Confusion on LN 03's

[PhillipM]

IMHO Hatcher's Notebook is THE source to read regarding the LN Springfield question.
He found the bad vintages were from 1906 and 1911 IIRC. Both the steel and the manufacturing processes were improved and the decision was made in the late 1920s to eventually withdraw the LNs from service, due to the tight defense budgets of those years that was not implemented.

This is not accurate, the board investigating the low numbers recommended withdrawing them but ordnance deferred making a decision.

Some have opined that SA didn't have much to do to keep the doors open in this timeframe and declaring the national arsenal's rifles unsafe and therefore needing new ones was a political move.

[chuckindenver]

low number 1903s should not be fired with live ammo... telling anyone to do so, is not a wise idea...

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

low number 1903s should not be fired with live ammo... telling anyone to do so, is not a wise idea...

The Marines fought through WWI with LN 03's. They didn't complain - ever.

jt

[rcmkhm]

Jim, regarding the tin plated ammunition. It was supposed to reduce copper fouling so was the problem that it had more of a tendency to "bind up" somewhere down the barrel creating abnormal pressure? I've never even seen a tin plated round. What did the round look like and was it marked on the bottom of the case? Also, I've looked online and couldn't find anything on reported incidents of failures during WWI in France. Anyone ever hear of that? I suspect that the censors wouldn't have wanted that reported to the folks back home even if it did happen. Chip

[PhillipM]

rcmkhm,



Here is an excellent write up by Hap Rocketto

http://riflemansjournal.blogspot.com/2009/07/history-national-match-ammunition.html

...and another by Ray Meketa

http://riflemansjournal.blogspot.com/2010/04/history-us-national-match-ammunition.html

[chuckindenver]

Marines wont sue...joe internet will...you can count on it...
and again./.
SHT 1903s dont fail out of the blue... its how they handle a failure
in the last 15 years...iv seen and shared more then a few weapons that have suffered case head failures...
yea... i shoot mine...but only with mondern factory ammo.. but i would never recomend anyone ever doing so...ever..
these are 100 year old rifles, and anything can fail, and will fail...

[jgaynor]

Jim, regarding the tin plated ammunition. It was supposed to reduce copper fouling so was the problem that it had more of a tendency to "bind up" somewhere down the barrel creating abnormal pressure? I've never even seen a tin plated round. What did the round look like and was it marked on the bottom of the case? Also, I've looked online and couldn't find anything on reported incidents of failures during WWI in France. Anyone ever hear of that? I suspect that the censors wouldn't have wanted that reported to the folks back home even if it did happen. Chip

The copper fouling from the cupronickle jackets tended to build up in the bore where it was a problem for competitiive shooters to remove. The tin plated bullets had a tendency to react with the brass case effectively soldering the bullet to the case. This prevented the bullet from moving at the moment of discharge and resulted in a pressure spike when chamber pressures were the highest.

The most dangerous riflles were ones made under tthe old single heat treat process that happened to have the receiver forgings overeated or "burned' in the forging process. This was a fairly early step in the production process. When forgeings were initially heated the correct temperature (color) was judged by eye. In a very small percentage the color was misjudged resulting in the abnormally weak receivers. The actual heat treatment was done later in the production process with the receiver forgings being packed in charcoal filled containers and placed in an industrial oven. During the actual heat treating it was not possible to observe the receivers but by that point the damage, if any, was already done. As has been said poorly made cartridge cases were also a factor and in about four (4) instances 8MM Mauser rounds were fired

The immdiate fix was to install pyrometers (temperature gauges) and remove the human element from the forging process. Also the entire manufacturing process was changed first to the so-called Double Heat Treatment process which resulted in a receiver which was substantially stronger than the old method and enabled most rifles to survive a bad round of ammunition (soft headed cartridge case). Later still the material used for receivers was switched to nickle steel alloy which was stronger still. It's important to note that the change in the production process was undertaken based on a virtual handful of in service blow-ups. Most of the failures occurred after WW1 when surplus ammo was being used up in training. Statistically the likelyhood of encountering a burned receiver was and is small. BUT! we know the Hatcher data is not the universe of receiver failures, There have been a number of reports of individuals doing things like dropping a low number receiver on a concrete floor and having it shatter. We also don't know how many, if any blew up during proof firing. Every rifle that blew up in service (the Hatcher data - which stops in 1929) successfully passed proof firing and some were in use for as much as 12 years before they cut loose.

