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It could have been Ackley as well, but the writing I recall was from the '70s, may have been Al Miller. Doesn't matter, sometimes we forget that these gunwriter guys are basically just like us, they all put their panties on one leg at a time and they've all been wrong before.

What does it tell us?

That particular rail was hard rather than soft, and should have been tougher.

That's ALL it tells us. Anything in addition is assumption and supposition on the reader's part and thus is open to interpretation, discussion and possible further enlightenment and correction.

I respectfully remind us all that one of if not the most common cracking location(s) for a Mauser receiver is squarely in the middle of the left rail at the thumb cut. Does that make Mausers so brittle as to be unsafe? Of course not, only a fool would think so, so why is anyone upset that some ignoramus broke a 1903 that way?

Seems to me that, as mentioned above, a common-sense approach is better than what I've come to call The Lemming Syndrome. Yes, it appears that early receivers vs later ones can respond in completely different ways to catastrophic conditions; but IMO it also appears that, absent these catastrophic conditions, these early receivers can and do give splendid service for generations with absolutely no trouble.

Would I go to the trouble to build a new high-pressure rifle on one? No. Would I shoot an older high-pressure rifle built on one? Absolutely. IMO they're exactly like old Harley-Davidson bikes or F4U Corsair aircraft compared to more modern stuff; maybe not as safe, maybe not as powerful, maybe not as trouble-free but it's for sure there's nothing else to equal them! JMOFWIW.
Regards, Joe

This is an interesting thread. My understanding is that the LNs that failed in military service during and after WW1 were all either shooting WW1 contract ammunition or were fired with 7.92 mm German military ammunition that was somehow mixed in with the US military stuff.

Some of the contract military ammunition was decidedly bad, made with soft cases, questionable powder loads and sometimes cases that had become stuck to bullets through some sort of internal corrosion. I read somewhere (Hatcher? Sharpe?) that several makes & lots were scrapped or otherwise destroyed because the stuff was dangerous. US military ammunition headstamped with H and 17 or 18 or maybe 19, made by the National Brass & Copper Tube Co. is the most commonly recognized defective stuff.

The rifle failures with this ammunition and with German military ammunition were not limited to LN 03s. At the same time, Winchester decided to stop making their 1895 lever actions in .30-06. Winchester engineers loaded a couple of their new 95s with 7.92 mm German military ammunition and duplicated the failures. The 95 remained in production in 30-40, etc. until Depression economics killed it.

Rifle failures were not confined to American products. In the early 1920s, the French were experimenting with a 7.5 x 58 mm cartridge. After several rifles failed when mistakenly fired with 7.92 German military ammunition, the French switched to a 7.5 x 54 mm cartridge. Soldiers could not close the bolt on German ammunition.

That said, I have heard or read somewhere that 03s made during WW1 were sometimes incorrectly heat treated. Flayderman's Guide says that 03s with numbers 635,000 to about 800,000 were made during WW1, with lowered standards and before DHT was adopted. Perhaps not all LNs are suspect. But I would be suspicious of any in the above range. Joe's door-stop is in that range.

A question for Michael or others. Do your records of pre-war custom 03s include SNs?

Richard

I'm not sure where to start again but I would like to return to the failed case. In the early literature it clearly stated that the new 1903 Springfield rifle must withstand a ruptured case in order for it to be adapted. I've just touched on what I believe the problem is and I would like to discuss this more before I move on. I see some people do believe that if the the cartridge fails so goes the action. Lets look at this another way, how much pressure does it take for a brass case to fail, a modern brass case?

Take a LN receiver and turn threads on a solid steel bar, mount and chamber the barrel then fire a cartridge in it. Now write up what happened to the rifle, the weakest link in ANY rifle is the brass cartridge. On this rifle the pressure would exceed the pressure of a normal 06 cartridge the case would rupture and the action would shatter. Would you write this one up as a failed cartridge, the cartridge did fail?

"A question for Michael or others. Do your records of pre-war custom 03s include SNs?"

