Low Number '03 catastrophic failure- recent.

[Doug Douglass]

Scary stuff...I have a 100% orgional USMC 1910 that I will NEVER shoot....it's not worth losing a nice rifle and spending hours in the ER.

[slamfire]

Scary stuff...I have a 100% orgional USMC 1910 that I will NEVER shoot....it's not worth losing a nice rifle and spending hours in the ER.

It is best to be educated about the risks and decide for yourself about what to do with your low number Springfield. These things are a risk, I have explained the risks in a previous post. As a population you know 33% will fail in a high pressure event, and the service life of the things is uncertain. It is far easier to point out the risks of a population of these things than the risks associated with a single receiver. You might have a good one, relatively speaking. Even if properly made the receiver will be weaker and the service life will be less than an identical receiver made today of the same steels, and will be far less than an identical receiver made of modern alloy steels.

Based on my studies of the history of metallurgy, I don't consider highly any rifle built prior to 1920. The designs are good, but the processes and materials are going to be substandard. Based on my review of technical journals, metallurgy advanced quickly from 1920 to 1930. By the time you get to WW2 metallurgical science is mature and process controls are significantly better than they were in pre Vacuum tube days. I don't have the same concerns about 1930's receivers unless we know that the specific factory the part was made in was substandard. Which it could have been, quality was highly variable.

Based on the risk, I don't consider it wise to shoot a low number receiver and I am not particularly impressed with the double heat treat receivers either. I also don't know how advanced the factory process controls were in the 1920's up to WW2. I believe the Garands were well made and based on what I read, I think Springfield Armory was state of the art (1940's state of the art) during WW2. After WW1 all Army activities were underfunded, the production lines at RIA shut down, most of the people laid off at SA, so whatever condition the factory was in after WW1, I believe that was the technology they had till Garand production started.

[PhillipM]

Based on my studies of the history of metallurgy, I don't consider highly any rifle built prior to 1920.

P14, M1917, Remington model 30's are perhaps the strongest bolt actions ever made, and they were made before 1920.

In one American Rifleman or maybe Guns & Ammo they tried to blow up various bolt actions. The M1917 was found to be best of them all.

[Texraid]

P14, M1917, Remington model 30's are perhaps the strongest bolt actions ever made, and they were made before 1920.

In one American Rifleman or maybe Guns & Ammo they tried to blow up various bolt actions. The M1917 was found to be best of them all.

Yes, the Model 1917 has quite a reputation for a rifle made prior to 1920. P. O. Ackley was the one who pioneered the testing on military actions. He actually found the Arisaka to be the strongest, fwiw.

http://www.tactical-life.com/firearm...-p-o-ackley/2/

Some of the more popular chamberings for the M1917 have been 416 Rigby, 460 Weatherby, 358 Norma Magnum, 458 Lott. I have read A-Square Rifle Co. used the action to build a 460 Weatherby wildcat necked up to .500. It has performed admirably considering WWI technology.
However, according to Ferris, some Model 1917s blew up on the firing line during testing. The military attributed that to bad ammunition such is the case with many rifle failures.

Mauser Oberndorf, Danzig, Amberg, and Spandau; just to name a few, produced very dependable and fine rifles with early 20th century metallurgy.

Not all military, but let's not forget Winchester put together some fairly successful rifles pre 1920 as well, and some in large calibers.
Art

[Cosine26]

SLAMFIRE
I found the RIFLE magazine articles by Hugh Douglas with the postscripts by Dave LeGate. All very interesting. I had forgotten about these articles. For some reason I have two copies of RIFLE No. 99 confining these articles. I was an original subscriber to RIFLE and have all issued since No. 1..
I have a beautiful SA SHT bolt. I got it from an old time shooter who indicated that after NS M1903's were introduced, many of the old time shooters substituted the SHT bolt for the NS bolt because they were "slicker". I have dry fired it in my M1903 and it is slick-about as slick a real NM M1903. Even though I PROOf fired in an a Remington 03A3 with a heavy- I never fired it with live ammo.
I guess this is it. "None is so deaf as he who will not listen." Enjoyed the dialog and appreciated you inputs

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Slamfire/Cosine26

Did either of you personally know Townsend Whelen? The corpus of Whelen's lifetime of work is very impressive Freebies from Sedgley? What freebies would those be? Whelen was well off financially. I can find no instance of Whelen stating Sedgley reheat treated "BURNT" receivers. I might also point out that testing has shown DHT 1903's to be very strong, not brittle, receivers.

