[ReadyontheRight]

Any opinions on the current state of 03A3s from www.odcmp.com ?

Also -- are the low serial number 1903s unsafe to shoot?

[Chipperman]

Do a search at TFL. There have been a lot of good discussions on this.
I personally would not shoot a low SN 03. YMMV

[Art Eatman]

Springfield Arsenal below 800,000. Rock Island below somewhere in the 280,000 range, relying on just memory. Case-hardened receivers; they're potentially brittle. No way to tell if they're safe or dangerous.

After those serial numbers, they went to double-heat-treat and/or nickel-steel and all was well...

Art

[WilderBill]

What Art said. As much as I hate the idea of destroying guns, it might be a good idea if the low serial number 03s were sold only as wallhangers with the chamber welded up. They have been known to blow up with some unfortunate results to the shooter.

[Fatelvis]

Couldnt a low-numbered 03 be reserved for light, cast loads? Or are they THAT brittle/unpredictable? Just wonderin`-

[Matt G]

When I bought my Springfield of higher numbers, it had been sporterized a bit and had changed hands several times. No way of knowing if some gunsmith had ever softened the temper to work on the steel. I took a ball-peen hammer to the bridge of the receiver, but hard. Yes, there's a tiny peen on the receiver, but I had and have peace of mind when shooting it. If I had a low # '03, and had to shoot it... [shrug]

[Badger Arms]

Blah, Blah, blah. I've heard this thread a thousand times. The LSN gun you are using has likely had 10,000 rounds through that 'brittle' receiver with at least one barrel change. This is all a bunch of crap. Yeah, there were brittle receivers. The total number of fatal failures has been zero IIRC. Total number of serious injury failures for 100 years has been a handfull. For 100 years that's a DARN good record.

ODCMP is shipping all low serial number guns with the firing pin ground down so as to make them unshootable. I called and switched my order when I heard that.

[El Rojo]

Yeah I ordered one of the low numbers cause they were cheaper. Didn't find out about the firing pin and the warning until after I got it!!! :cuss: I still haven't replaced the firing pin yet. They offered to credit me the cost of a firing pin or take the rifle back in and I could upgrade for a $100 to a higher number. I decided to keep it. It is a nice looking gun. I am in no hurry to fire it, but someday I probably will. If you can get around it, don't order the lower number. It isn't worth the worry.

[mete]

In 1925 Frankford Arsenal recommended that all Springfield rifles below 800,000 serial numbers be withdrawn from service and not fired. How much of a gambler are you. ? For a complete discussion see Hatcher's Notebook.

[tex_n_cal]

Hmmmm...got a tire, 25 yards of string, and some proof loads handy?

:D

What I have read is that the receivers were forged at fairly high temperature, causing grain size to be large. Large grain size causes a loss of ductility in steel, making them brittle. It required better understanding of metallurgy to correct the problem.

Normal loads would probably never faze one, but an overload would possibly result in the gun shattering, creating shrapnel.

If I got a really nice one quite cheaply, I might consider the hammer and proof load approach - and if I got hurt it would be my own damn fault, too. Considering that the thing might let go next to someone else at a public range, I'd probably vote for not shooting one.

[Art Eatman]

One possibility of course is to find an old quaisi-sporterized Springfield and do a restoration with the good pieces off the low-number.

Playing the odds: First, do the hammer-tap test. If that doesn't ruin things, limit the shooting to loads of no more than around 40,000 psi. Me, I'd definitely use the tire and string as tex_n_cal advised, if I was gonna shoot the danged thing. (.30-40 Krag performance level.) The rifles were safe when the case-hardening was done properly, to 47,000 psi. The key word is "properly". Again, this is playing the odds, not Art's advice on what to do.

The big problem is that there is no non-destructive test to see if the case-hardening was done properly.

Art