SRS Check, please, and thank you!

[70ish]

Any information for serial number 75478? Thank you in advance. This is an 1896 Carbine.

[Tom Trevor]

Nothing listed.

[70ish]

Thank you for the quick response.

[loco_engr]

What is an SRS Check?

[psteinmayer]

Springfield Research Service. Springfield used to keep detailed records of the firearms. Unfortunately, the majority of the records were lost in a fire, so most firearms do not have records. However, occasionally, someone's rifle or carbine gets a "HIT" and that tells us who the gun was issued to when it left the arsenal.

[loco_engr]

Thank You for that information

[Dick Hosmer]

Springfield Research Service. Springfield used to keep detailed records of the firearms. Unfortunately, the majority of the records were lost in a fire, so most firearms do not have records. However, occasionally, someone's rifle or carbine gets a "HIT" and that tells us who the gun was issued to when it left the arsenal.

Uhhh, sorry, I hate to be a nit-picker here, but the answer given is not really accurate. While some records may well have been lost in the SA fire of 1931, that is neither the sole - or even the primary - reason for the lack of data today, and the implication that complete personal issuance records once existed is - while probably technically accurate when thinking WAY down the ladder and including post-level muster rolls - misleading.

The real reason that so few records have survived - and they were not all found, or created, at SA anyhow - is simply age and attrition. When they were no longer "useful" they were destroyed, period. On the AVERAGE, approximately 5% of the arms made may be found to have SOME bit of data recorded, often not the same type of info. Some models are better, some are worse - much worse.

Frank Mallory (founder of SRS) scoured the National Archives for any scrap of paper containing a serial number, of any US military weapon. This data was then meticulously sorted and published, in four volumes (there are two versions of V4). The vast majority of records do NOT cite an individual - most of them simply show that a particular arm was in a particular unit AT THE TIME said "snapshot" was recorded. The records say nothing about where an arm might have been before - or after - that brief instant that it was logged.

It is also important to point out that - as the arms were not produced, packed, shipped, or issued in anything even approaching sequential order - "close" numbers do NOT "count", and are absolutely useless in trying to hump value, or infer a particular usage. In fact, there are good statistical reasons to believe that "close" numbers did NOT have the same history. A very few crating manifests have been discovered, and they mostly show spans of several hundreds, even thousands, amongst the twenty arms enumerated. Consecutive numbers shipped in the same crate were very rare.

[psteinmayer]

Thanks for the update Dick. For what it's worth, you can take any info Dick says to the bank!

Nit-pick away my friend... you know more than any ten people combined here! I didn't mean to mislead, but sometimes I'm not quite on the ball (so to speak). Anyway, thanks for correcting the info.

[Dick Hosmer]

You're very welcome, Paul, and in return, I'm most grateful for the hands-on shooting info which you supply. Believe me, I wish I was closer to Camp Perry!

I almost didn't write the post, but there seems to be a fairly significant misunderstanding about what was available, where it came from, and what is left. The sad part is that records are likely disappearing as we speak. When Frank would get a letter request from an owner, he would recheck the data (that's just the kind of guy he was) and, on more than one occasion when re-tracing his steps in the NA, the record was no longer there.

[psteinmayer]

It's a shame that some, especially some who are now in possession of some of the data don't recognize (or don't care) the historical significance of preserving the data. It would be really incredible to know the history of some of these rifles through documentation, and sadly, that's no longer possible. For instance, I know as a fact that my 1898 spent more than a year in France with rear echelon Guardsman during 1917-1918. However, to be able to back that up with documentation would give it provenance. Now I know that the SRS would not have that kind of documentation, but still, if someone had preserved those records as well...

I wish I had been active on these forums and with the collecting in the time of Frank's life. I would love to have had a chance to meet the man in person! I'm hoping in the next couple years to be able to get out to CA and shake your hand as well, Dick!