What's wrong with this

[remus]

An acquaintance of mine got an M1 and when he tried to take it apart the trigger housing group absolutely refused to come out of the rifle. Pulled the trigger guard back and unhooked the catch, the housing would come out about an eighth of an inch and would come no further out. He's tried everything he knows to get it to budge and it won't. Anyone ever have this trouble before?

The rifle operates like it is supposed to, cocking. locking back. Safety works. Bolt goes forward as it should. He hasn't loaded it with ammo or tried to shoot it. Would like to get it apart first .

Thanks

[Dan Shapiro]

Sounds like a great lockup. Back in the day, they used a mallet to smack the trigger guard closed.

Remove the sling. Lay the rifle on the floor, trigger guard up. Now straddle the rifle (don't even think about it!) so that your knees are on either side, facing the TG. Insert a long, thick screwdriver thru the TG. Grasp the screwdriver with both hands -TG between the hands. Pull up and back.

[nf1e]

Sounds like the trigger pin has backed out a bit.

[Major Tom]

Yeah, use a good screw driver and NOT a piece of the cleaning rod. The cleaning rod WILL bend! Some lock ups are extremely tight.

[Sunray]

"...the trigger pin has..." Or the stock is swollen. Isn't about not getting the TG out though.
Safe to assume the hammer is cocked? Can he see anything out of place through the top?

[2111]

OP said "Pulled the trigger guard back and unhooked the catch", so the problem is removing the the trigger housing from stock. If you can fully open the trigger guard nothing, other than the stock, could be keeping the trigger group from being removed. I would take a piece of wood that will fit past the follower assembly, to the floor plate, and lightly tap the floor plate. My guess is the stock is swollen a bit

[PhillipM]

OP said "Pulled the trigger guard back and unhooked the catch", so the problem is removing the the trigger housing from stock. If you can fully open the trigger guard nothing, other than the stock, could be keeping the trigger group from being removed. I would take a piece of wood that will fit past the follower assembly, to the floor plate, and lightly tap the floor plate. My guess is the stock is swollen a bit

Good advice

[RED]

I'm not sure you should remove the action from the stock... My M1A is steel bedded and locks up tight. I made the mistake of thinking I needed to clean something under the stock and so I used a rubber mallet to remove it. When I put it back together it would shoot pie plate patterns at 100 yards. It was a 1 MOA gun before I took it out of the stock. I finally got it almost back to where it was but it took 200+ rounds for it to settle back into the bedding.

[Phil McGrath]

I'm not sure you should remove the action from the stock... My M1A is steel bedded and locks up tight. I made the mistake of thinking I needed to clean something under the stock and so I used a rubber mallet to remove it. When I put it back together it would shoot pie plate patterns at 100 yards. It was a 1 MOA gun before I took it out of the stock. I finally got it almost back to where it was but it took 200+ rounds for it to settle back into the bedding.

What you describe isn't uncommon, what it uncommon too me is the amount of rounds needed too settle the action back/close too where it was pre-clean. For the most part bedded rifles return too there zero quicker than non-bedded rifles do. What I do with my bedded rifles after cleaning is give the lower areas of the receiver a fine dusting of graphite using a old makeup brush I swiped from my wife. Reinsertion and then later removal of the action from the stock is greatly reduced, settling the action after is also much reduced normally less that 15rds fired and its back in its accuracy groove. The graphite doesn't have any effect or reaction on the bedding so I have no worries about bedding breakdown or mechanical scraping.