I believe a burned receiver is beyond repair and is effectively "unsafe at any speed". Ordnance further decided that re-heat treating low number receivers was not feasible hence the decision to keep them for war reseerve

Bottom line what some one armed with the facts chooses to do themselves is their own business. But the ordnance dept, many sanctioning organizations (CMP), gun dealers and the like, who may bear some liability for any accidents on their watch, have recommended against firing low number rifles.

Shooting hand loads may offer some protection however that largely depends on the cases, how many times they have been reloaded and if they have been full length reisized. I ahev only experienced one case head separation. It was in an 03-A3. Don't recall all the details but at tthe time i was using one of the little Lee Loaders which typically had sort of wimpy powder charges. The effect of the gas was kind of like getting slapped in the face with a pair of gloves. So proceed with caution.

Hope this helps. The full story is spelled out in Hatchers Note Book but it takes careful reading of about three separate sections of that book to get the whole picture.

Regards,

Jim

[jgaynor]

Marines wont sue...joe internet will...you can count on it...
and again./.
SHT 1903s dont fail out of the blue... its how they handle a failure
in the last 15 years...iv seen and shared more then a few weapons that have suffered case head failures...
yea... i shoot mine...but only with mondern factory ammo.. but i would never recomend anyone ever doing so...ever..
these are 100 year old rifles, and anything can fail, and will fail...

+1 words to the wise

[PhillipM]

The copper fouling from the cupronickle jackets tended to build up in the bore where it was a problem for competitiive shooters to remove. The tin plated bullets had a tendency to react with the brass case effectively soldering the bullet to the case. This prevented the bullet from moving at the moment of discharge and resulted in a pressure spike when chamber pressures were the highest.

...

They thought bullets soldering themselves to the case caused high pressure, but in reality the shooters were still using grease on the bullets.

From the little used home page, our site's founder on the subject.

http://www.jouster.com/sea_stories/w...ed_history.pdf

"
Just when the problem of the lumpy metal fouling seemed to be solved, a new problem
surfaced with the tin plating. When a new lot of ammunition is produced, it is usually put
under the microscope and carefully examined for any abnormalities. While checking the
weight of the powder charges, it was necessary to pull a few bullets. Normal bullets pull at
around 50 - 60 pounds of exerted pressure, but these puppies proved almost impossible to
pull using normal methods. The effort necessary to pull the new bullets ran from between 300
to 600 pounds! Needless to say, this would raise the chamber pressure to disastrous limits.

Actual firing of the ammunition however, showed normal chamber pressures. It was finally
decided that the bullets were "cold soldering" themselves into the neck of the cartridge cases.
This unexpected phenomena was causing the extreme effort necessary to extract them using
a bullet pulling machine. When fired however, the neck of the case would apparently expand
against the neck of the chamber thus breaking the seal of the inadvertent solder job. Once
broken free by case neck expansion the projectile was free to be launched without raising the
chamber pressure. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Better that they should have
considered the contrariness of the old time shooter. "

[rcmkhm]

Thanks, Phil, for the articles. The 2nd article seems to indicate that greasing the bullets (which was unauthorized it says) to eliminate fouling was the real culprit. What did the greasing do to increase pressure if you know? I couldn't quite figure that out from the article. Which leads to another question - does the throat erosion in a 1903 affect the pressure and, if so, does anyone know of a 1903 throat erosion gauge? I've read that the CMP ones, for example, are designed specifically for the M1 Garand, but I'm not 100% sure. Chip

[PhillipM]

Thanks, Phil, for the articles. The 2nd article seems to indicate that greasing the bullets (which was unauthorized it says) to eliminate fouling was the real culprit. What did the greasing do to increase pressure if you know? I couldn't quite figure that out from the article. Which leads to another question - does the throat erosion in a 1903 affect the pressure and, if so, does anyone know of a 1903 throat erosion gauge? I've read that the CMP ones, for example, are designed specifically for the M1 Garand, but I'm not 100% sure. Chip

The grease around the neck prevented the case from expanding and releasing the cold soldered bullet. The last article mentions finding a fired bullet with the neck of the case still attached downrange!

