Confusion on LN 03's

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

IMHO Hatcher's Notebook is THE source to read regarding the LN Springfield question.
He found the bad vintages were from 1906 and 1911 IIRC. Both the steel and the manufacturing processes were improved and the decision was made in the late 1920s to eventually withdraw the LNs from service, due to the tight defense budgets of those years that was not implemented.

You might want to read the official ordnance reports Hatcher referenced and compare them to his report. I tried to post a table of all known (from ordnance reports and SRS) failures but it looks like crap when posted. I could only find 157 reported failures, and only 92 of those suffered receiver damage. Many of the causes of receiver failures would have damaged modern receivers. If someone can explain how to post an Excel database, I will post it for all to see.

Rick, one of the failures was a Philippine rifle. :-)

jt

[jgaynor]

You might want to read the official ordnance reports Hatcher referenced and compare them to his report. I tried to post a table of all known (from ordnance reports and SRS) failures but it looks like crap when posted. I could only find 157 reported failures, and only 92 of those suffered receiver damage. Many of the causes of receiver failures would have damaged modern receivers. If someone can explain how to post an Excel database, I will post it for all to see.

Rick, one of the failures was a Philippine rifle. :-)

jt

Jim, if you can get your graph on a single page.
1. Print it
2. Scan the file saving it as a .jpg (make sure the file size does not violate any attachment limits of this forum)
3. Post using "Go Advanced & Manage Attachments"

Alternatively save it to a service like photobucket and post the link.

Esentially you are just taking a picture of the graph and dealing with it like any photo.

Regards,

Jim

I used this technique to post the following graph five or six years ago. Its based on the Hatcher data for SA only. It shows failures as a percentage of the total manufactured. if i get motivated i will try to display the dates of the accidents. For a rough average calulations just add 12 years to the date of manufacture
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...tRcvrGraph.jpg

[ClaudeH]

Jim, if you can get your graph on a single page.
1. Print it
2. Scan the file saving it as a .jpg (make sure the file size does not violate any attachment limits of this forum)
3. Post using "Go Advanced & Manage Attachments"

Alternatively save it to a service like photobucket and post the link.

Esentially you are just taking a picture of the graph and dealing with it like any photo.

Regards,

Jim

I used this technique to post the following graph five or six years ago. Its based on the Hatcher data for SA only. It shows failures as a percentage of the total manufactured. if i get motivated i will try to display the dates of the accidents. For a rough average calulations just add 12 years to the date of manufacture
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...tRcvrGraph.jpg

Also, if you have Adobe (not acrobat) or another .pdf print utility like deskpdf, you can just print the spreadsheet as a pdf in the first place.

[rcmkhm]

Very good post from Para. To expand on what he wrote, General Julian Hatcher was in charge of the investigation of the receiver failures in 1917 and he noted that the cartridge cases on the .30-06 round projected out the rear of the chamber a distance of from 0.146" to 0.1485", a distance of about 1/8" where the pressure during ignition was held in only by the brass. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the softer brass composition used in cartridges being hurriedly manufactured for WWI, coupled with a decidedly more brittle steel in the single heat treated receivers, caused the known failures when the exposed portion of the cartridge that Para mentions ruptured in an area outside of the walls of the breech, which then caused lateral pressure against the sides of the receiver that were never designed to handle it. The reported cases of failures were, however, statistically very small and there were still reported failures of high serial number receivers into the late 1920s. Presumably, if the soft brass ammo from WWI had been exhausted around that time, that might explain why the number of reported receiver failures stops. Heck, those old LSN rifles never seemed to bother the Marines and they had no reported issues with later manufactured ball ammo.

[ClaudeH]

I wish someone else would either document this or refute it because my books are packed away too far to even find right now and I don't have the time to do a tabulation. That said...

My impression from Brophy was that there was a time period when there was more or less a spike in LN failures and that time period more or less coincided with the experimental tin-plated bullets from Frankfort (?) Arsenal which were primarily match (?) rounds. It was found that this ammo created an electro-chemical weld of the bullet to the cartridge case which created immense pressures.

This ammo also caused globular tin fouling of the barrels whcih some target shooters attempted to alleviete by dipping the exposed portion of the bullet into grease. This was very risky because grease in the chamber neck can prevent the neck from properly expanding when fired, again creating immense pressures.

