Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Low-Number Springfield Story???

I have heard alot about this but know relatively little. reason I am asking is, I have a '03 Springer that is at the very top-end of the low-number range, if you know what I mean. The previous owner never fired it in more than 20 years ownership, but the originaly owner was a machinist an did a SUPER job on the conversion. I have found that the gun was sporterized before WW2 and was in a local family. the stock is straight-grained walnut but has the drop consistent with a gun not meant for scope, and it has an old Refield receiver sight on it, with a Cutts banded front that looks to be from about WW2 - what you would see an old hunter using back in the day. It is 98% + & is just a super-classy gun, and I want to hunt with it.

BUT, I don't want to have it go Ka-BOOOM! as the urban legends go. I am wondering, is there a way to know that it is or is not safe? IS it OK with mile 30-06 loads of about 308 or so power-level? What would you do if it were yours???

The only way to tell if they are bad or not is the Ka-boom. That being said, many low numbered rifles have had many rounds through them with no problem.

You pay your money and you take your chances

iambrb-

Low-number Springfield threads occur frequently around the campfire. This is not surprising, because there are tens of thousands of these rifles still in circulation.
HERE is a link to a particularly informative thread from a year-and-a-half ago.

--Bob

An analysis:
http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/

Bruce

Nearly all low number 1903s are OK but there are a few that are dangerous ..... and there is just no way to tell which is which. A rifle receiver that has worn out two or three barrels could have been crystallizing from discharge shock for a hundred years and suddenly pop. For that reason I will not shoot a low number 1903 under any circumstances with any kind of ammunition.

What? Steel is always crystalline at room temperature. It crystallises as it solidifies, and stays crystalline unless you heat it again. "Discharge shock" whatever that may be, has nothing to do with it.

Not only that, but the mode of failure associated with these low number receivers has nothing to do with how many rounds they've fired: due to the way the temperature was judged by eye when they were heat treated (which we now know to be unreliable) a very few turned out to be lacking in toughness, and a tiny proportion (some 68 or so out of over a million) failed. If the problem is there in an individual receiver it is there from day one.

It is also worth noting that the failures are also strongly associated with defective brass - this being the weakest link - and several with firing 8x57 ammo in the rifle .

The analysis posted by bcp is well worth reading.

Daniel, how about metal fatigue from repeated firing?

The problem with the low number Springfields came from improper temperature during the forging operation, not from fatigue during use. The problem cannot be corrected by heat treating, and there is no way to know which receivers are bad without subjecting them to destructive testing.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Hatchers Notebook, he devotes a chapter to this problem, complete with case histories of the failures.

Most of the blow-ups were caused by lousy ammo made by companies that had WW1 contracts. The Army decided to set the low numbers aside during the peacetime years between the wars, but when WW2 came along there was a need for rifles. The low numbers got pressed into service. Evidently the WW2 ammo was better quality because I have never seen any reports of failures during that period.

If it is your gun, it is your choice what you do with it.

There are a zillion other rifles out there to use. I have one that my father had put together for me in the early 80's. He did all the stock work and as much as I would love to use it, I like all my digits and eyes more.

The short answer is that none of the reported failures shows any evidence of fatigue. They are all brittle overload failures. Generally speaking the receivers that have let go have done so by reason of some overload, such as by way of a case head failure or using 8x57 ammo, coupled with the lack of toughness of some proportion of these receivers due to inadequate temperature control in heat treating. Put the two together and the result is violent disassembly of the rifle.

FWIW fatigue failure is poorly named and widely misunderstood by the layman. It has nothing to do with the metal somehow getting tired. Instead it is where you have a crack initiated, perhaps in some defect or sharp corner, which, under the influence of repeated load cycles (generally repeated over many, many cycles, unless the item is working at a comparatively high percentage of its single cycle failure stress), gradually progresses across the section until the area left is no longer strong enough to support the remaining load.

I'm not aware of this being a widespread cause of failure of bolt action rifles. They generally aren't running at such high stresses really, if used properly (overloads, case head failures, obstructions and oiled cases etc are exceptions) and might see only a few thousand load cycles over their service life. You'd most likely see it, if you were to see it, as cracks at the base of the lugs, or in the receiver ring perhaps.

The Marines fought the early pacific battles with low numbered
Springfields. Of the "bad numbers" only a few failed. People that talk about metal fatigue in rifle actions never are able to cite examples.
Good Luck!

As an "expert" on blown-up firearms (he testified at many trials over the decades) once pointed out, much of the time it is impossible to tell exactly what caused a firearm to come apart upon firing, because most of the evidence (especially the ammo) is all busted up. Was it the firearm or the ammo, or something foreign introduced into the "system"? Much of the time it's hard to tell.

But there were some Springfield receivers made that would break into many pieces when they were dropped on a concrete floor. There were apparently even some brittle Springfields made AFTER they became supposedly safe, because the guys who did the heat-treating resented being told that their "expertise" wasn't as good as that of precise measuring devices.

This sounds like a good idea for an article. Find a low number action with the physical characteristics of a coke bottle, get Hornady to donate a couple cases of high pressure ammo, and see how long it takes to self-destruct. I think some updated destruction tests on Krag actions would be interesting also, but I'm probably part of a small crowd waiting for that to happen.

Tim

Since the percentage of people shooting either action is very small these days, I wouldn't hold your breath. That sort of article would have been pretty hot stuff 50 years ago, when you could still buy issue Springfields for under $50 and people were still making sporters out of them. Even fewer shoot Krags these days.

I thought as much, oh well. On a side note, I'm sure you're familiar with Ackley's blow up tests. Has anyone tried using Quickload or something to obtain pressure estimates on the loads he used in his tests? I'm especially interested in the loads he ran through the Krags, as they seemed awfully high. Reading his handbook, I got the impression he didn't really want to believe what he saw when it was all over.

Tim

I am familiar with a blowup test run on a beater Krag by a well known and very respected contemporary writer on custom rifles. The Krag eventually destructed, but it swallowed amazing overloads first.

On 1903, because, as Mule Deer says, some single heat treated rifles slipped past the official termination date for that process, I use 805,000 instead of the usually quoted 800,000 for the Springfield Armory cutoff number.

Not a bad idea, if I remember correctly Hatcher attributed the receivers that got past the official cutoff to receivers having been sent back down the production line for re-work.

A Springfield blowing up is a low incidence/high consequence event. Review again what Steelhead wrote. Since reliable safe rifles are readily available, why use ones that is questionable?

This comment was posted March 31 on the Springfield 1903 forum at www.jouster.com by Kent Allen:

As a victim of an '03 blowing up (receiver failure), it ain't fun! Hard on the ears, face and left arm. Also very hard on what was a very nice HN rifle in the 804,000 range. It is suspected it was a single heat treat receiver. Cause was a failed case. I still have a small piece of brass in my forehead. (This happened in the early 1960s to a very nice example of a DCM rifle).

confused,

Personally, I have quit using QuickLoad for any pressure estimates. That's all they were in the first place, but I've found so much variation in them that I pretty much have dismissed taking them seriously.

QL was developed as a VERY preliminary tool for developing loads in new cartridges. The disclaimer specifically states that it is NOT a substitute for manual data, or pressure-lab tests--yet many shooters stll take any QL results as gospel. QL is a computer model, not reality.