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Consider this an early look at a Work in Progress: Another M1A Catastrophic Failure, with Injury.

I think the clues here are "recently started to reload" and "first batch of reloads". While any reloads are suspect in a case like this, I have to wonder about firing out of battery. We've got a chicken/egg issue here. When/why did the operating rod fail. If the operating rod failed during case feeding the bolt may not have been fully locked leading to the OOB event. If the OOB event caused the op rod failure, escaping gas might have sheared the operating rod. In either case, if the op rod leaves, there's nothing to keep the bolt from striking the back of the receiver. Now, should a receiver fail after one such event? Probably not, unless there's other contributing factors.

Color me curious.

I want to see the leading edges of the locking lugs in the receiver, and the locking lugs on the bolt.

Question: did the gun blow AT firing, or at feeding?

When he pulled the trigger, the gun blew.

I would love to provide pictures of the bolt and receiver, however, the gun went to Springfield Armory today via FedEx overnight shipping. If and when we get it back I will take more pictures for you. The bolt did suffer some damage, the extractor claw was gone when we got home.

Speaking to my dad last night, he now says that it was NOT in fact a reload that blew up the rifle. He had apparently loaded a magazine full of PMC 150-grain FMJ's to compare accuracy versus his reloads when the kB! occurred. Not sure what kind of contribution the reloads could have made, though.

Thank you to everyone for your input on this. I will continue to keep you all updated as the information comes in. Springfield should receive the rifle tomorrow.

Ian Summers
Son of a lucky S. O. B.

Oh. Bad.

I've always been afraid to systematically test whether early unlocking would unleash that level of destruction on a fully-closed bolt, with the op rod stuck/held back so the unlocking cam is contacting the bolt, and the gas piston fully forward to get a full-powered boost....

A kB!, but not a slam-fire. Definitely not a Blammo!!

I dont buy the story about the light bullets being an issue.

Did you use hard mil primers? Where the primers seated below the case head? If the firing pin caused an OOB ignition, the bolt would be flying back at a very high velocity.

Gentlemen, please READ the entire thread. The M1A kB!'d on trigger pull, after the feed cycle had completed. This was NOT a slam-fire.

However, absent my own in-person examination, I cannot rule out the same dimensional problems contributing to slam-fires as being part of this one. For a multitude of reasons, a round can be fully seated with either the bolt not fully locked or the op-rod held back from its full-forward position. I have great fears of what could happen if the op rod does not gets its full dwell time between gas pressure to the piston and engagement of the unlocking cam surfaces. This potential problem could arise even with a fully-locked bolt, which eliminates the partially-unlocked bolt/firing pin contact bug-a-boo.

As I shared with Dean over the phone, Springfield, Inc. is going to replace my dad's rifle. One of their gunsmiths called him and asked a few questions about the rifle, then stated that the cause of the kB! was the rifle firing out of battery and not related in any way to ammunition. He stated that the rifle never should have fired in that position and that Springfield would send him a new rifle within a few days.

My dad asked the gunsmith about the metal used in the receiver and oprod, and he replied, "I certainly agree that it should have been able to withstand that, and we're going to address the issue."

Overall, Pop has been thrilled with Springfield, Inc.'s customer service. I have to say I'm a little impressed at their turnaround time (less than two weeks since the gun blew up in his face) and the people he's dealt with have been very pleasant and helpful.

Ian

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AF83 wrote:
…the people he's dealt with have been very pleasant and helpful.

This is usually a pretty fair indication that your Dad had them by the short 'n' curlies and didn't realize it.

I thought the pictures of the fracture of both the oprod and the receiver lacked any evidence of deformation along the edge of the fracture. Has anyone ever seen a USGI M1 receiver fail in this manner?

After carefully reading the posts I believe, although there are a multitude of possible reasons, that the doubling could be the vital clue. To my mind, the most possible culprit in the case of the Garand is a combination of A.) High bolt-speed due to high port-pressure and, B.) Not having the butt tight against the shoulder. The latter is not hard to do during Rapidfire/Standing and explains the doubling. I've been guilty of it myself although, not with those consequences. Unless the ammo is specifically-loaded for the Garand, using same is 'Bad Ju-Ju'. just this past April I witnessed a broken Op-rod caused by Federal Gold-Label 30-06 ammo. Bolt speed was such that the back half of the Op-rod cracked and bent just ahead of the handle. Clue was the trajectory of the case which landed at 1:30, approximately 12 feet from the shooter.

BTW, glad to be back! missed you guys!

Welcome back, but...

Fail.

M1A, not M1 Garand. Different gas system. The M1A's will cut off gas flow to the cylinder faster if the pressure is higher, tending to automatically compensate for most heavy loads. The Garand system is an open port and full stroke to the piston, making for very high-speed cycling with slow burning/high muzzle pressure loads. The M1A's port is 14-1/8 inches from the breechface, and is designed for the proportionately higher pressures there.

No report of "doubling" in the report.

Rifle fired at pulling of trigger anyway, NOT on cycling, not on feeding, not on closing. Oprod and bolt were static when the trigger was pulled.

Reminds me of how a bad heat-treat on an Astra I once owned led to several small parts' failures. Surface hardening went too deep and they got brittle.

Dean:

A Pox on your keyboard!!!

You're contributing to the thread's confusion by titling it "re: Garand Kaboom"! Everything else is M1A.

My apologies for not calling you on it sooner, as my content-focused brain ignores the titles and goes straight to what's in the post.

This thread started out about a Garand kaboom.

and was subsequently hijacked.....nevertheless I've found the replies interesting. CMP South wants my sons receiver back..I suspect they'll replace it, given their past performance.