Gidday fellas,

A few weeks ago, one of my rifle club members happily turned up at our range with his "new" very early production '03 Springfield.
I had a quick look at the rifle - it appeared in good nick, barrel was clean and shiny inside and all seemed fine.
I was down operating targets when he took his first [and only] shot - the handguard was blown off and shattered with some bits landing in the bush off to the left and other bits landing near fellow shooters to his right.
There was found to be a fine hole drilled in the barrel which had vented gas upwards - blowing the handguard off the rifle.

Funnily enough - he still managed to hit the target from 400 yards!

We presumed the club member had mistakenly been sold an old rendered innocuous rifle - as it was sold as being a shooter / not a wall hanger and was even certified as being safe to use by the dealer.

A few days ago, I heard on the grapevine that apparently very early production '03 Springfield rifles were found to have "metallurgically weak actions", so the barrel had a fine hole drilled forward of the chamber to vent some of the pressure - with a hole in the handguard lining up to allow the vented gas to escape.

If this is true - I guess at some time in the past, the hand guard had been replaced and the hole forgotten about, with the rifle being sold on without anyone spotting the holey barrel.

I cannot find anything to confirm this practice of barrel drilling - can anyone assist?
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