Any solution to 1903 Springfield Early Serial Number?

[Slamfire]

They apparently won that bet. The article cited above says Hatcher reported no failures after 1929 and the USMC reported none during WW II. Maybe all the bad ones were used up. More likely better ammunition did not tend to blow case heads and overstress the old mild steel guns.

If they have not failed in numbers during the last 100 years, odds are they are not going to fail in the next 25 years.

The Daffy Doctor, and anyone who believes his rubbish article, have been self medicating with psychotropics from his medicine cabinet.

Hatcher’s Notebook is not the sum of all human knowledge. You can go to the Springfield Armory historic site and pull up blow up pictures of rifles that blew up after Hatcher’s data base ends.

This one went in 1931

Yes Virginia, the laws of physics did not end in 1929.

This is the rifle from the link I posted. I can’t find the text to the Gunbroker article, but the seller stated this rifle was kept in his store as a reminder of what will happen to single heat treat rifles. The man who shot this thing spent days, if not weeks in the hospital.

Hatcher never heard of this one either.

The auction winner took the thing apart and showed the pictures to all the curious little boys and girls.

Hard to fathom why anyone would want to put their head behind such things, but people suicide for all sorts of stupid reasons.

Do it on video and maybe you will win a Darwin award.

 

[Slamfire]

More pictures

 

[Sport45]

I'm not saying this is safe, just throwing the idea out for review...

Are low-number '03's safe to shoot using .32acp in chamber adapters or cast pistol bullets over light charges of Titegroup (or other apprpriate pistol/shotgun powder)?

Maybe grandad's '03 can still make a little noise and provide enjoyment without so much risk to life and limb.

 

[radom]

I had one for years and shot it with reduced loads all the time. It was old enough to have been a 30-03 to start with and had a prety worn 1918 springfield barrel on it. I hate to think of how many 1000s of rounds that had been shot out of that action.

 

[44 AMP]

The problem is similar to Damascus barrel shotguns being shot with smokeless powder, in that it's not guaranteed to blow up the next time it is shot, it might go thousands of rounds with no trouble. OR it might blow up the next time you pull the trigger, AND there is no way to tell if, or when it will!

You can bet the odds, and say that since it hasn't gone by now, it isn't likely to go,, and even hedge this with light loads, BUT, it is still a gamble.

That's why we say, for safety's sake, hang it on the wall, and honor the memory that way, rather than by shooting it.

 

[Sport45]

That's why we say, for safety's sake, hang it on the wall, and honor the memory that way, rather than by shooting it.

I don't have one, but that's what I'd do. I considered trying to make some noise with the Hopgood BP shotgun I inherited from my wife's grandpa, but was convinced later it was best not to take any chances with the old thing.

 

[darkgael]

decisions

A couple of things:
The pictures are dramatic but pictures by themseives don't prove anything other than a particular gun part failed. Without much trying, you and I can find pictures on the web of blown up Glocks, S&Ws, Rugers, a vast assortment of rifles and shotguns.
I myself had a SA 1911 lose the first three inches of its slide because of improper heat treatment.
Do those pictures mean that any one of those brands of guns are unsafe or that the lot of guns produced with a failed gun be recalled? I do not believe that SA recalled 1911 slides because of heat treatment problems though my slide surely was not the only one in the process.

The problem is similar to Damascus barrel shotguns being shot with smokeless powder, in that it's not guaranteed to blow up the next time it is shot, it might go thousands of rounds with no trouble. OR it might blow up the next time you pull the trigger, AND there is no way to tell if, or when it will!

The inference there is that the low numbered guns can just blow up willy-nilly, at any time and for any reason. That is not the case as far as I know - something has to happen to the gun which would be a problem in any gun - bad or incorrect ammo, blockage....... something.
How dangerous is it to shoot one? That depends on one's willingness to accept risk. Can one draw any useful info from statistics about failure rates? Even doubling or tripling the number of failures - and there is no evidence that there have been that many - even doing that leaves us with a 0.0003% failure rate. You have a wildly higher chance of being a victim of violent crime in this country (about 566 VCs per 100,000 on average, about 18 times more likely than a low numbered gun failing).
Every time you get into your car, you accept the chance of a fatal accident that is far higher than the chance of a low numbered gun failing (way more of a chance - 17 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers)
I know that some of us don't like the use of statistics but they offer a means of comparison that is otherwise lacking.
Pete
What is your risk tolerance?


PS - About the "rebar" comment.