Your info on SHT 1903's has been well presented in the past. There probably isn't anyone this side of Borneo that isn't aware of that fact. People who shoot them do so because they choose to, not because of a mistaken belief in their structural integrity compared to other rifles. You might want to investigate Hatcher's Notebook a bit further also. Pull the original armory failure analyses for each of the rifle failures (I did), and you will discover that Hatcher made more than a few errors transcribing the data to his notebook. In fact, there were very few receiver failures. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I believe there were more barrel failures than receiver failures, and at least one receiver failure was a NS (please correct me if I am mistaken). Your statement that there were many more failures before and after Hatcher did his study is unfounded in fact, and appears to be a personal belief versus demonstrable data.

There were burnt receivers, but I suspect not as many as you imply. If a SHT 1903 fails under pressure, she will grenade your torso. I don't argue that point at all. What does disturb me is that most of the failures I have read about in recent years can be traced back to reloading issues.

I have about 10% of the serial numbers of rifles used by the 5th and 6th Regiments at Belleau Woods. Only one is a HN. The serial numbers are in the 300,000 range for the most part. I have read every personal account written about BW I can find, borrow, or purloin, and not once have I seen an account of a 1903 blowing up. Shot in half, barrels fired until they burn the hands that touch them, and so on; but not a receiver failure. I am not saying there weren't any, but I can find no reports of same. These rifles had truckloads of ammo fired through them in 30 days in the most horrible of conditions, yet no failures reported. The LN 1903's seem to have served the Marines well, regardless of their present day reputation. Ditto the Greeks.

I would not recommend to anyone they should fire a LN 1903 (mostly for legal reasons); but the hysteria of the LN 1903's can be a bit ridiculous at times.

By the way, I think I would have liked Townsend Whelen had I known him.

jt

[louis]

I agree with you JT. I also don't believe that the bolts where in question just the receivers. If I'm not mistaken John Beard also has said this of the bolts also.

[clintonhater]

...By the way, I think I would have liked Townsend Whelen had I known him.

jt

Knowing him was not essential to the adoration I developed in high-school by reading his column in Guns & Ammo, augmented later by reading his books, every one of which I eventually acquired, as well as the commemorative editions published after his death. (The latter publications demonstrate clearly the esteem in which he was held by tens of thousands of readers.) I also eventually acquired the issues of Rifleman which contained his "Dope Bag" pieces, and also his much more detailed articles from the teens and '20s in Outer's Book, which paid its writers real money, and was easily the best sporting mag of its time.

I can't deny I'm disturbed by the examples of "bad judgment" quoted above, but there's absolutely no reason to believe they were not rendered in good faith, expressions of what he then believed--mistakenly, we now know 80+ years later--to be true. What on earth could he have gained by "deliberately" misleading his readers, except a law-suit?

[slamfire]

Your statement that there were many more failures before and after Hatcher did his study is unfounded in fact, and appears to be a personal belief versus demonstrable data.

Deniers demand information, demand more information, they don’t merely move the goal posts out, they move them around! Around, and around, in circles, squares, triangles and spirals. Supporters of these single heat treat receivers demand information that these receivers blew before the list in Hatcher’s Notebook. Common sense would dictate that that given the same factory, same instrumentation, same process flow, same workers, that single heat treat M1903 receivers were blowing up from the beginning of production. In fact, the second receiver blowup, in Hatcher’s accident list, was made in 1907.

