Years ago, I used to amuse myself by developing various databases. One of the many was a database of 1903 failures. It showed a total of 96-receiver failures, some that led to the condemnation of what we call LN Springfields today. I did find HN failures, and they are included in the total of 96. Enjoy.
Oops. I had to zip the file to upload it. The original file contained a serialization chart and a bunch of plots that I eliminated in the zip file to save bandwidth.
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"Me. All the rest are deados!"
67th Company, 5th Marines 1st Sgt. Daniel "Pop" Hunter's response to 1st Lt. Jonas Platt's query "Who is your Commander"?, Torcy side of Hill 142, Belleau Wood, 8:00 am, 6 Jun 1918.
Thanks for this. Wonder what some of the abbreviations like SHT mean and why most of the failures are grouped in two spans of a few years?
"Single Heat Treatment" and it's grouped together because of ammunition. Poor ammunition or incorrect ammunition exploits weaknesses in the receiver. One report was of a rifle club using "bullseye" ammunition. I'll post that report in a day or two.
The ordnance department listed all the failures that occurred and the cause. Didn't have time today to post everything but this is from 1918. So I'll post this real quick while I have a free moment today. The report in question listed all failures from 1917-1923. Among other reasons were broken bolts, bore obstructions and barrels splitting.
It's important to remember there were high number rifle failures as well as low number failures. And there were 1917 receiver failures as well as 1903 receiver failures (albeit there were significantly less 1917 receiver failures). War time expediency did play a role in quality control.
Having inspected literally thousands of rifles at the CMP and studied SA failure reports in the National Archives, I have concluded that many failure reports were faulty with respect to probable cause. I don't dispute that failures occurred, but many causes are very questionable. Thanks for sharing!
Having...studied SA failure reports in the National Archives, I have concluded that many failure reports were faulty with respect to probable cause. I don't dispute that failures occurred, but many causes are very questionable....
J.B.
Perhaps you could elaborate on that a bit.
After spending a good portion of 20 years investigating firearms accidents, including many blow-ups, I would have to endorse that conclusion, but I'd like to know more about how you arrived at it.
Most gun mishaps are very fact-and-circumstance specific, and the sequence of events is also critical. Especially in the case of blow-ups, reconstruction is often very difficult, and the most valuable piece of evidence--the fired cartridge--is usually destroyed. It often takes an experienced firearms examiner with engineering background to accurately determine the initiating cause; the conclusions of most laymen (including many gunsmiths and armorers) are far less reliable. My own observation has been that their conclusions are more often wrong than right.
To the extent that faulty ammunition (sometimes accompanied by operator error) is the initiating cause of an explosion, the same factors probably are applicable to all military rifles, not just Lee Metford and Lee Enfield. All of them suffer failures in service.
After spending a good portion of 20 years investigating firearms accidents, including many blow-ups, I would have to endorse that conclusion, but I'd like to know more about how you arrived at it.
PM
Originally Posted by RDG
