primer only theories of the past were a misdirection.

Still, I am concerned about high primers and clean the primer pockets of my rifle ammunition.

I also seat all primers by hand and am still reaming pockets to depth.

I highly recommend the use of “mil spec” primers. The military specified the FA34 primer for Garands and M1a’s. Found that in a M16 document on DTIC. The FA34 primer is a less sensitive primer. CCI claims their #34 primer is a military primer and the TULA7.62 primer is said to be mil spec. These primers are absolutely excellent primers and I have shot good groups with them in 100 yard reduced highpower matches. Targets below. I was surprised to find low extreme spreads and standard deviation with the TULA primers.

Never, ever, use a primer that is “more sensitive” in these mechanisms. Federals are the most slamfiring primer ever in Garands and M1a’s. Winchester made their primers more sensitive when they changed from the nickel finish to the brass finish primers. Remington primers are said to be mil spec, don’t know.

[Forrest r]

I've owned several garands & a tanker (308) garand over the years & have never had a slamfire. I've never used sb dies for any of them either. I've never skimped on cases & will only reload the cases 4x for any semi-auto uncluding the garand. My favorite prime is Winchester's lr primer, that's all I've ever used since the mid 80's.

A must have for the garand that allowes the operator of that rifle the ability to use any powder/load (no more garand specific loads) without any malfunctions is one of these.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/777...eel-parkerized
These adjustable plugs will allow you to dial the garand down so that they will lay the spent cases at your feet. I used one of these in conjunction with a cut down recoil spring in all my garands. The plug stops the bolt from slaming back & thee lighter spring stops the bolt from slaming forward. These plugs also aid in accuracy, by adjusting the plug I could watch thee groups shrink & open bak up as I adjusted the plug in & out. The plugs are well worth the money, no more beating the rifle up, no more slam fires, no more bent op rod. And you can use about any load in the garand & have it function, can use heavy match bulets without worrying about bending the op rods & can tune a load to your rifle.

[nicholst55]

IIRC, Phil Arrington, of Arrington Accuracy Works, designed a spring loaded M1 firing pin and installed them at one time. No idea if these are still available. I've never encountered one; just read about them.

[Multigunner]

My Yugo didn't have a return spring.
I'd read that the original SKS design included a firing pin retracting spring, but they found it could become fouled by mixed greases and powder fouling and the pin would seize up in sub zero weather. That source implied that the spring was dropped from the Russian SKS first. If thats true there are probably a few early production Russian SKS that have the spring still in circulation.

Its been many years since I owned a Garand. I'm one of those that let a good one go expecting they'd still be around dirt cheap for years to come. Same reason I no longer own a Krag Carbine.
I barely remember the internals, but was under the impression that the rear leg of the firing pin was cammed back on opening and would block forwards movement until the bolt rotated home.
Most centerfire turn bolt actions have some means of retracting the firing pin on opening, even the cock on closing actions, otherwise the firing pin tip can snap off or be bent when the fired case is ejected.

[SlamFire1]

If thats true there are probably a few early production Russian SKS that have the spring still in circulation

My two Russian rebuilds have the springs.

If I could have known how high the prices would rise on Russian SKS's, I would have bought enough to find some without springs!

[milprileb]

I believe the phenomena of slam fires is ammo generated. We just did not have this
in the army when we used the M1 but it has surfaced with civilians now owning the weapons in great numbers. I believe its mostly improper reloading techniques at play.

Putting the debate aside from ones reloads. Yes.. there is a spring loaded firing pin for the M1 Rifle and the gunsmith that does it is Roland Beaver out of Arkansas. He modifies your bolt for this feature and it eliminates any possible chance of slam fire due to firing pin... it won't eliminate bad reloads causing slam fires.

Of course , this modification is not something the US Govt ever did and it does disqualified the M1 from CMP matches as its not original (by their rules) if either of these things matter.

Last I heard , Roland charges 45 bucks to do a bolt. If one is really concerned with slam fires, this may rock your boat... but as good an idea as this is, it will not stop a slam fire of reloads with primers improperly seated.