The combination of factors could cause doubly immense pressures.

My impression was that if you removed the failures occurring about the time this ammo and greasing practice were wreaking havoc, the remaining failures were just about statistically insignificant.

Now I know that there have been additional failures over the years and that knowledgeable people have found receivers so brittle they shatter when dropped or struck witha hammer, so I certainly am not about to say that shooting LN receivers is safe. But I suspect the fear of firing them is overblown and that prudent behaviors such as testing your receiver with a hammer and shooting only reloads put up in brass proven not to have case-head voids and flaws should greatly minimalize the risk for occasional firing.

But that's just me. Does anyone have a comment on the timeline of failures versus the tin-plated bullets?

[JimF]

. . . . . . But I suspect the fear of firing them is overblown and that prudent behaviors such as testing your receiver with a hammer and shooting only reloads put up in brass proven not to have case-head voids and flaws should greatly minimalize the risk for occasional firing. . . . .

I agree . . . .

Furthermore, for SA receivers, it was the ORDNANCE DEPT. that ARBITRARILY selected the "magic" serial number of 800,000 as the "line of demarcation" as to double-heat-treated receivers . . . . NOT Springfield Armory!!

Springfield Armory put the switch to DHT receivers at BETWEEN #750,000 and #780,000!

Now, who are you going to believe . . . . Ordnance people?

Or the people that MADE the bolts/receivers!! --Jim

[jgaynor]

I wish someone else would either document this or refute it because my books are packed away too far to even find right now and I don't have the time to do a tabulation. That said...

My impression from Brophy was that there was a time period when there was more or less a spike in LN failures and that time period more or less coincided with the experimental tin-plated bullets from Frankfort (?) Arsenal which were primarily match (?) rounds. It was found that this ammo created an electro-chemical weld of the bullet to the cartridge case which created immense pressures.

This ammo also caused globular tin fouling of the barrels whcih some target shooters attempted to alleviete by dipping the exposed portion of the bullet into grease. This was very risky because grease in the chamber neck can prevent the neck from properly expanding when fired, again creating immense pressures.

The combination of factors could cause doubly immense pressures.

My impression was that if you removed the failures occurring about the time this ammo and greasing practice were wreaking havoc, the remaining failures were just about statistically insignificant.

Now I know that there have been additional failures over the years and that knowledgeable people have found receivers so brittle they shatter when dropped or struck witha hammer, so I certainly am not about to say that shooting LN receivers is safe. But I suspect the fear of firing them is overblown and that prudent behaviors such as testing your receiver with a hammer and shooting only reloads put up in brass proven not to have case-head voids and flaws should greatly minimalize the risk for occasional firing.

But that's just me. Does anyone have a comment on the timeline of failures versus the tin-plated bullets?

Tin plated ammunition was introduced in 1921 as a possible means of reducing copper fouling in the barrels.
The decision to change the production process for SA produced M1903 rifles was undertaken a few years earlier during WW1.

I believe the tin plated ammunition was limited to National Match Cartridges so the scope of the problem was self limiting. However, Claude you do reason correctly. If you had the incredible bad luck to encounter a low numbered rifle with a "burned" receiver and fire a tin plated cartridge there probably would be a higher than normal chance of a blowup.

Of the 60 odd accidents recorded in the Hatcher data most occurred during the 20's with ordinary .30 cal Ball. The decision to halt rifle production and redesign the manufacturing process, in the middle of a war, based on a handful of accidents required a real pair of brass ones on the part of the responsible ordnance officials. What we don't know (or at least what I don't know) is what percentage of rifles were blown up during proof testing.

Regards,

Jim

[Johnny P]

The failures of the high number 1903's were nothing like the catastrophic failures of the single heat treatment receivers. On the high number rifles the receivers remained intact.

Hatcher recorded only those failures that he could document. Serial number 609 is in the SRS data as having failed in February of 1918 while in possession of the Navy, but is not recorded in Hatcher's data.

[Crashyoung]

I shoot my LN 03 with all kinds of commercial and my own reloaded cartridges.

Two things cause the failures, bad brass, and obstructed barrels.
While I shoot my 1913, You should read http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/
and make up your own mind about shooting it or not.

Also look up balloon head cartridge.

[chuckindenver]

low number 1903s should not be fired with live ammo... telling anyone to do so, is not a wise idea...