Those low number receivers are made from materials that today is used as rebar.

I have read that piece of information a number of times over the years. What exactly does it mean? The inference is that there is a single type of rebar steel and it is not very strong. Rebar comes in grades, from 30 to 90. Carbon content varies wildly if one reads through the mythology. Some of it is heat treatable, some is not. So....when the comment is made that 1903 receivers are made from the same type of steel that we use for rebar, which type is that exactly?

 

[Slamfire]

I myself had a SA 1911 lose the first three inches of its slide because of improper heat treatment.
Do those pictures mean that any one of those brands of guns are unsafe or that the lot of guns produced with a failed gun be recalled? I do not believe that SA recalled 1911 slides because of heat treatment problems though my slide surely was not the only one in the process.

Maybe your level of fault tolerance is higher than mine. So, you consider that acceptable? It is OK for a firearm to fail on you?. Just a case of “bad luck”?

I don’t consider that acceptable, not acceptable at all.

That is not the case as far as I know - something has to happen to the gun which would be a problem in any gun - bad or incorrect ammo, blockage....... something.

Fulton Armory used to have the 1985 Rifle Article by Dave LeGate, "Broken Springfields". I guess they had to pull it. Anyway the author wacked four M1903 receivers with a nylon mallet. You can see the four receivers in this thread. http://forums.gunboards.com/showthr...ingfield-M1903-Receiver&p=1573978#post1573978


In Hatcher’s Notebook , Springfield Armory wrote on the failure analysis reports, “The complete fracture of the receiver with no apparent stretch is characteristic of the old single heat treated receivers when subjected to very high pressure.”

Your perfectly safe until the receiver frags.

It seems your essential theme reminds me of the old joke about jumping out of a plane without a parachute. You are perfectly safe, until you hit the ground.

I don’t consider that acceptable, not acceptable at all.

You have a single heat treat M1903, you taking it out shooting any time soon? You have any skin in this game?

I have read that piece of information a number of times over the years. What exactly does it mean? The inference is that there is a single type of rebar steel and it is not very strong. Rebar comes in grades, from 30 to 90. Carbon content varies wildly if one reads through the mythology. Some of it is heat treatable, some is not. So....when the comment is made that 1903 receivers are made from the same type of steel that we use for rebar, which type is that exactly?

So are you saying rebar is a good material for rifle receivers?

 

[lefteyedom]

Life without risk is not worth spit

The Daffy Doctor, and anyone who believes his rubbish article, have been self medicating with psychotropics from his medicine cabinet.

Jim Beam is my psychotropic, would you like me to pull you a couple of fingers over ice? You are always welcome to pull up a chair on the porch

Maybe the steel use in today rebar is better than it needs to be?

The problem with this whole thread is not that Low number Springfield can/have/could fail.

It is the idea that any firearm is 100% safe.

NEWs FLASH NONE ARE 100% safe.

Living has been been proven to be 100% deadly.
(no has gotten out it alive)

Life with out a good measure of risk is like drinking luke warm water
(only good to be spat out)

I ride motorcycles, every ride on the road it is a calculated risk.
( I wear a helmet)

If NASA calls and offers me a ride on the Space shuttle I will take it.
(Yeah I might not make it back but it would be a hell of a ride)



BE ALIVE WHEN YOU DIE


As far as the psychotropics...
Who wants to be Sober when they died?
(Hurricane Katrina bar saying)

 

[darkgael]

?

Slamfire: You are a generally well-informed shooter as is obvious from the depth of your posts.
My last post was not meant to be argumentative. It was meant to point out the generalities of some of what was being discussed in this thread as well as to broach the question about risk tolerance.
You answered about your willingness to accept risk - at least as far as shooting low #'d 1903s is concerned. Not acceptable.

So are you saying rebar is a good material for rifle receivers?

No, I do not think "rebar" is acceptable for receivers - but that question misses the point. You write as if "rebar" is a single kind of steel; it is not. Using that idea is misleading also because you are transposing a modern idea onto an old system. The steel - whatever it is - was not considered "rebar" in 1905 when the receiver for my own Springfield was made. (no one at SA said "well. let's make the receivers outta rebar, cuz' we got plenty lying around from the factory expansion.") Sure, there are better steels now. What we have now is immaterial.

I never said that losing the front few inches of my SA 1911 was acceptable - I was quite ****** off. That modern example was meant to show that guns fail - even modern guns - but that doesn't mean that all guns of that type are unsafe. We read about Glocks "Kabooming" - should no one buy a Glock?