I would like someone to show that the blowups mentioned by Captain Keough are in Hatcher’s list:

11 August 1917 In Defense of “the Short Gun” Capt James H. Keough

…it takes but very little alteration to put the man behind the gun in a dangerous position, as I can attest, by having experienced the misfortune of blowing both locking lugs from the bolt of my service rifle in the 900 yard stage of the Leech Cup Match at Camp Perry, in 1913, which fortunately did me no more harm than to record a goose egg for my first record shot at this distance, forcing me from the match and putting me out of the running for the Palma Team. The shock of the blow-back had no serious effect on my nervous system, as I was well hardened to the echo of the boiler shop (as the shed in which the International Meter Matches were held was dubbed) by being a daily contestant in the several matches. On this same day on which this accident occurred at team mate, Col. Sergt. Leary, of the Massachusetts Infantry, had a similar accident, but was slightly bruised about the face. The cause of these blow-ups was attributed to the bolts being too hard or burned in the case hardening process. Last year at the annual encampment of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry, at Martha’s Vineyard, a blow back put a sergeant of one of the companies in the hospital for a week and nearly cost him the loss of one eye, and I know another case nearby when two bad accidents occurred in one afternoon, the rifles being blown to pieces in both instances and one of the men having the side of his face torn away. These are the only cases that I recall as happened in my locality or where I was at the time. Records of many others are well known, so that perhaps there is some cause for this alarm as to the safety of the Enfield*, which we all know is not as strong as the U.S. Magazine rifle; but I have not the slightest doubt that when our U.S. Ordnance experts have made the necessary changes that the modified Enfield will be capable of handling our U.S. ammunition with every degree of safety to the man behind the gun.

* Information had not reached the shooting community that the 1917 Enfield was a different action from the SMLE.

If you read these early 20th century magazines it becomes evident that readers of the things immediately wrote the editors of magazines about issues divined in the publication. Very similar to behavior we see in Gun Forums with the exception that the magazine editor shaped and formed the response. I believe after Captain Keough’s article the Arms and the Man was bombarded with letters from readers, each detailing similar blowups with M1903’s and issue ammunition. The Army responded to this blizzard of letters with denial:


Arms and the Man, Brig Gen Fred H. Phillips Jr 8/25/1917
Blown Blots and Split Barrels

Recently there have been reported from rifle clubs several cases where the barrels of Army rifles have burst and where bolts have blown out.

To those who are not familiar with the circumstances attending these accidents-none of which fortunately have cost human life- the mishaps have suggested that possibly the Springfield rifle is an unsafe arm, and that practice with it may be attended by fatalities.

The truth of the matter is that the Springfield is quite as safe as any high powered rifle, and possibly a much more reliable gun than one could expect from a weapon the charge of which exerts 50,000 pounds per square inch pressure in the chamber. The reason why one hears more of “blow-ups’ in the Springfield is that more rifle club members use this arm than use any other one make of commercial weapon, and consequently, in point of number, although not necessarily in point of numbers, although not necessarily in point of percentage, the accidents from the military type rifle may appear greater.
Emphatically the Springfield is not an unsafe gun. As it comes from the arsenal, it can be used year in and year out and so far as the likelihood of accidents is concerned, be as good as ever-but provide that it is properly handled and properly cared for.

If one takes the trouble to inquire into the causes of accidents with the Springfield, it will more than likely result in the conclusion that 99 our of 100 mishaps such as blown bolts and split barrels result either from the use of hand-loads or special loads improperly or carelessly put together in the making, greased chambers, or both.

In short, there nothing the matter with the Springfield as long as it is used for the ammunition for which it was designed, except of course in the very small percentage of cases where a bolt has been over hardened or some similar mechanical defect has crept in during manufacture.

Incidentally, this is the first documented example that I found where the Army is blaming blowups on “greased chambers”. The Army is of course, in denial. Instead of admitting they have a systematic problem within their Arsenals, the Army is denying that one exists. The logical is clear: perfect guns, perfect ammunition, therefore the problem must be the grease used on the bullets. It is a simple process of elimination.