Now I do not want to offend anyone here but I think most primer problems are caused by human error in seating. I don't do priming on any press , and certainly not for M1 rifles on my Dillon 450 or 500 or 650 presses. I do it by hand on a RCBS automatic bench mounted priming tool and I can feel the primer seat fully into the primer pocket and inspect it as I take it out of the priming tool. It is very fast and certain approach. Its worth doing to preclude slam fires. Hard primers alone will not preclude slam fires if you don't seat primers fully.

The enemy of safety on reloading in my opinion is speed. With it, mistakes and quality control slide. This is especially true in seating primers and weighing/throwing charges.

Roland Beaver... pulse CMP forum and get his contact info. He was a USMC armorer/ gunsmith.

I have never gone to him to modify a M1 but its been tempting. I have not decided if I will or not. When I croak, my son and grand kids were not trained on the M1 rifle like I was and I kinda want to preclude any safety issues that may hit them long after I am gone. Rolands solution makes the M1 a safer rifle... yes it does. That alone makes it something I ought to do and get off my backside and get on with it.

[madsenshooter]

If you're going to have Roland Beaver touch your M1, you might as well get the works. He builds the the most accurate M1s I've ever shot.

[Multigunner]

Some slam firing may be due to using modern commercial primers in cases with primer pockets that adhered to a different specification.
When Seller&Bellot was the only milspec boxer primed ammo available here I quickly found that the bottom of the primer pockets had a radius that interfered with the seating of a standard primer. The foot of the anvil contacted this radius before fully seated, and many times the primer would detonate during seating. I heard they fixed that problem in later production, but I haven't tried S&B since my previous experiance with them.

A too tight pocket can place too much preload on the primer, then its extra sensitive.
In the old days putting some preload on the primer was considered necessary for consistent ignition.

[Ole]

Thanks for the info gents. I will be sending my bolt to Mr. Beaver before I fire my Garand again.

Reason I made this thread:

I was making some ammo for it yesterday, and I wanted to test the OAL of some loaded rounds to make sure they wouldn't cause feeding problems. Fed 8 from the clip and about passed out when I picked this puppy off the floor.



I was shaking when I thought about what came close to happening here. It's been a day and I'm still sweating thinking about my Garand going off inside my house and trying to explain how that happened without my finger even being inside the trigger guard.

Cheap lesson and I'm not taking any more chances with this rifle.

EDIT to add: Yes, I know I was a complete idiot for checking my OAL in this manner. Won't be doing that anymore with any of my guns.

[Larry Gibson]

Ole

That is common and occurs with milsurp ammo also. It also is common with a lot of semi and FA designs like the M16/AR for instance. BTW; is there some particular reason you're loading your M1 inside your house? In a self defense situation you'll be explaing a lot more than an AD of which the AD probably won't even come up if no one was hit from it. Also, accidents do happen which is why we keep the muzzle always pointed in a safe direction where the bullet, if the firearm fires, won't hit anyone. Nothing critical of you here, just saying what you are seeing is common. Many don't see it because the preponderance of rounds chambered are fired so we seldom see what you have....the firing pin dimple in the primer.

I've examined several reported "slam fires". While I think some may be caused by ammo my findings were that the triggers had all, except one, been worked over to unreliable levels by the owners. That means the hammer fell on the firing pin from the jar of chambering. I put the trigger parts in another housing if the original couldn't be used and tested the triggers. None were a "slam fire" at all. It is always human nature to blame something other than ourselves when something goes wrong. With the one exception I had the shooter take me through the loading sequence as the scorer said he was using the non firing hand to close the bolt. Sure enough the shooter held the rifle with the firing hand and reached across with the left hand to let the oprod go forward. Guess where his trigger finger was?

Also many confuse the hammer falling on chambering as a slamfire or OBF which, of course, it is neither.

Larry Gibson

[M1A4ME]

I'm just one of those lucky guys you read about (maybe).

I used Federal bench rest primers in my M1A for years before I read somewhere you shouldn't. After that I used regular CCI large rifle primers for several more years. Never any issues.

