I took out my M1 Garand today, along with some other firearms I haven't gotten to shoot in a while, and discovered some potentially disturbing signs.
I need the help of someone who really knows their M1 Garands. My knowledge is probably just enough to let me think I know something.
For starters I noticed that most of the grease that was on it the last time I took it out shooting is gone. This perplexes me as I don't know how that would have happened. I DO NOT use oil to lubricate it, I know that is a cardinal sin with M1s. But that does bring me to the first question; where to grease it and what type of grease works best? Some areas seem obvious, the groove for the op rod for example, but just to cover all bases I have posted some pictures of places where I suspect that grease will be needed. Could someone take some time and circle, with Paint or some other program, where I need to grease it?
After looking at the grease situation I noticed that the op rod might be a little bent (son of a...). I am not sure if it is or not honestly because what I percieve to be a bend is very slight, so much so in fact that I'm not sure its an issue, but I prefer to er on the side of caution. I am not sure how it could have happened, I am anal about making sure I feed my M1 only ammo that is 2,700 fps or less (absolutely no commercial ammo), M2 Ball and that Federal stuff for M1s are the most common of the ammo I use. I have included a picture of the op rod as well.
I am not sure what happened. I take great pride in keeping all of my firearms in very pristine condition (my Desert Eagle has thousands of rounds through it but looks better then a lot of the ones I see for sale that have had only a few hundred rounds put through them) so this is both a confusing turn of events and one that is a little emberassing, I feel like I let the ol warhorse down...
Help...