doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com What's the story on improper heat treating on 1903

Small Arms Design & Ballistics Vol. II by Townsend Whelen �All Army rifles which have been �accidentally� injured in service are shipped to Springfield Armory for examination. Mr. A.L. Woodward, Engineer of Test at the Armory for the past thirty years states that in ninety nine percent of the cases the accident has been caused by an obstruction in the bore, or by firing a wrong cartridge, that is an improper or wrongly sized cartridge, or one handloaded to excessive pressure. It is interesting to note that in the majority of these accidents an effort is made to conceal the real cause of the accident, but the evidence is always perfectly plain.�

I have read that Springfield could not and did not retreat 1903's.


There is some evidence that Springfield Armory was retreating low-numbers rifles as late as 1925.

November, 1921 Arms & the Man �Concerning the Strength of the Springfield� by Hatcher. �The new treatment started with guns numbered about 800,000, and when guns are repaired at Springfield Armory, receivers with numbers earlier than this are either scrapped or retreated.�


February 1, 1925 American Rifleman Townsend Whelen answering question about heat treatment of 1903�s. �All rifles now being manufactured and all above No. 800,000 have the new heat treatment. Many of the older ones which have been returned to the Armory for repairs have been re-heat treated.�

More about Sedgley:

The American Rifleman February, 1936 �R.F. Sedgley, Inc. has offered to check the headspace of old-type M-1903 actions for NRA members free of charge. The firm is in a position to adjust defective actions and to proof-fire the rifle at their quotations. They are also prepared to re-heat treat such old-type receivers for added toughness or to eliminate the condition of excessive brittleness. Sedgley has so re-heat treated ten thousand or more of such actions and I have not heard of any blow ups to date.�

When did S/A stop using the fancy curly type ser# style and go to the block type? That doesn't have anything to do with the low#/high# thing does it.
Are the older straight handle style bolts suspect as being weak like the low# receivers?,,same HT style perhaps..

My Sedgley has that style bolt. I like the style and everything functions so smoothly on it.

Saw a badly re-stocked '03 sporter over the weekend,,the curly style numbers & straight bolt handle. The bbl was dated '18.
Nice bore.
Had a Lyman 48 on it & 4 scope mt holes on bbl and rear receiver bridge..
Maybe should'a bought it,,but I have too many projects now.

Thanks for the info--were the nickel steel (Winchester M54 and Model 12's up to about 1932--)barrels on both SA and RIA 1903's marked with any special stampings to indicate nickel alloyed steels?

I also agree about the "absence of the malcontents and numbnutz that often screw up legit posters elsewhere on this website" being a blessed relief here- also true, IME anyway, with the German and European gun sectors-- nice to have folks like you and Michael Petrov and Herr Raimey Ellenburg and other cognoscenti here and willing to share- Good things indeed--

Actually, production of double heat treated receivers began at Rock Island Arsenal at serial number 285,507, and the production of nickel steel receivers began with serial number 319,921.

At Springfield Arsenal, the production of double heat treated receivers began at approximately 800,000 and ended with serial number 1,275,767, at which point the production of nickel steel receivers began there.

The receiver starts out in a billet 1 3/4 by 1 3/8 by 15 inches of Class C steel. It is cut into two identical pieces at the rate of 70 per hour. The annealing is done before the forgings are removed from the forging shop. Class 3 steel is annealed at 800 degrees Centigrade (1440 degrees F.). Temperature was takeng by an 8 point Leeds & Northrup recording pyrometer. There ws no reading of temperatures by color. This is from the book referred to in my previous post.

Im wondering if the problem was not at Springfield or Rock Island but at the founding which rolled the billets.

So, does that mean that no other heat treatment was done after the subsequent (to the initial forging to shape) machining? I thought that there would have to be another heat treatment after the actual machining. I guess the 'burning' could have occurred at either time. Good point.
Regards, Joe

See my earlier post on this subject. The receivers were heat treated at 750 degree centigrade. a post after mine says that was not suffieient to burn the steel. I am not a metallurgist. Springfield apparently had reading pyrometers and did not rely on the color of the heated metal in making decisions.

In his book "Hatcher's Notebook" General Hatcher in Chapter IX (pages 212 to 231) covers all the details of the manufacture of the 1903 Springfield rifle, including "low numbered", "double heat treated" and nickel steel receivers. Inasmuch as he was the officer assigned, in the spring of 1917, to investigate the damage to two rifles which had been furnished to the National Bras and Copper Tube Company to be used in testing ammunition, he was in a unique position to know the procedures then in effect for manufacturing the Springfield rifle.

It is clear from his account that the pyrometers were installed for the first time as a result of his investigation, and that prior to that time no pyrometers were in use.

He says (page 215), "Too much reliance was being placed on the knowledge and experience of the men who heated the receiver and bolt steel in the forge shop.

These men thought that they could tell when a piece had the right heat just by looking into the furnace. They were proud of their experience, skill and ability, and believed that it took years of practice to become expert in judging the forging temperature. They were highly skilled craftsmen, who were jealous of their exclusive skill, and who both hated and feared the new fangled pyrometers which threatened to make useless their special knowledge.

The first step taken by the metallurgists was to install pyrometrs, when it was quickly found that the "right heat" as judged by the skillful eye of the old timers was up to 300 degrees hotter on a bright sunny day than it was on a dark cloudy one. The variation was of course made much worse by the fact that production had been stepped up to such a degree that many less skillful men had to be employed on this and all other critical jobs."

He later states (page 217), "In 1926 a Board investigating this subject took from stock 24 rifles made in 1918 having double heat treated receivers and tested them with results as given below: (The chart indicated that all 24 rifles were tested with 10 70,000 pound per square inch proof cartridges, and one 80,000 pound per square inch proof shot, after which headspace was increased from one to four thousands of an inch (.001"-.004"). Then all 24 rifles were subjected to one 125,000 pounds per square inch proof shot and none of them failed.)

This is unlikely. Embrittled billets probably would not make it through the forging operation. They would crack and be rejected forthwith.