M1 carbine piston

[Cancerman]

What is the best way to remove the head of a broken gas piston in the little carbine??

[Grizzle_Bear]

You need to go to a gun show and find the funky litttle three-lugged wrench to remove the three holed nut that retains the gas piston.  The piston falls out, you replace it with a new one, and replace the nut, tightening it with that same funky wrench.

Easy to do as long as you have the tool.

Grizzle Bear

[1776 Rebel]

Read that the piston nut is sometimes pretty heavily staked. Caution should apply. You could wind up messing things up quite a bit.

The GI piston nut removal tool is available from Fulton Armory for 20 bucks.

http://www.fulton-armory.com/

There is a great M1 Carbine site that has all the disassemly etc...check it out...

http://sailorcurt.blogspot.com/2007/10/m1-carbine-part-9-major-group.html

This is his picture of the tool, nut and piston...




Or you could go whole hog and get this updated tool ... for 255 bucks...

http://www.dgrguns.com/0-main-page-tools.htm

[Cancerman]

I have the tool for the nut. The problem is the piston broke and the head of the piston was battered by the stem and is stuck in there. What I need help with is removing the stuck head.

[Grizzle_Bear]

Wow!  That is a different problem.

If you have the nut removed, you might just be able to take a punch and push the head of the piston in until it straightens out.  Then it might (might!) just fall out.

You may have to drill a hole in the piston so you can twist an "easy-out" into it.  That would give you enough of a handle to pull it out.

Those are the best ideas I can come up with without seeing the problem.

GB

[Sponsor]

[Sailorcurt]

Thanks for the link to my blog.

Here's what I'd do:

use a dowel, cork or some other method to securely plug the chamber.  Point the breech end in a safe direction and CAREFULLY use an air compressor (maybe use one of those plastic nozzles used to fill beach balls and such...whatever you use, be very careful not to bung up the crown) and pump some air pressure into the barrel to try to blow the piston out. 

Start out at a fairly low pressure and work your way up. 

Unless you've got some sort of super-duper compressor, you shouldn't be able to put enough pressure in there to hurt the barrel...but be careful of the piston or breech plug shooting out and ricocheting around.

You'll shoot your eye out with that thing.

Thanks again for the link.

Sailorcurt
Captain of a Crew of One

[ericire12]

http://tinyurl.com/mf7rke

[Sailorcurt]

Read that the piston nut is sometimes pretty heavily staked. Caution should apply. You could wind up messing things up quite a bit.

The GI piston nut removal tool is available from Fulton Armory for 20 bucks.

http://www.fulton-armory.com/

There is a great M1 Carbine site that has all the disassemly etc...check it out...

http://sailorcurt.blogspot.com/2007/10/m1-carbine-part-9-major-group.html

This is his picture of the tool, nut and piston...




Or you could go whole hog and get this updated tool ... for 255 bucks...

http://www.dgrguns.com/0-main-page-tools.htm

Thanks for linking to my blog, but I'm in the process of moving from blogger to my own site.  (which is why the linked picture went dead).   The above link will work for a couple of months or so...I've got it set to redirect to the new site), but when I delete my blogger blog, it will go dead.

The same content is available at my new site at:

http://sailorcurt.com/2007/10/m1-carbine-part-9-major-group.html