It seems your essential theme reminds me of the old joke about jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

Those are your words, not mine.
No. My essential theme was, as noted, to ask for more care in presenting ideas for "proof" - the best "proof" is in the history of the single heat treat receivers - not in pictures or comments about rebar, and to ask the question "what is your risk tolerance?"
Pete

 

[Slamfire]

If NASA calls and offers me a ride on the Space shuttle I will take it.
(Yeah I might not make it back but it would be a hell of a ride)

You will have to take a number and unfortunately, there are a lot of people in that line. About 4000 applicants for 20 jobs, every 2 years. The credentials are also high.http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/astronaut_faq.html I am too old and don’t have the 1000 hours of flying time But if I could, I would be there next to you, hooting and hollering as the earth got small.

A comment on the failure statistics:

The Daffy Doc’s statistics are based on Hatcher’s Notebook which is not an all inclusive list of all 03 failures. Hatcher’s list starts 1917 and ends 1929. There are known failures after.

I also disagree with Daffy Doc’s risk percentages. His percentages are based on the total number of rifles built, not the rifles in use. There were about one million of these rifles built, but post WW1, there were never one million at service at any time. By the time you get to 1922 Congress authorized only 136,000 Officer’s and enlisted in the Regular Army. I could guess how many rifles were in service with an Army that small, and it sure would not be one million. Lets say, as a ridiculous example, that their were four rifles in use and the remaining one million in storage. Let also say that one of the four blew up. Daffy Doc’s analysis would tell give you the risk as one in a million. But for those rifles in use, it would be 25%.

Daffy Doc’s analysis also does not take into account the destruction of single heat treat receivers. As rifle came into depot, the Army scrapped these receivers. Which means it is inappropriate to calculate a risk percent based on total population.

I am certain there are no databases extent which would allow the calculation of risk based on active duty rifles, but the Army had seen enough accidents and decided to take a course of action which would remove single heat treat receivers from the inventory.

Daffy Doc also says:

No receiver failures were reported in the training period before the battles, and during the four major battles that occurred in the seven month period in 1942-43. While it's not possible to estimate the exact number of rifles involved, up to 7,000 would have been in use by the three rifle regiments of the 1st Marine Division, Based on the failure rates of 1917-1918 between one and two rifle receivers would have been expected to fail.

Daffy Doc could not find any failure reports and is making the conclusion that proves that no receivers failed. I disagree with his conclusion. The absence of records indicate the absence of records. That does not mean that there were never were records: there could have been. There are buildings full of records that the US Army and Marine Corp have right now which Daffy Doc will never see. Incidentally, the lack of records might also be due to there was a shooting war going on. Even the military prioritizes. How high a priority would there be to create rifle failure reports in a war time expansion? About zero. If a rifle broke, something threw it in a scrap bin and got busy filling out paper work for the real important things. Like the Guadalcanal invasion.

No. My essential theme was, as noted, to ask for more care in presenting ideas for "proof" - the best "proof" is in the history of the single heat treat receivers - not in pictures or comments about rebar, and to ask the question "what is your risk tolerance

I see what you are saying. And for me, I don't want to be behind one of these things.

The basic problem, one that goes around and around, is that there is not a non destructive way to tell if a single heat treat receiver is good or bad. These old receivers also fragment when they fail, good receiver or bad. The M1903 does not handle gas well, you can see the blown out wood chunks, and that will occur single/double/nickel steel. The consequences of being wrong, the potential of serious injury so high, that I do not think it is worth shooting one of these things .

And I have a single heat treat receiver. Just have not decided what to do with it.

 

[Tom Matiska]

The inference there is that the low numbered guns can just blow up willy-nilly, at any time and for any reason......

Actually, that is a very good way to describe the type of failure we are talking about. I've seen some of the best aircraft alloys money can buy survive many cycles, then break like glass without warning at a small fraction of their design load. .....don't mess with brittle....

 

[brinker]

low number Springfields

I realize this blog is several years old, but I shoot my Marine 1903 often. I make sure the barrel is clean and I run a cleaning patch with hippies every 10 rounds or so. Now I realize in war this is not practical, I also shoot 150 grain even when I hunt with my low number Sporter. My step dad was in the Great War and was on the third wave in the invasion of Okinawa. Army, he carried a Garand, on the 3rd day they were in the hills of Naha, he found a 1903 in the mud. And kept it, later had it sportatized, that's my deer rifle. When I was young he taught me how to clean and care for my weapon. He always said that was very important, and a real part of survival in war,or the range, or in the hunt. And many failures were due to improper maintenance, neglect, or the wrong amunition, example the 8mm round which fit and usually ejected from a 1903, but from time to time it would not. If only the trooper had looked at the round around the primer he would have seen the difference and not loaded the round. And yes the Finest battle weapon ever devised failed. In the late 80s in Utah a 1903 failed the owner loaded it with 220 grain 30/06 and didn't bother to check the barrel.