Yes, and in my years of collecting information I have run across a Sedgley that had several holes drilled in the top of the receiver plus had a overloaded cartridge fired in it and small piece blew out of the top. I have also read about a custom sporter that was double charged and it blew. Outside of that I do not know of a single custom rifle built on a LN 1903 that has failed.

It tells us not to hit rifles that have case hardened receivers.

I don't know if anyone can say for sure how much pressure it takes for a brass case to fail. Of the two rifles I mentioned both times the case failed at the back, and neither should have been loaded to such a point that the pressure was out of sight. The pre-64 model 70 of mine was chambered in 270 Winchester. It happened on the 17th case out of 20 that were loaded with 60 grains of the original surplus 4831 powder behind a 130 grain Nosler Solid Base bullet. These were brand new cases that had been resized and chamfered before loading. This rifle had shot hundreds of this same load using the same case, primer, powder and bullet with nary a problem. The three remaining rounds were broken down after the accident and found to be loaded with exactly 60 grains of powder. In short, there was nothing out of the ordinary that should have caused this reaction. Several very knowledgeable people have told me that they don't think you could pack enough of the old 4831 in a 270 case with a 130 grain bullet to cause this, yet it happened. I really have to believe the case wasn't quite up to par because I can't, no one else has been able to either, find anything I did wrong.

The extractor was blown away to I know not where and the extractor ring was so distorted it was unusable. The stock was destroyed when the pressure blew open the floorplate. The follower and spring were destroyed in the process but the triggerguard and floorplate were able to be salvaged. When these four parts were replaced the rifle functioned just as well as it did before all this happened. The barrel was slugged and found to be well within the tollerances that it should be. As far as I know it is still in use today on a custom 270 rifle.

I will relate the following, although it has nothing to do with the discussion here, to show what can happen if a person puts themselves at a KNOWN risk. The downside to this accident was that because the ejector groove is positioned in the left lug raceway when the bolt is closed on a model 70 there is a direct path to the shooter's eyes if something like this happens. It was getting late in the day and I wanted to get these rounds fired and checked across the chronograph before loading them again. I had foolishly taked off my safety glasses. I had done this many times before but this time it bit me!! When I went to my Opthamoligist he informed me there were about 50 foreign bodies in my right eye and about 150 in my left eye!! I am extremely lucky that he was as good as he was because he saved both of my eyes. There remains one foreign body in one of my eyes but the rest of any consequence have either been removed or have worked their way out. Because of this experienced I will not carry any cartridges that are new or have new brass while hunting, I use only once-fired. I also am a big, big believer in shooting glasses!!

I might add that the LN 1903 I referred to destroyed the extractor and extractor ring but the stock actually survived the ordeal as well as the floorplate, follower and spring. The owner decided not to repair the rifle but I am sure it would have functioned with new parts because the bolt still worked fine. I might add the round that caused it was a factory 30-06 cartridge.

The bolts on both of these rifles opened fairly easily and the remainder of the brass was easily removed. The fired cases looked amazily similiar except one was a 270 and the other a 30-06.

Michael wrote the following


To me that says everything. Based on my own experience my belief is that a great majority of the LN 1903 blowups could very well have been caused by bad cases. I'm not saying that other things maybe didn't contribute to the problem, but I really have to wonder if substandard cases weren't the biggest culprit.

Sorry this got so long. I guess I thought it was a test.

It is a test , I always ware safety glasses, just last summer my .22-3000 let go and I got a face full of hot gas and brass, as you know not fun.

IF we believe that the 1903 was designed to withstand a major gas escape then the next question we must ask is how can the pressure rise enough to wreck an action.

I can only see two ways, the cartridge generated a lot more pressure because of wrong or more powder then it should have. The second reason is that the bullet does not move down the bore freely or at all. Any other reasons that would make it have more pressure?

Seems like I can deduce only one thing from all this info; if you've decided the LN '03 is good or bad, nothing said here will change your mind.

No lecture, but you might point him in the direction of this discussion. My opinion is that of all the LN's that were/have been/or are still out there, the ones that were gonna fail have probably already failed.

A look at how the cartridge is supported in a 1903,