Type III Band removal

I am a rookie carbine owner and haven’t had any experience with military surplus rifles. The bulk of my firearms experience has been with shotguns and lever action .22 rifles.  I just acquired two import carbines after having an interest in them for severql years. One is a Quality Hardware and the other is a National Postal Meter. Both appear to have been rebuilt with later sights and bayonet lug barrel bands. Bores look great on both and plan to use them at my local range and plinking around our property.

In attempting to field strip the Quality Hardware I cannot get the barrel band off and do not want to force it, resulting in damage to the surrounding areas.

I also observed the handguards on both are “loose” to some degree even with the barrel band fully snug. Is this typical?

I have purchased several books from the list on main site and watched multiple videos to get familiar with these but wanted to get some practical tips on removing the stubborn barrel band to start my tear down and inspection to thoroughly clean everything before attempting to shoot it.

I’ll include some photos in post to follow.

Thanks

Justin 

There are some tricks to tighten lose guards, but lets get the bands off first. 

I am back with an update. After attempting some of the suggested methods of getting the barrel band loose, I took the rifle to a gunsmith at my local range for some assistance. After a quick visual inspection he said the barrel appears to have a bulge, possibly indicating a stuck round at some point. At this point I plan to go back to the company I purchased it from to see what they can do for me and if they are unable/unwilling to work with me, I may be installing a different barrel to safely be able to shoot it.