Rapid fire causes throat erosion and with a bolt gun that's just about a non issue. If you just have to have one Standard parts sells a 1903 TE gauge. The M1 gauge works if the barrel is off the receiver or if it has a right side gas escape hole it can be read through there with a lot of difficulty.

https://www.standardpartsllc.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=88&idcategory=14

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

IMHO Hatcher's Notebook is THE source to read regarding the LN Springfield question.
He found the bad vintages were from 1906 and 1911 IIRC. Both the steel and the manufacturing processes were improved and the decision was made in the late 1920s to eventually withdraw the LNs from service, due to the tight defense budgets of those years that was not implemented.

You might want to read the official ordnance reports Hatcher referenced and compare them to his report. I tried to post a table of all known (from ordnance reports and SRS) failures but it looks like crap when posted. I could only find 157 reported failures, and only 92 of those suffered receiver damage. Many of the causes of receiver failures would have damaged modern receivers. If someone can explain how to post an Excel database, I will post it for all to see.

Rick, one of the failures was a Philippine rifle. :-)

jt

[Crashyoung]

low number 1903s should not be fired with live ammo... telling anyone to do so, is not a wise idea...

I agree, especially with the litigation possibilities...

But I still shoot mine.

[slamfire]

From 1906 to 1918 the Army had a systemic quality control failure at their Arsenals, over 1 million single heat treat receivers were made and these receivers were so structurally weak they literally exploded in front of shooters. Instead of admitting that their rifles were weak, recalling them and fixing the problem, the Army blamed the practice of greasing bullets. The logic was, there was nothing wrong with the rifles or ammunition. The rifles could not be blowing up due to faulty design, manufacture so it had to be a practice of the shooters. No one outside of the Ordnance Department knew how dangerously weak were single heat treat receivers, because the true extent of the problem was kept out of the public domain. The Army Ordnance Department knowingly issued defective single heat treat rifles to civilians and service men even after an Army Board, in 1927, recommended destroying all 1000000 single heat treat receivers. Since all shooters were greasing bullets the Army pointed fingers at grease and greased chambers claiming that created pressure problems and that was the cause of rifle blowups.

When you get to 1920 the Army is experimenting with a tin coating as a means to eliminate jacket fouling. The Army conducted high level meetings with people as high as the Assistant Secretary of War on the choice and testing of ammunition for the 1921 National Matches. The Army also conducted highly publicized tests of Army ammunition versus commercial offerings, and the Army ammunition was selected by an Army board. No doubt the commercial firms who donated ammunition must have felt there was bias in the selection, whether there was or not.

Pressure problems were not immediately identified with the tin coated bullets because it took time for the tin to flow into the brass case necks. As many people know, tin and copper form a lower energy, stable compound called bronze. Nature will always go the to lowest energy level, the term for this is “cold welding”

Cold welding, the joining of materials without the use of heat, can be accomplished simply by pressing them together. Surfaces have to be well prepared, and pressure sufficient to produce 35 to 90 percent deformation at the joint is necessary, depending on the material. Lapped joints in sheets and cold-butt welding of wires constitute the major applications of this technique.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/125142/cold-welding

This phenomena was not well understood at the time.

This ammunition is issued in quantity at the 1921 National Matches and rifles start blowing up. Rifles blew up at the Wakefield match prior to the NM matches and it was reported in the Arms and the Man of the time, that the tin coated bullets fouled just as badly as the copper jacketed ones. Of course the blowups were all due to the bore obstruction created by cold welding of the bullet to the case neck and it got worse in time. According to the Arms and Man magazine, at Camp Perry, two rifles experienced “blow backs”, which as I could tell was the complete fracture of the receiver ring. This was highly embarrassing as this entire process had very high visibility at the time because the Army’s ammunition testing was in print, the Army bragged about how their ammunition had beat out commercially made ammunition. Commercial manufactures would not have been amused to find that their donated ammunition lost out in Army tests, to Army ammunition that just happened to blow up Army rifles. They might have had a legitimate compliant about the partiality of Army testing, never mind the technical competence of Army Ordnance staff.

