Quote Originally Posted by fjruple View Post
Cplstevennorton-- I deeply appreciate your postings of the M1917 cracking issues. And the parts of documents on the initial 250,000 M1917s to the UKicon. I am just a details-type guy and like to solve "mysteries" questions about cracking issues. Have you run across any detailed studies by the US Ordnance department on the cracking issues. You have posted the results themselves via the major command letters on the issues. I am looking for details such as Serial numbers, were they part of a rebuild program with JA or SA barrels or original barrels. Have you run across any documents from the Columbus General Depot itself? I would be interested in seeing a copy of a photo copy of an original letter from Columbus. One last question have you run across any documents on the M1917 rebuild contract by the Wright Corporation in Dayton, OH. Please keep posting!!

Thanks

--fjruple
I have not pulled the Army files on standard rifles previous to 1946 as of right now. Except for sniper docs. I have all pulled all sniper docs from the Army back to around 1900. I have mostly focused on the Marine Corps documents, but have been branching out lately.

This week I'm at the Archives and will be pulling documents from the army prior to 1946, so maybe I will find more on this. Andrew has been digging in the WWI docs and has found evidence there might have been heat treatment problems with some M1917's.

The info from the Columbus Depot was in a report of lend lease activities that I pulled to document the Lend Lease Garands.

Thank you for the kind words. I will certainly keep a look out for this at the archives. My hunch though, they were in 1919 making the M1917 limited standard, which means it was a backup. I suspect they might have seen problems with them in WWI, but never did anything about it, because in 1919 they for the most part weren't using them anymore.

Well most sat in storage, then in WWII they were sold to foreign countries and issues with the receivers came out again.. That is my hunch.

---------- Post added at 05:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:27 PM ----------
Quote Originally Posted by Ridolpho View Post
cplsteve: There is a slight inconsistency between some of these memos. The memo in post#1 (RIA) says that they can't strip and examine all ERA rifles because costs would be prohibitive. Yet the letter in post #4 (slightly earlier) quotes other documents that suggest that of 26,000 rifles "issued by the Colombus depot for sales, that about half were returned due to cracked receivers". Does this mean that 26,000 rifles were detail examined and one-half found cracked? If so, who did the examination? it would have to be a major facility and that many rifles with cracks would have been a discovery of monumental importance. I would suggest it is more likely that a spot check of a sample found some cracked receivers, perhaps all in ERA rifles and that led to the ERA rifles being returned. The later memos show a frequency of cracking much lower than that implied in the comment about the 26,000 rifles. But the frequency in the detailed exams is still troubling although lacking in specifics about the individual rifles (like were they re-barreled).

Source document studies are very important but not all info was recorded and much has been lost. A useful adjunct to this would be a forum survey asking owners of M1917's who have examined rifles in detail to mention instances of cracked receivers with details of manufacturer and whether or not the gun has definitely been re-barreled. Conclusions drawn from old documents still have to be vetted against reality. This thread (and the one on Gunboards) is leaning in the direction that original Eddystone M1917's are prone to receiver cracks whereas numerous threads from the past (based on exam of rifles) would appear to me to contradict this. The whole issue is of importance to owners of ERA rifles as a blanket determination of susceptibility to cracks might affect their value.

Ridolpho
No, Columbus Depot did not check the M1917's before sale. It does mention that in the other lend lease files. The rifles were in storage since WWI, and were just shipped. So they did not check them. The only ones checked were the 230 that RIA had pulled and checked.

With documents, I have found it's important to put cliff notes and in order, it helps a lot to understand what happened.

Undated, but Prior to May 1947, Columbus Ordnance district had sold 26,000 M1917's. About half of this number were returned to them because of cracked receivers.

May 26, 1947 Because they have heard of the problems at the Columbus District, RIA tells Army Ordnance that they had pulled 30 random receivers and checked them. Of the 30, 4 were cracked. They basically ask Army Ordnance what do we do with them.

June 24, 1947 Since May 26, 1947, RIA had continued to check receivers and have now examined a total of 230 Receivers. Of those 18 were cracked, and 3 had cracked barrels. They are telling Army Ordnance it is too time consuming and expensive to check all of these receivers. They recommend to Army Ordnance it's better to just state all eddystones should be used for drill or blank firing only.

July 15, 1947 Army Ordnance replies to RIA that cracked receiver eddystones will be sold with a note saying they are for drill or blank firing only.