OK, here is the troble; when you squeeze the trigger, the weapon fires and the bolt cycles, ejecting the empty case and picks up a live round and drives it into the chamber. However if you hold the trigger back, the sear assy fails to engage the hammer and it follows the bolt back to the closed position. It does leave a very lite dent in the primer which tells me the weapon may double fire or more if I am not careful.

What I have done:
I have completely disassembled the weapon paying special attention to the trigger group making sure the sear contact areas are free from grease and lube. After inspected them and they dont really seem that worn. Re-assembled and ran a function check, same problem. Tried another trigger/sear I had as extra parts and the same thing.. Check the engagement area on the hammer responsible for catching the hammer on its way back, it seems fine. Re-assemble, same thing....Am I missing somthing??

Thanks in advance all.

I think your problem is what's referd to as "out of time" by Garandsmiths.

Have you ever had the action out of the stock and cycled a round? It's amazing to see all that linkage moving around in there. Poetry in motion.

Actually, timing in Garands refers to the ejection/loading of the clip, not the engagment of the sear/hammer. The timing is correct on this rifle, at least to the best of my knowledge and short of using a timing block to check.

TC1,
thanks for the reply though.
(cant edit post for some reason)

Thanks,
JAG

Jag,it sounds like the hammer hooks are worn or damaged to me.Is your trigger pivot pin,and sear pin in a1 shape?Does the bolt stay open if you shoot a single round in it?

Well I think I figured it out...Feel pretty dumb.

The previous owner, an old retired guy turned gun nut the last 20 years of his life, had glass-bedded almost every rifle he had. I picked up four rifles out of his collection and while taking a break from the garand, I noticed how much bedding compound he used in one of the mausers as well. hmmmmm....

I went back to the garand and low and behold, when he applied the bedding compound, he did not get the action to seat all of the way into the stock and the same for the trigger group. Resulting in the two just not close enough together to fuction correctly. I think maybe he had not fired this one after he did his handy work. Hell there was 4 OHTER M1s in the lot(mines a minty 43 vintage)!
Anyway it seems to function fine, less live fire which I will do in the morning. Thanks all who read and replied. I'll check in if goes south on me again.

Happy easter bunny hunting!!!!!
JAG

Jag,

The hammer has two sets of hooks. The rear ones are for the disconnector and the front are for the sear. When you fire the weapon, the hammer go to the rear and is caught by the rear hooks of the hammer and held in place until such time as you release the trigger. As you release the trigger, the disconnector releases it's grip on the rear hooks just as the sear moves into position to engage the front set of hooks. This is refered to as hammer timing. Hammer timing is nothing more than having the front set of hooks in place to stop the forward movement of the hammer at the exact moment the rear hooks are released.

What has most likely happened in your case, is that there is sufficient wear on the rear hooks or the disconnector itself to bring about a failure to capture the hammer which will cause the hammer to follow the bolt home. If the disconnect spring is too light then you can experience hammer bounce which sometimes doesn't show up until you fire the weapon. Simply working the bolt may not reveal this type of failure. These weapons are designed to not readily fire when the hammer rides the bolt home.

In order for the gun to go full auto or double, the bolt must be in battery exposing the firing pin to the direct smack with the hammer as it falls. Simply following the bolt home will not cause a doubling under most situations though.

The light pin strike is normal on these type of weapons with floating firing pins. The M1 garand, the M-14 or M1A and the M-16 or AR-15 share this trait. Too high of, or, the use of sensitive primers can result in an out of battery mishap or slam fire occurence in the M1 Garand and M1A type weapons.

The repair for your weapon would require either replacing the disconnector/spring altogether, or, recutting and resetting the engagement of the rear hooks with the disconnector and resetting the hand off timing which is fairly easy to anyone who is experienced in this type of work.

Good luck,

Malm

JAG,

Or, there may be too much distance between the action and the trigger group cause by incorrect bedding.


Malm

LOL! Ya that too! Thanks though as I had never heard the term "hammer timing". I learned something new today, it was a good day.

Regards,
JAG