 

[44 AMP]

Generally, it is better to start a new thread than revive one that has been dead for several YEARS, as the issues, information and even the posters in the old thread may no longer apply.

The real problem with low number (bad heat treat) Springfields is that it happened so long ago, there are many conflicting stories about what happened, how it happened, and what the results really are that it is difficult, if not impossible to tell, today, what is, and isn't the accurate truth.

Remember that it wasn't just the "poor" (compared to modern alloy) quality of the steel, but also the manufacturing methods of the era that plays a part. Heat treating steel was done "by eye", based on the color of the metal. This, of course goes directly to the skill of the individual making the judgment (and the conditions he is making that judgment under).

One story says that they only realized the problem when, after some years/decades? someone cleaned the factory windows! (the change in the light levels made a difference in judging the color of the heated steel, etc.,)

while I have not extensively researched the subject, I have done enough to find a few things, like how the "bad" receivers have cracked /broken from stresses that should not have done it (like falling off a workbench). So far, I have not found a case where one shattered on firing without the ammunition being the cause.

What appears to be the case is that the bad heat treat actions work and don't fail at a rate higher than normal, UNLESS the case lets go. Then, if it does, the bad heat treat actions may shatter.

I realize that it may be a very difficult thing to prove, chicken or the egg so to speak, because when the action lets go, usually the case does too. So its often a case of which caused what? If anyone can show an example where the action let go, and the case didn't, I will happily accept that.

This "explanation" does allow for all the "bad" actions that have been in use without failing for over a century now. Personally, I can accept the fact that if the ammo doesn't fail, the rifle won't, but that's just me. Many people disagree with this, and consider it too great a risk.

The safest thing to do is not shoot it. Shooting it (with anything) does have an element of risk. How much risk, I cannot say. You have to make that call.

I do agree with those who say that there is no fix. Also no way to be sure the action is "bad" short of destruction testing.

Re-heat treating it might "solve" the problem, BUT, first off, how would you know?, if the rifle hasn't blown up, and you get it re-heat treated and it doesn't blow up, did that solve the problem? Was there even really a problem? etc.

Second, despite the fact that the guys doing the heat treating today are "really good", there is always a chance that the action could warp (or crack) during the process, in which case, you are done, anyway, except for paying the bill...

 

[Doug S]

I picked up a low serial number 1903 recently. I'll admit it, I'm afraid to shoot it. I paid $300, and it is a decoration in my man cave.

 

[James K]

The arguments are endless and people will believe, and say, whatever they want to, but three things seem to be objectively true.

1. There were some M1903 rifles with brittle receivers; they known to be below certain serial numbers.

2. There is no non-destructive test to determine whether any given "low number" rifle is one of the brittle ones.

3. There is no way to "fix" the problem, and attempting to do so may well make a receiver even more dangerous.

And then there are the conspiracy theories involving space aliens.

Jim

 

[MansfieldAMG]

First year m1903 issues?

Hi. I've been reading through these and have done some other research but I was wondering is anyone has seen any numbers of first year production 1903's failing. I have number 12,462 that has been in my family for years and fired a lot over those years. I want to continue to use it as a hunting and range rifle but want to know more about the risk of the 1903 year production rifles. Any help is greatly appreciated as I continue researching.

 

[James K]

The major danger came with a combination of brittle receivers and wartime ammunition, but the fact is that no one knows if any given "low number" receiver is bad or not. Number 12462 may keep shooting fine for the next hundred years - or blow on the next shot. It is your decision because it is your gun and your anatomy.

Jim

 

[MansfieldAMG]

@James K. Thank you for your reply.

@James K. Thanks for replying. I totally understand what your saying. To be frank I will shoot it for many years to come and accept the risk that I am taking. I'm just really curious on the stats since I ccant find anything on this gun except the date manufactured. Thanks again!

 

[emcon5]

If you plan on shooting a low number 1903, wear quality eye protection.

Chicks may dig scars, but not eye patches and service dogs all that much.