In 1947, in Hatcher’s Notebook, Hatcher clearly moves the Army lack of temperature gauges on those rascally forge shop workers. You know, those forge shop workers who were suspicious of new technology making them redundant. Hatcher spins a tale where considerate Army management soothes the nervous nerves of those workers by not buying the latest technology. I am so certain that many readers of this post found their management so accommodating, so considerate of their feelings, that they were consulted well before they lost their job to an electronic device.

I also invite all readers to watch an interesting program : Forged in Fire. I like sharp pointy knives and this program has knife makers forging knives under unreasonable time requirements. The first elimination stage, the makers have to forge a blade that passes inspection. Frequently, very frequently, these experienced knife makers over heat their blades and the things show up cracked. It looks like they are heating the things by eye and due to time constraints, many blanks are overheated. It is my recollection that knives that were not obviously cracked at first inspection, have shattered in chopping tests. The judges flat out refuse to test any blade showing cracks. Recently I saw an episode where the criticality of quench media was proven. The knife maker firstly quenched his blade in oil, and to speed up the cooling to ambient, he did a finish quench in water. That water quench cracked his blade. He was eliminated.

Each knife maker gets a short autobiography at the beginning of the show, so these guys have years, some decades of experience. From what I have seen, it is easy to over heat steel and damage steel during quench. Considering the instrumentation in the forge shops of Springfield Armory and Rock Island Armory was human eyeballs, it is reasonable to assume that any part heated in these Arsenals would have similar issues to those knives forged and quenched during this program.

There are other sources that through Google books that have recently come available, and they provide enough information to confound the Hatcher morality tale that the low number rifle problem receiver problem was due to a few bad apples in the forge shop.

Report of Tests of Metals and Other Materials made in Ordinance Laboratory at Watertown Arsenal Mass, Fiscal Year 1918, War Department Document 901, 338 pp.
https://books.google.com/books/reade...er&pg=GBS.PA25

I have copied a few of the Watertown summaries. Some maybe some are a duplication of those in Hatcher’s Notebook, I invite posters to point out the duplicates.

Examination of Receivers from United States Rifles Model of 1903, burst during Navy Target Practice
Conclusions:

One of the receivers was neither case hardened nor heat treated. It was in the perlitic condition as shown by the micrographs. The structure was very coarse.

Examination of United States Rifle, Caliber 30, Model of 1903, which failed at Camp Greene NC
Conclusions.

The receiver of this rifle had not been properly heat treated prior to being put in service. Microscopic examination showed the metal to be very coarsely crystalline and the structure was that obtained by cooling at a fairly rapid rate from a high temperature. The metal was very brittle under impact, as evidenced by its being readily broken when struck a light blow with a hammer.

Broken Bolts from United States Rifle, Caliber 0.30 Model of 1903

Object: The object of this investigation was to make a complete examination of these two bolts and if possible determine the cause of failure.

Conclusions: It is the conclusion of this laboratory that the failure of both of these bolts is due to the same factor. Both were very hard and brittle and their resistance to sudden impact was very low, as could be ascertained by securely fastening the metal in a vise and striking light blows with a hammer. the brinell hardess number on one of these was 430 and on the other it was 489. these structure of both was martensitic. This structure is characteristic of very brittle material
The chemical composition of these bolts is not within the specified limits with regard to carbon, manganese, and silicon

Investigation of cause of failure of United States rifle Model of 1903, No 108 448, which failed in target practice at Camp Shelby

Conclusions:
It is the conclusion of the laboratory that the failure of this rifle was due, at least partially, if not entirely to defective material composing the barrel. Chemical analysis shows the phosphorus to be 0.083, which is entirely too high and should not be allowed. The metal is very severely banded or streaked longitudinally, as shown by etching polished sections with Stead's reagent. Nonmetallic inclusions were present in considerable quantity and were greatly elongated in the longitudinal direction of the barrel.
The weakening effect of these streaks, rich in phosphorus and containing a large amount of nonmetallic inclusions is particularly apparent under shock. The brittleness under sudden impact caused by high phosphorus and nonmetallic inclusions, especially when in the banded condition, is without doubt the predominating factor contributing directly to the failure of this rifle. The metal of the receiver was very hard and brittle, as can be at once understood by observing micrograph 4215 at 500 diameters , which shows the structure to be martensitic.

