[RAMMAC]

From the lady who had the rifle blow up in her hands.

I am the person this happened to. The 7th round jammed, which is nothing unusual for this gun. It happens all the time. That is why I didn't really hesitate to shoot the final round. We were using newer ammo, so we don't think that's the problem. My brother has been looking at his M1, and we noticed it will still fire with the chamber not fully closed. The chamber can be open up to 1/2" and the weapon will still fire. We think that's what happened.

I was very lucky with the outcome. I have lots of splinters and bruising, but nothing broken. My left hand took the brunt of the blow to my wrist and palm of my hand. Still pretty painful, but I will be fine. Thanks for the concern.

 

[RAMMAC]

I guess that using the wrong powder and squibs have been ruled out, it sounds like a true slam-fire to me. Maybe the firing pin was sticking in the bolt due to not having cleaned it in a long time.

 

[RAMMAC]

Wish I'd had that footage for my hunter safety students.

I can send you a copy.

 

[RAMMAC]

This is what frustrates me, instead of speculating why not ask the person directly involved. I just got an answer from the lady involved and it looks like this is a classic open bolt problem.

She just posted about an hour ago

The 7th round was a live round. The M1 jammed like it often does. Instead of forcing that round into the chamber, I took it out and slammed the bolt forward. We are thinking the chamber did not close all the way. My brother's M1 will still fire that way.

If you watch the video she does ride the bolt about half the way forward and then she lets it go home. She also mentioned previously that their rifles are known to fire even when the bolt is open by a half inch or so.

I also invited her to join our forum and told her that we have some pretty sharp experts that would be able to help provide guidance in regards to fixing her rifles.

 

[RAMMAC]

She sounds pretty gutsy to me, she seemed to shrug off the bruises and such without much concern. I'll bet she is more upset about loosing the rifle than any injury that she suffered.

 

[RAMMAC]

At about 5'3", 110 lbs, and being female she doesn't have much choice about how she has to hold the rifle. The only way that she could change her stance is by increasing her upper body strength and muscle mass; in other words, start working out in the gym. Heck, we have competition shooters that don't have the patience to dispense powder with a powder trickler and yet we criticize someone for not going to the gym for hours a day just so that they can shoot a few rounds of ammunition out in the sticks.

The physiology of the average female body is such that they have less muscle mass in the upper body and wider hips; these things force a small framed woman (a smaller man too) to lean back and use their hips as a counter weight to the length and weight of the rifle, and the length of the rifle compounds the problem...it's 43" lever so it multiplies the effect of the rifle's weight.

Think about this, at her height and weight she is only a few inches taller than the rifle is long, and the rifle's weight is pretty close to being 10% of her total weight vs. about 5% of ours. An equivalent rifle for the average male would be something that is about 60" long and weighs 20 pounds. We have an awful lot of people that claim that an M1A in a JAE stock is too heavy to shoot offhand and that combination only weighs about 13 pounds (without a scope).

She deserves a lot of credit for even trying to shoot the rifle.

 

[RAMMAC]

Tank1949, read post number 27, she explains what happened...there isn't any reason to have to guess at what happened.