Marine low number receivers

[BEAR]

Have the Marines ever listed any low number M1903 failures as the US Army Ordnance did? They never turned in their low number receivers so I would imagine that they had their fair share of failures. They also exclusively used M1903s during the Great War, well before double heat treatment and nickle steel receivers hit the trenches.

BEAR

Yes, I posted the same question on the CMP forum.

[cplnorton]

There were only a handful of M1903 failures that I can track period within in the Marines. Each time one failed a full investigation would happen and a cause was determined.

Now it's interesting to note this is ALL M1903's. Not just low numbers. There were only a handful of failures, like five or six that I can track, but some of those were high numbers. IN fact the only Marine that I can track that was hurt by a receiver failure was by a High Number grenading on him.

Now of all failures even the high number that grenaded, they never once said it was a failure by the receiver. All were by issues with faulty ammor or pitted/fouled bore causing it to wreck the rifle. One was a sniper rifle that had the barrel holes drilled into the rifling and that caused it to fail.

Even though the policy did change some over the years. The Marines never withdrew any low numbers and declared them safe for normal use. They just didn't fire rifle grenades out of them. Which was a safety precaution. Even that safety precaution was discontinued.

The Marines declared all low numbers safe to use as long as they headspaced and could fire a proof round.

[BEAR]

Thanks cplnorton,
I also posted this at CMP and you answered there also. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.


BEAR

[Cosine26]

I believe that most of the high number failures were the result of using Avis Barrels/ I had a DHT receiver, which I obtained through the DCM, fail though it did not shatter. The receiver developed headspace in the receiver where the locking lugs seat.

Double heat-treated M1903 actions do fail. In 1965 a fellow brought me a low numbered (SA 699842) action on which some incompetent gunsmith (?) had tried to mount a scope. On the first shot, the front scope mount fell off. Examination of the receiver showed that he had drilled two or three holes trying to mount the front mount resulting in one big mess. I traded an 03A3 barrel for the action.

In those days the DCM would exchange a low numbered receiver for a high numbered receiver for $7.90 + P&H and shipping for a total of $10.21. In exchange for the low number action I received a DHT (SA 962540) receiver. According to records this should have been well into the DHT action, manufactured in 1918. The action was parkerized and I do not remember whether it had the 1936 hole in the left side of the receiver ring.

I fitted a HS 4 groove 5-44 barrel to it along with a good DHT bolt. After installing a long slide Lyman 48 sight I glass bedded it into a Bishop Target stock. It shot pretty well several high “V” count Possibles at 600 yards (100 – 13 V’s). My club had received as its allotment of qualification ammo from the DCM. It was DEN 42 AP. (Yes in those days we could get free qualification ammo from the DCM and they did issue corrosive AP ammo.) It shot pretty well - 96-12V at 600 yards on the old Dona Ana range.

I was shooting the old Long Range Course “B” which included 10 shots at 1000 yards. Because it was a 1000 yards I was using a “hot” 200-grain SMK bullet with I believe 54 grains of IMR 4350. A great load! On about the 6th or 7th shot the bolt became hard to open and accuracy went to pot

I took the rifle to my gunsmith who ran a field test bolt into it and found excessive headspace. We removed the barrel and found the imprint of the locking lugs on the receiver ring where the receiver had set back. We checked the bolt and it gauged good. The gunsmith wanted the receiver so I traded it to him for some minor gun work. I don’t know what he did with it. The DCM would not exchange high numbered receivers.

I have a NS SA action in the 132xxxx range in which I am working on my third or fourth barrel with no problems.

[pickax]

Thanks for the post Cosine26. I really appreciate your dialog and early articles from the NRA magazines as well.
Your note of 'receiver stretch' is interesting in that you had no problems with the later 1.3xxx N.S receiver. So my question is this.I have read that nickle was added to help add 'stretch' in the receiver.So that leads me to ask why the stretch in a DHT earlier receiver and much better function without stretch in the later N.S. receiver.
How hot is a load of 54 grains of IMR 4350? with 200 gr. pill? Dose it exceed the reloading tables? (Not a re loader yet.)

I know none of us are metallurgy experts, but would like to keep a discussion going on this.
Thanks!

[Tuna]

It's the top load in the older Lyman reloading Manuel. 54 grs. with a 200 gr. bullet shows a velocity 2638 at 48,400 CUP. This from a 26 inch barrel and universal receiver. PSI would be higher then the CPU figure. With todays made powder of IMR 4350 it would most likely be excessive.

[Cosine26]