When I got my old M1 Garands I bought 5,000 of the CCI military primers and began using them. No issues with those primers either.

No small base dies in any caliber and my reloads with Lee or Pacific dies work fine in my M1's and M1A.

I use Federal or CCI small rifle primers for reloading my AR15 ammo. No small base dies either. No issues with those rifles or reloads either.

Oh, my 1911's feed everything from all kinds of magazines, too, GI surplus, shooting stars, no name gun show cheapies, etc.

I lead a charmed life.

I'm sure there are issues with some rifles. They are mass produced, each one is a little different than the next, there are varying amounts of wear, some people are not as careful with their reloads, etc.

Having worked in the chemical industry for 27 years now I can tell you without a doubt that when an accident happens the investigations often do not find the root cause of the accident and very often the investigation team ends up assuming several possible causes and then tries to come up with ways to prevent each of the several possible causes from occurring again. This means that quite often even though there was something (or a combination of things) that led to the accident the recommendations coming out of the investigation do not stop the same thing from happening again to someone else. That's life. Sucks sometimes, but its still life.

[madsenshooter]

I've had one slam fire, that was with an M1A. I dropped a round fully into the chamber, then let the bolt fly home. The rifle was pointed at the ground, but I nearly shot the tire on my car. I still have a bunch of 06 ammo loaded with CCI benchrest primers, back when they were still nickle plated, never had a problem with them, once I learned my lesson and knew better than to fully chamber a round. Lot of fellows don't know about slam fires, even a WWII vet friend didn't know what it was, but he understood the mechanics of it when I explained it. So, how was your OAL, Ole? Sticking the bullet into the lands increases the likelyhood of a slam fire, sets the head back every so slightly tighter against the bolt face. But what you've pictured looks pretty normal to me.

[Multigunner]

Main reason I let my YUGO go, though at a very nice profit, was a very disconcerting event that turned me off to the design.
First time I chambered a round to check the feed after replacing an aftermarket 30 rounder with the original style magazine box the primer showed a very deep indentation. So deep I don't see how it failed to discharge.

I also chambered that round with the muzzle pointed down.
I suspect gravity assisted the inertia of the firing pin.
The ammo was Russian Surplus. If it had been modern commercial ammo the round would probably have gone off.

[Ole]

So, how was your OAL, Ole?

The rounds I made were 3.260" OAL. All cases were trimmed to 2.484".

[SlamFire1]

I believe the phenomena of slam fires is ammo generated. We just did not have this in the army when we used the M1 but it has surfaced with civilians now owning the weapons in great numbers. I believe its mostly improper reloading techniques at play

.

The Army always used the FA34 primer in its ammunition. I am unaware of a similar, “less sensitive” primer until CCI made its military primers available on the market in the late 1990’s.

The Army never broadcast its problems to the world, it never does, but it is beyond belief they never experienced slamfires because there are plenty of reports of Garands slamfiring with military ammunition.

Here are a few:

Garand Slamfire with LC 69

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=264020

“While the M1 and M14/M1A do have the "web", slam fires are still possible and can be catastrophic. I was lucky enough to come through one with a GI Springfield M1 from the DCM about 20 years ago using LC 69 issue ammo. The rifle held together for the most part, but did fire out of battery on loading a single round in slow fire. If it had been in a rapid fire string, I most likely would not be typing this right now. The rear of the receiver from just aft of the serial number was blown off and the stock cracked with a big chunk blown out of it. The bolt was jammed into the back of the receiver and would not come forward. The op rod handle ripped the palm of my hand open, and you could read the head stamp of the case in reverse on my palm. The recovered empty case was about an inch long. Never did find the rear of the receiver. The DCM took the rifle back and never did tell me what they determined went wrong. They replaced it with a brand new, and I mean, brand new, never issued H&R.

