g741.org

I've owned over a dozen , still have 4, and M1A's or variants of the M14 are not prone to slam fires. The only concerns are handloads with primers not seated properly, as stated above. If hand loading, try to use hard "Military primers" since the firing pin on the M1A is a floating type, if you chamber round and extract it, you usually will notice a slight peck mark on the primer due to the firing pin tapping it as the bolt slams closed. I see some people chambering rounds by hand not using the magazine which I understand can cause a slam fire since the action of stripping and round from the mag slows the bolt enough to prevent an higher accelerated round chambering, thus more inertia to the firing pin. Another cited issue can be a piece of brass sticking in the firing pin hole and causing the firing pin to stay protruded, I can't see that happening if you look at all of the design features of the M1 and M14 relative to bolt lockup/receiver bridge camming section, hammer lockup and firing pin ramp, unless something is broken or super, super dirty, it's pretty hard to get one to malfunction.

Cav Trooper