Back in 2001, when I was fresh out of the Air Force, I went with my family out on our yearly Desert Thanksgiving pumpkin/watermelon destroy a thon. (we had a produce company) My cousins had been shooting my dad's M1 for quite awhile and were having a great time till it "quit working". I went over to check it out and the bolt had seized up. I took it away from the group and with a small mallet I tapped the bolt open, while pointing it in a safe direction. I kinda squated/knelt down next to it. The bolt opened about 1/2 an inch before all hell broke loose. The round cooked off out of battery. All the brass outside of the chamber sprayed my legs with little dots, the round was about 10 inches up the barrel, the case fire formed to the chamber and the stock blew up into about 20 pieces. the trigger group/bottom plate broke. What brought this up today is yesterday I found the pieces of the bottom metal and the round and whats left of the case. My dad gave it to me saying I broke it, it was mine. We found a new stock and bottom metal for the Garand and had a smith check it for safety, and I sold that sucker, never to shoot one again. I know the rifle is a good one, but it freaked me out big time. Lesson learned, clean your firearms. Thats the only thing I can imagine that went wrong. 