If you shoot either the M1 or M14, I would highly suggest you either use a SLED with the M1 or load single rounds from the mag on the M1A. Reloads should use the harder primers, like CCI, and I check mine with a seating gage. ”

308 Garand Slamfires with Military Match Ammunition.

http://forums.accuratereloading.com/...66&r=615101566

“In the summer of 1968 or 69 the Atlantic Fleet Rifle Matches were plagued with slamfires using .308 Match ammo. Seems a terrible long time ago, and I still get upset about it because I lost my best and only chance to leg out on that cartridge. I was in the first relay at 500 yards (not 600 because the Annapolis range only went out to 500), and someone else popped off the first slamfire and dumped a bullet into Chesapeake Bay. I think I was the second or third to do so, and dropped my score from winner to first leather. The range officer did not allow a refire for any of us in first relay. By the second relay, the ammo malfunction was quite evident, and refires were given, but nothing was done for those of us in first relay. Slamfires popped all afternoon, was not a pretty sight. On examination, and believe me everyone was looking at ammo that day, the decision was a batch of overly sensitive primers. I guarantee, a slamfire can run your entire day!!!”

From Old Culver’s forum:

I opt for the #34. A number of my friends who shoot the Garand regularly use LR primers. One who specializes in ballistics for a large ammunition mfr says it is imperative to have the primer seated .005", no less but a std LR primer is safe.

The # 34 will not save you from the many mistakes that can be made with a Garand, but will add some insurance against death or severe injuries that can occur even when you have all the safety bases covered.

I started shooting the Garand in 1958 in service, was a unit armorer, have owned and fired Garands for close to 50 years.

One slam fire is enough to coax a person out of complacency. Fortunately, the bolt gouged into the receiver a third way back so my right hand and arm were the only recipients of countless tiny pieces of hot brass. Since I was old enough for the doctors not to worry about blood poisoning over time, they left the brass in the tissue.

The cartridge was a 'Garand safe' commercial match round. Two gunsmiths found nothing to indicate a problem with the rifle, but after checking the primers/seating depth surmised that the firing pin dimpled-fired the LR primer in the round.

That occurred in 1999 and since then I have fired over 8,000 rounds through several Garand's, all using CCI #34 and have not had any problems. I think the major authors/gunsmiths who specialize in the Garand will tell you to use the #34.

If you really get curious about primer seating depth, mic some Lake City milsurp, some commercial Match ammo and some of your own loads, if you load. If you have any of the LC, a quick visual will show you that the primers are seated quite a bit deeper than any commercial ammo. And they are mil-spec primers, less sensitive than std LR commercial primers.

2008 slamfire with Greek HXP 88 30-06 ammunition.

http://www.jouster.com/cgi-bin/reloa...ad=31735#31762

Re: M1 Garand / Hang fire ?
Levisdad <Send E-Mail> -- Tues 3 Jun 2008 8:54 am
Yep 1988, Lot hxp 88j001-002
I also had a slamfire out of this same lot a short time ago.
The slamfire was from closing the bolt using a two round clip. It was the second stage of rapid prone. I've fired 200 rds after that with out a problem. Until the two hangfires.

Slamfire with HXP 20 Feb 2010

http://www.thecmp.org/forums/showthr...?t=8784&page=2

Today, 09:03 AM
chevycrazy69
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 11


________________________________________
I have had one slamfire with a M1 garand. I was single loading during the sighters portion of a NRA high power match. Sure scared the **** out of me. I put the garand down and finished the match with my AR. I was using HXP ball. I have no idea what caused the slam fire. It has made me much more careful in how fast I let the bolt forward during single loading. I have fired hundreds of rounds (both reloads and ball) in that garand since without a single problem. I have used CCI 34 primers in all my garand reloads since. Do I feel it is needed, no. But I am a design engineer and like to take a "belt and suspender" approach to my safety. I do use winchester small rifle primers in my AR and have for many thousands of rounds. I wish I knew if that particular HXP round had a high primer or not.

http://handgunsandammo.proboards.com...ay&thread=9424

M1 Garand woes...
« Thread Started on May 2, 2010, 4:39am »
________________________________________
Well, today I got to attend a super-awesome marksmanship clinic on how to improve our positions for highpower shooting using sling support. I learned *a lot* The big take away was to really practice and stick to the fundamentals and get those things down.

