M1 Garand Reassembly

[MackMan]

I took apart my recently acquired CMP M1 and was surprised how easy the Gas Cylinder came off. Even before disassembly I noticed the frt hand guard seem a little loose. Upon reassembly I was hoping to tighten things up but can't get the gas cylinder lock any tighter.
Maybe this is normal ?




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[G-Man WC]

Where's your screw on the end, The gas plug?

[Lone_Gunman]

That's normal. Back it back off until it lines up. The front HG is supposed to have a small amount of play, it was designed like that.

You can peen the barrel splines to tighten up the GC fit to improve accuracy. Don't over do it. There's a tutorial online that shows how to do it with a 1/4 inch socket.



Here's how to peen it.

http://garandthumb.com/peening-the-barrel-splines-on-an-m1-garand/

[Garandimal]

It's called gas cylinder lock timing.

Usually it overshoots by a quarter turn or so, but less than a full turn is OK, as long as the gas port in the barrel and cylinder line up.

The gas cylinder actually hangs on the cylinder lock through the lock screw and not bottomed out against the barrel. In action, both the expansion force inside the cylinder and the recoil of the rifle create a Forward force on the gas system.

The loose forward handguard resists binding of the system or change-of-impact due to barrel deflection when the system heats up and expands.

As stated, Peening will tighten up the cylinder/front sight.




GR

[MackMan]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to take her out tomorrow and see how she shoots before I start any peening. I was concerned because the front sight on my other M1 is very tight


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[Orlando]

If you have rotation in the gas cylinder you should peen or accuracy will suffer. I prefer to use a puch than a socket, it peens much easier. I have seen many rifles done this way, it is a arsenal repair

http://www.thecmp.org/Sales/askarmorergascylinderpeen.htm

[pro-nra]

I use a less damaging method and use locktite on the GC spline.

Front HG should have a business card thick gap for accuracy.

[Orlando]

Whats damaging about it? It was good enough for a arsenal repair its good enough for me