There must have been enough complaints about the ammunition that months later the Army issued a position in the Arms and Man claiming that the Tin Can ammunition was perfectly safe and that all the problems that happened in the National Matches were all to user misconduct. That is, the use of greased bullets. So understand, in 1918 the Army put out a statement, in print, that the 03 was perfectly safe, it did not blow up at a greater frequency than any other rifle. And after the 1921 National Matches the Army also put a statement that the tin can ammunition was perfectly safe.

These statements were false. The Swiss, for example, had been using greased bullets since the 1880’s, the Army knew about it, and the Swiss used greased bullets for another 60 years without any issues other than sticky extraction in cold weather. Apparently the grease froze in the chamber high in those Swiss Alps, making extraction difficult in extreme cold. Had nothing to do with increased pressures.

The Swiss had zero problems for over a century because the Swiss, unlike the US Army, built high quality rifles and did not knowingly issue structurally deficient rifles to troops, and therefore did not have to create a coverup, when those rifles Kaboom’d. One Dope Bag article (70's or 80's) in the American Rifleman identified five nations that used greased bullets in their small arms. I don't remember the date but I do remember Austro-Hungarians and the article did not mention the Swiss.



I have reviewed all the Arms and the Man that I can find, from 1901 past 1921, and no where in print have I found anything to indicate that there is a manufacturing problem with 03 rifles. The Army does not talk about it, there is no reference to single heat treatment versus double heat treatment, and I don't know just when that came out in the public domain. I think it was in the 1930's way after the Army Board recommended scrapping all one million single heat treat rifles.

In fact, they were selling the things and extolling the perfection of manufacture in 1919!




The authority of General Hatcher and the US Army is so high that people today do not question the contradictions that are obvious when you closely examine the evidence. That is, the entire problems with the tin can ammunition were due to the tin creating a bore obstruction. And that single heat treat rifles were blowing up all around, had been blowing up since they were made, and instead of the Army acknowledging that they built structurally deficient rifles, the Army blamed grease.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5574915#post5574915

I saw an incident back in the '60's on the firing line in a match to a guy a target or two away from me.

Someone had loaded some ammo for their M1903 based long range rifle, fired the first sighter, hollered very loud at the extra loud report. He had to beat the bolt open with a hammer to open it and eject the case and there was no neck on it. Peak pressure pushed case head brass near 1/16th inch back into bolt face cutouts. Primer cup had flowed well out of the pocket and onto the case head.

Subsequent checks of the cases showed dissimilar metal bonding and very well 'glued' the bullets to the case mouths of some of the rounds.

This is one reason arsenals put a sealant between case neck and bullets. When the case is sized and ready for bullet seating, a thin film of asphaltum's smeared around the case neck which is 1 or 2 thousandths bigger than bullet diameter. Then the bullet's seated and the case mouth's crimped into the bullet's cannelure. So says an engineer at Lake City arsenal when I asked about this stuff after seeing the results of that bonded bullet take the case neck out of the barrel with it. Sometimes ammo's stored for many years before it's used by military forces; it has to be reliable and without bullets bonding to case necks.

Best way to prevent it with handloads is don't get the bullet jackets and case mouths squeaky clean and bullets seated with a lot of neck tension where the metals are pressed together very hard. A bit of powder residue's fine and it will not effect accuracy. A single pass with a bore brush in fired case mouths removed enough for normal cleaning but the tiny amount left usually prevents bonding for several years

I shot up a a case, about 1000 rounds of Iraqi 303 Ball, that severly copper fouled the barrel. It took weeks of soaking with Sweets and other bore cleaners to reduce the lumpy fouling. Then I started greasing my bullets. No pressure problems and no fouling. Greasing bullets was very common all the way up to 1921 and is frequently talked about in the Arms and the Man magazine of the period.

Incidentally, billions of rounds of greased ammunition were fired by US forces in WW2 and up to Korea. This greased ammunition was also used by the British in their Spitfires. Greased ammunition was used by a lot of nations but the practice faded as grease lubrication was replaced by fluted chambers.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

..... And that single heat treat rifles were blowing up all around, had been blowing up since they were made, and instead of the Army acknowledging that they built structurally deficient rifles, the Army blamed grease....

A total of 92 known reported damaged 1903 receivers is "blowing up all around"? Got any idea how many hundreds thousands of rounds, maybe millions, were fired in LN 03's in WWI and WWII? The facts do not support your statement. The ordnance reports I read do not blame greased bullets.

jt