A couple of issues fall out, and they are not as simple as a morality play that vilifies forge shop workers. Firstly, the materials they are using are inconsistent and don't meet specifications. . They evidently don't have an incoming material inspection nor a material certification of incoming materials. I know from historical sources that the materials of the age were widely inconsistent, and the chemical analyses by Watertown shows that. These are plain carbon steels with slag, inclusions, high amounts of Phosphors or Sulfur, and all of these defects weaken the end product. I remember Colt had a metallurgical department that performed chemical analysis of the steels from Colt vendors. These Arsenals don’t order steel in 10 pound, 20 pound lots, they order steel in lots of 100,000 pounds or more. We are talking about costs in the $250,000 dollars per order. Why did not Springfield Armory require a chemical test as part of the purchase order or do it in house? Heat treatment temperatures are based on the percentage of carbon in the steel and the heat treatment is specific to the carbon content. Improper carbon content results in a improper heat treatment, and the end result is a part with improper material properties for the application. Like too hard, too soft.

As to blowups after Hatcher’s list, well, this thread is about one. I have downloaded accounts of broken and blown single heat treats, none in Hatcher’s list, and I remember a post on the old Culver’s where a poster had independently created a list of single heat treat blowups, and if my memory was right, 28 blowups of double heat treat receivers.

Denialism’s strongest ally is ignorance. Ignorance proves their position. Such as demanding Army, Navy, Marine Corp accounts of M1903 blowups. Deniers constantly claim that lack of accounts prove that rifles were not blowing up. That is ignorance proves their position. I am going to say that the lack of records only indicates a lack of records. Also, in today’s Department of Defense, safety incident reports are only available to Safety Officers and Law Enforcement. You the public don’t have access to DoD safety incident reports and because of that, you are probably unaware of the things. What deniers don’t know, and won’t know, is that the Department of Defense has never been particularly interested in putting its dirty laundry out in public. This is also true for Corporations, for them it is a matter of liability. No records, no proof of liability.

Hillary Clinton understands the power of ignorance. I can say based on what I have read of historic diplomatic dispatches, the diplomatic messages of Ribbentrop, Molotov clearly show material that would have been classified at the time. We could also review the correspondence of more recent Secretary’s of State. However, when it comes to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who conducted all her correspondence on an unsecured electronic device, on her unsecure private server, not one existing email of hers is considered classified. Therefore, she has not violated the law, because it is definitely illegal for Government Employees and Contractors to send classified material over unsecure networks. Hillary deleted over 30,000 emails, before turning over the rest, to Government achieves. Hillary claims those deleted emails were personnel messages, cookie recipes, etc, all totally harmless. And since there is no record of those deleted messages, she could not have broken any laws about transmitting classified messages over unsecure networks. For Hillary, ignorance proves innocence. For deniers, ignorance is a very powerful ally.

But also, none of this matters to single heat treat fans. Nothing anyone can say or do will ever change their minds, but there are things they can do which might change their minds: shoot their rifles. I encourage all to shoot their single heat treat rifles, shoot them often, and shoot them with hot loads. A certain percentage of deniers will loose a hand, and eye, or even, half a face, and this is as it should be. I don’t know if this will make them a believer, but all injuries make an excellent case for the improvement of the human race through Darwinian selection.

However society has changed, the standard is no longer : prove it’s unsafe, the standard is prove it’s safe. Deniers need to make a case why shooting their single heat treat rifle, or any single heat treat rifle is safe.

[BrentD]

Somehow, I just knew Hillary would make an appearance in this thread.

I am pretty convince the receiver action metal failed. The remaining pieces show no sign of bending, they are all shattered like broken crockery. The busted edges being completely crystalized.

I do not understand why threads on gun blow ups ALWAYS take on the same hostile and arogant tones, but they do.

In any case, there is one less custom 03 on the world. What you do with yours now is up to you.

Best of luck, all. Now can someone lock this thread down? There is no upside to more of this type of stuff.