The icing on the cake was to be a course of fire. I was using my treasured M1 Garand rifle and 1980 HXP Greek M2 150gr. ball ammunition. During the slow fire prone I was putting individual cartridges in the chamber, and then closing the bolt. During this exercise, I had an out of battery cartridge detonation. Confused and shocked me a bit, but fortunately the rifle was pointed down range, and the fired cartridge case jumped out backwards, sailed past me and hit me in the arm/torso/leg area. The primer was pimpled out and extruded a bit, but otherwise everything held together. The diagnosis was that the firing pin may have become elongated and may need replacing. I hope it is something simple. I switched to firing an unfamiliar M1 rifle, and encountered the frustration of not really knowing where it hit, and having to make adjustments on the fly. Then I had five cartridges and a magazine jump out of the rifle half-way after the third shot was fired. Then I shot an off-hand string, which was all over the paper, and I realized belatedly that the gas cylinder and the attached sights were loose and free to slide fore and aft!

So it was frustrating, to say the least. I've literally never had any issue or problem with an M1 apart from a cartridge case buckling and causing a stoppage once, and i stopped using that brand of ammo and never had a repeat. But today was clearly not my day.

Thoughts?

Read more: http://handgunsandammo.proboards.com...#ixzz1268Lr7Uw

Garand Slamfires with Greek Ammunition

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=7446022

Yesterday, 07:53 PM
#6

ArchAngelCD
Member


Join Date: November 25, 2006
Location: PA, USA
Posts: 9,272 Almost forgot to mention this, I bought 6 cans of Greek M1 ammo from CMP. In the second can I opened I actually had 3 slam-fires from 3 different clips. Didn't happen with ammo in the first can, didn't happen again with the rest of the ammo from that can or the next 2 cans of ammo I used. (192 rounds per can, 768 total rounds) Go figure, never happened to me with my reloads using standard CCI and Winchester primers as well as CCI #34 primers but I got 3 with ammo specifically loaded for the Garand by a government arsenal!

DCM Garand slamfires out of battery with LC69 ammo

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/i.../t-178109.html

AK103K
January 21st, 2006, 05:17 PM
My right hand got tore up pretty good when my DCM Garand went hand grenade. I'm just glad it happened when I was single loading it, we never found the rear of the receiver, which I have a feeling would have ended up in my head. The worst part of the whole thing was, it happened in New Jersey and trying to convince the people at the hospital that it wasnt a "gun shot" wound and no need to bring the police into it.


AK103K
January 21st, 2006, 09:03 PM
I believe it slam fired. The recovered case was missing the front half, which leads me to believe it fired out of battery. The ammo was DCM issued GI Lake City 69 and not commercial 30-06 or reloads. I sent it back to Anniston and they never did tell me what they thought the cause was. They did send me a brand new H&R though. I still shoot M1's, but I no longer load single rounds by allowing the bolt to go home on its own, and anymore, I usually use a SLED. I also only use CCI primers when I do reload, for both my M1 and M1A's, and I also mike the primers.

]edit to add: I dont believe that the M1 and M1A's firing pins can protrude or reach the primer, due to a slotted bridge in the receiver, that wont allow the tail of the firing pin by until the bolt is closing or closed. .

Garand Slamfires with issue ball and NM ammunition

http://forum.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=251078

11-23-2009, 12:23 PM
lowflash
Member Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 233

Quote:
Originally Posted by GRPfan
I've only read about first-hand slam fires (not hearsay) on the Internet a couple of times. There are two problems with this. First, we believe what we read on the Internet, and while a lot of good info is out there, so is a lot of misinformation. Also, we cannot get any kind of statistical information for how often slamfires happen.
Three slam fires with M1 rifles:
1964 ITR Camp Geiger NC International Harvester Mfgr M1 with issue ball ammunition, 1968 Gitmo Marine Marksmanship Instructor for Sailors using M1 rifles converted 7.62 Nato with issued 7.62mm Match XM118 Lot LC 12010, and a M1 Springfield match conditioned by Clint Fowler in 7.62 Nato ammunition .308 Federal Match. All three rifles were examined and found to be with in specification.