DHT M1903 Receiver Failure
The load in question was a fairly standard target load at the time. It is only 0.1 grain over the recommended maximum load in the then current Sierra loading manual. It is a recommended load in Roy Dunlap’s loading manual, and it was also a NRA recommended load in the American Rifleman when the 200 grain bullet was introduced. The NRA had the load tested by the H.P. White Co. And the results were a MV of 2600 fps at a nominal pressure of 46730 psi. I have used it in NS M1903’s, Remington M1917 target rifles, in my 30-06 Remington 30S (which is on its second target barrel) and my Model 70’s with no problems.
The action in question was manufactured in 1918 and the serial number indicates it was long after SA had instituted the DHT action. Since it was manufactured in 1918, when we were in dire need of rifles, I would tend to believe that it was assembled into a complete rifle. The complete history of the receiver is unknown and I have no idea why it was sold as a receiver only-perhaps as a take off during a depot overhaul. I have no idea how many previous firing cycles it had been through. After I assembled the rifle, I only fired ~ 900 rounds before the trouble appeared. The ammo was mostly DEN 42 M2AP, FA60 Match, and handloads = to 30-06 MATCH M72 ammo, though for 600 yards I did load some 180 grain Sierra Matchkings with recommended loads.
While the failure was not catastrophic, it was still a failure. It did not shatter as most SHT receivers did. I took it to be an anomaly and did not report it to SA, DCM or NRA, for the M1903 had been out of production for many years and no corrective action would be forthcoming. It may have caused all future replacement receiver sales to be put into jeopardy. I had previously traded a SHT receiver in and received a 1.4 M NS M1903 receiver. Shortly thereafter no more M1903 replacement receivers were available and one could trade a SHT receiver for a barreled 03A3 receiver until the supply was exhausted.
An individual who used the pseudonym, “slamfire”, posted a very good desertion on early twentieth century steel and heat treatment on one of these forums back in 2015. He is/was a metallurgist and confirmed and clarified some of the data I had gleaned from previous articles on steel and heat treatment of steels that I as an engineer had read.
FWIW

[Cosine26]

I forgot to add- DO NOT use the 4350 loading data in the any of my previous posts . It was for the old du Pont IMR 4350 circa 1960/1970 and any current powder loading data using the same name may well be incorrect.

[pickax]

I think your term "anomaly" probably covers it. It was 1918 and the technology still evolving, with a rush on for rifles.
I do remember posts from "slamfire" somewhere also, I may be able to find it again.
Thanks for the real world experience.

[Tuna]

I bought a low number 1903 from a retired army major who came up from the ranks. He enlisted in WW1 and was issued a 1903. He never made it overseas but did like to shoot. The rifle was made in 1913 and had been a .22 before being turned into a standard 1903 with an SA 1917 dated barrel. He stayed in the army and continued to shoot that same rifle as much as possible. When WW2 ended as he never got out of the states he was set to leave the service and his staff had his rifle refurbished with a new SA 11-44 barrel. He never fired the rifle again. When I bought it from him he gave me his old 1917 barrel and there was just about nothing left for rifling in it. After a shot and clean break in session, the rifle turned out be consistent at 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards.

[Sunray]

...in the receiver where the locking lugs seat..." Is not a head space issue. Head space is an in the chamber only tolerance.
"...a field test bolt..." No such thing. It's proper head space gauges or nothing. No bits of tape. Empty cases, chewing gum, feeler gauges or anything else.
As I recall, the U.S. Ordnance Dept.(not U.S. Army Ordnance) via the U.S. Army didn't have that many receiver failures either. The whole issue is covered in its own chapter in Hatcher's Notebook.

[Cosine26]

"field test bolt-no such thing".
What is this from Brophy?

https://imgur.com/VEx8b6p

Scans of my FTB

https://imgur.com/CWr2Ofd

https://imgur.com/u3IdRFA

Marked "U.S.Rifle M1903 - Field Test Bolt- C2065- Ord DPT U.S.A - NYTG

[pickax]

Found this post by "slamfire" in an old CMP low number '03 thread.


#37 Report Post
Old 03-28-2010, 08:45 PM
Slamfire Slamfire is offline
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 110
Default
Quote:
The DHT wasn't a perfect creation either, always wondered why SA didn't convert to NS when RIA did, it was a much better rifle all the way around in my opinion.
Hatcher was always positive, never negative about anything the Army ever did. It was always to infinity and beyond. He portrays the DHT as a great Army triumph, one cannot help but read the section and not go away with the impression that the DHT receivers were the strongest most perfect creation in the history of the world. This strong impression is carried over to the extent that any failure of a high number receiver is taken with disbelief. Everyone tries to explain DHT receiver failures as being transition SHT , or maybe the numbers were wrong, because it just cannot be. “DHT receivers are perfect, the strongest receivers every made, ever will be made, etc, etc.” You see this in the referenced article.

Unfortunately, DHT receivers were made from the same erratic, shallow hardening plain carbon steels as the SHT.

As far as to sticking with plain carbon steels, someone at decision making high level at Springfield was against alloy steels. In the 1916 instructions to bidders for the 03 rifle, Springfield Armory specifically forbid the use of Nickel steels. This might have been the only alloy steel they were aware of. This sort of dogmatism is surprising to find in a bid package, especially as alloy steels are much better than plain carbon steels. Maybe the Chief Metallurgist, had something against alloy steels.

Making such a labor expensive complicated piece, such as a receiver from such an inferior material as plain carbon steels could be understood in a 1890’s historical context, but pre WW1, when Winchester was making rifles from nickel steel and the P1917 was made from nickel steel, it was time for an upgrade. Instead, SA practically doubles their process costs to add a salt bath for the second heat treat.

It took finishing the nickel steel RIA receivers and making receivers for a decade from unused RIA nickel steel stock before SA decided to advance in the 20th century. I figure that by the time they ran out of nickel steel stock the Chief Metallurgist had died.

Sometimes, mortality is the only means of progress.

For those proponents of SHT receivers, just keep shooting them until progress happens.
Last edited by Slamfire; 03-29-2010 at 09:11 AM.

[Cosine26]

Use of the Field Test Bolt to check Headspace
From Brophy's book

https://imgur.com/uCYXYE6

[Cosine26]

Hi pickax
An interesting article by “slamfire” that you sent.
The one I was interested in was published as:
LN Receiver Steel
08-07-2025, 06:47 #24