Early Production 03 Safety Concerns

[Chuckindenver]

most the recorded failures came from obstructed bores, wrong ammo.{8mm Mauser} or from tin plated bullets.
not read about the brass issue..maybe i missed that..havnt looked over Hatchers in a while.

[George Sr.]

The brass issue was how the problem with some receivers was discovered.A company named National Brass & copper was given a contract and produced soft headed cases. A case that lets go in the Head area can be dangerous,in a receiver that is made of burnt brittle steel,since it burst rather than stretch. This burning of the steel in low numbers occured in the forging shop prior to heat treating(See Hatchers Notebook for details). Most are safe.But?

[slamfire1]

Shooting any rifle from that era, especially a 03 single heat treat, entails a bit of risk. Metallurgy was not a mature science and process controls were primitive.

The “single heat treat” receivers, which were all pre 1918, were made with poor process controls. It is also evident that new hires were not sufficiently trained and there was inadequate oversight of the old hands. Some of the Single heat treat receivers were over heated in the forging room. This burnt the steel and made these receivers brittle.

In 1918 brittle receivers had shattered at a cartridge manufacturer. Finger pointing between the Arsenal and the Cartridge maker forced Springfield Armory to acknowledge that they had a problem. Improvements were made after the failure analysis. Process controls were improved in the forging shop, and an additional step was added to the heat treat. The Double heat treat receivers were made of the same low grade carbon steels materials as the single heat treat, but due to a better heat treatment process, is a little stronger than a properly made single heat treat.

The steels used in the double heat treat and single heat treat receivers are now used in cheap construction reinforcing bars (rebar). No one today would ever use the stuff in a safety critical application like a rifle receiver.

In 1928 the Army finally decided on what to do with the single heat treat receivers. When rifles came in for rebuild, they scrapped the single heat treat receivers. But the Army did not, and never did, withdraw SHT rifles from service.

Recently a friend showed me a low number RIA USMC rifle he had picked up at CMP South. It was rebarreled in Dec 1927. The Marines used and rebuilt their SHT rifles all the way up to WWII.

SHT receivers are riskier to shoot, as when something goes wrong, they do not fail in a ductile fashion. Failure pictures show a lot of shattering, fragments. Even today, people acquiring CMP 03’s report SHT receiver cracking with what sounds like minor loads. These must be receivers with burnt steel.

Micheal Petrov took several SHT rifles, fired a 8 mm Mauser cartridge in one, and did some other crazy stuff with another. The rifles did not blow up. He posted the pictures, but withdrew them after too many people criticized him. Wish I could have seen/copied the pictures before they were withdrawn.

So, what I am saying is that SHT receivers have been know to shatter. They may not have a decent margin of safety in an accident. Breakage is rare, but has been known to happen. Good SHT receivers were used for decades. The trouble is, was, and will be, knowing before it breaks, if your receiver is a good one, or a bad one.

The Army could not figure it out, so they scrapped low number SHT receivers when the rifle went back to depot.

The 03 Springfield was not an improvement over the M96 Mauser or the M98. The M98 Mauser is a far safer action, the inner collar and gas venting ability of the action are superior to the 03. A M98 will provide better protection to the shooter if a case head failures. In a 03, a lot of gas gets vented straight in your eye.

There are pictures of 03 blowups on the Springfield Armory website. Springfield Armory Museum Search using M1903, damaged rifle, and photograph

Some examples: http://www.rediscov.com/springar/full/671-SA.1.jpg

http://www.rediscov.com/springar/full/632-SA.1.jpg

[daveboy]

Good reading guys.

I appreciate the lesson.

daveboy

[tmark]

No matter what the cause, the fact of the matter is that a LN receiver will fail catastrophically whereas a HN receiver failure will be less than catastrophic.

[Jim K]

The Army did not issue a recall because they considered the failure risk to be very low with standard GI ammunition and because the budget would not allow it. What they did do, however, was to order that when those rifles were received at depot level for rebuild the receivers were to be scrapped.

That policy was dropped during the early days of WWII, when every rifle was needed and M1 production was not yet up to meeting requirements. In the wartime emergency, the small additional risk involved was considered acceptable.

It is of note that NRA members who owned low number rifles (from any source) could exchange the receivers through DCM for double heat treated or nickel steel receivers as long as supplies lasted.

Jim

[krag99]

Read in one of Elmer Keiths books he talked about when he worked at ogden he said they had rebarreled many low# and he had shot them w/ proof loads his opinion was that if it had a late bolt in it it was safe- some people feel that the bad ones have already blown up or been destroyed if they were going to do so- I still shoot mine -WW2 bbl. WW2 bolt

[Coal Burner]

Every time the LN issue comes up there are lots of references to Hatcher’s notebook.

Hatcher noted in his book that the experienced and highly paid craftsmen that did the heat-treating at Springfield were “jealous of their exclusive skill, and who both hated and feared these newfangled pyrometers which threatened to make useless their special knowledge”. Also, as slamfire1 already pointed out, the investigation started with some finger pointing between the ammo companies and Springfield Armory.

If I’m not mistaken, Springfield Armory used the same class-C steel and heat treatment from the introduction of the Krag rifle up until 1918. Certainly the process needed to be updated with modern instrumentation. I get the impression that Hatcher had to convince a lot of people that the process they had been using for at least 24 years was not good enough. He had to build a strong case to change the procedure at Springfield, and to get them to admit that their heat-treatment was anything less than perfect.

To this end, he devised at least one very specific destructive test, clamping the receivers in a vise and beating on the side ribs (not the receiver rings) with a hammer. This test showed a case where SHT receivers would crack and DHT receivers would not. To me this only proves that the thinnest part of the receivers, the side rib, was brittle from case hardening. It doesn’t tell us a whole lot about the receiver rings. The fact that he did not show any receiver rings broken with a hammer leads me to believe that he didn’t find any that were brittle enough “all the way through” to illustrate this point with a hammer.

Hatcher made his point very well, and his book is an excellent resource. He got the process changed at Springfield Armory, and 60 years later his book is still making people scared of LN rifles. If all rifle failures were documented by an authority in such a convincing way, I wonder how many other rifle designs people would be scared to shoot.

[Dollar Bill]

Hatcher made his point very well, and his book is an excellent resource. He got the process changed at Springfield Armory, and 60 years later his book is still making people scared of LN rifles. If all rifle failures were documented by an authority in such a convincing way, I wonder how many other rifle designs people would be scared to shoot.

Any time you attempt to change people's thinking about a long-standing practice, there's so much flak that, sometimes, you have to concoct demonstrations to get your point across, even though they may not simulate real-world situations. In other words, sometimes the ends do justify the means.
In reference to shooting LN 1903s, a little risk analysis by those with the most knowledge of the subject is invaluable. From what you guys have said here, I, personally, would have no problem shooting a LN 1903, especially with reduced loads. It seems alot safer than shooting a Santa Fe or National Ordnance rifle!

[George Sr.]

Most of these brittle and burnt receivers occured in the forging shop,not in the heat treating shop where pyrometers were already in use. The old tomers in the receiver forging shop judged the proper temp. by the color of the steel which could vary depending on the light conditions. When it was realized that that was the problem pyrometers were installed in the receiver forging shop,and receiver heat treatment,was changed to DHT. fixing the problem.