Is this 1903 safe to shoot?

[boom boom]

any one have stats data on a rebarrel ones blowing up ?

You might find this cmp forum posting useful-(you will also find a well versed individual that posts here as well)
http://forums.thecmp.org/archive/index.php/t-8527.html

But to answer your question--the barrel generally was not the issue and bad rifles were rebarrelled either by the military which was scarce of them in WWI or by individuals post war. I have one that has a Hoffer Thompson 1903 receiver that was rebarrelled with a 1919 to .30-06 and apparently fired by someone. I have it as a wall hanger example of WWI firearms but the Hoffer Thompsons were made from REJECT low number Springfield receivers according to Brophy. Someone had an angel on their shoulder while firing it.

Private firearms accidents have no central database, including WISQUARS system by the CDC that specifies by make and model. Most of what we know of kabooms or other unsafe conditions of a particular model are either through internet postings, recalls, or lawsuits (think Remington for example).

The point that I am trying to make is that shooter grade military rifles had led hard lives, been through all sorts of adventures, and may have had amateur tinkering done to them such as welding, grinding on sears and triggers, rechambering, etc. that can render them suspect without expert appraisal by a well qualified gunsmith. In the past, some unscrupulous resellers (like Bannerman) created franken guns that strangely enough are collectible but not as shooters. Samco Global (another defunct company) sold some stuff that was excellent and other stuff that was downright dodgy. There are cast receiver National Ordnance 1903's that have a spectacularly bad record which I'm sure that Slamfire has a stash of kaboom pictures from. Rewelded Garand receivers, fire damaged rifles, restored drill rifles, DP rifles returned to firing condition, Kimber during bad times economically butchered a lot of 96 Mausers and put them out there in unsuitable cartridges and so on.

Caveat emptor--let the buyer beware.

 

[Nature Boy]

The pressure generated in a cartridge is not dependent on the grains of the bullet. The pressure and resulting bolt thrust are determined also by the powder burn rate and the powder load.

Also bullet bearing surface. I’ve experienced more pressure earlier with tangent ogive bullets vs secant ogive bullets with all other variables remaining the same

 

[Grim Peeper]

Thanks for all the great responses and information on this thread over the past few days. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna shoot this rifle at least once only because Im a fairly wreckless person tending not to give a damn. Also I’m bad at taking good advice. I’m going to protect myself and my body as much as I can. My ammo is 155 grain. I just noticed this marking on the bolt I assume this means Remington made it? Is that a peen mark next to the R?

 

[boom boom]

View attachment 803387
Thanks for all the great responses and information on this thread over the past few days. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna shoot this rifle at least once only because Im a fairly wreckless person tending not to give a damn. Also I’m bad at taking good advice. I’m going to protect myself and my body as much as I can. My ammo is 155 grain. I just noticed this marking on the bolt I assume this means Remington made it? Is that a peen mark next to the R?

Yes, you probably have a WWII vintage Remington bolt when Remington geared up to take over 1903 (and later modified 03's ) production so Springfield could concentrate on the new Garand. The bolt is made of good steel with proper heat treatment. It does appear to be a peen mark which means that it was proof tested but not necessarily in your rifle depending on its history. The U.S. did not serialize bolts normally and so who knows who put it in. A lot of parts rifles were also assembled as the U.S. was awash in 1903 spare parts after WWII. If possible, have a gunsmith look it over before any attempts at firing. A gunsmith inspection is much cheaper than your deductible in most cases.

I would make sure that the bolt lugs are bearing properly on the receiver lug recesses before firing. A substituted bolt that has not been fired with the rifle COULD be the cause of a kaboom if it does not bear relatively equally on the lug recesses and the receiver is brittle. If it doesn't have enough lug contact between bolt and receiver, don't fire it.

If you have to test fire it, get a remote trigger and have the rifle clamped into a rest for test firing--make sure that you're screened from any bad consequences. Keep other people, if any, well away--you don't want to hurt others with your actions morally and legally. Wear heavy clothing, face shield, head protection, gloves, etc. like stuff you would wear if you had a job using a chainsaw or something else that flings material around and fire behind cover. Have a first aid kit around with proper bandages and clotting material crystals and don't shoot it alone--you might need someone to take you to a doc. You may look and feel like a goof but in the cases where these shattered, it became a fragmentation device. It won't look like an overpressure event where you have the metal peeling apart and taking much of the force with it. Think fragmentation grenade.

Here is one picture from castboolits forum of a 1903 kaboom of a receiver https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.BbmMOLI0me-u7UZpQRxNlQHaGD&pid=Api That is why some folks that do shoot them now and again use low powered cast boolits loads in hopes that the fragmentation effect will not be as bad if it happens. The issue with that is often this uses fast powders which have a different pressure curve than slower burning rifle powders which also might cause the receiver to shatter.

If you have the ability, measure the change in in the test fired brass--look for swelling, gouges, smearing of the case head, primer, etc.

 

[tark]

including a sitting US President interfering in the design.

Yes, Roosevelt did interfere with the design. He took one look at that stupid rod bayonet and ordered it removed from the gun. A wise decision.

The rifle was a Mauser clone when better ideas were available.

Better designs? What better? Where ? In 1903 the 98 Mauser was state if the art. If anything, since we ended up paying royalties anyway, we should have copied the Mauser more closely and stuck with the one piece firing pin

BTW, did you know there was a 1901 Springfield? It is at the very top of the pic. The Army had a few manufactured for testing and decided they didn't need that much barrel. I had hoped to get a close up pic during inventory but the museum inventoried while I was in California. I haven't examined it close-up but I wont miss the next inventory!!

 

[tark]

Serial # 1 was hanging between the two, it's out on the floor now in a case. It is the rifle in the middle.

 

[saiga308]

View attachment 803387
Thanks for all the great responses and information on this thread over the past few days. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna shoot this rifle at least once only because Im a fairly wreckless person tending not to give a damn. Also I’m bad at taking good advice. I’m going to protect myself and my body as much as I can. My ammo is 155 grain. I just noticed this marking on the bolt I assume this means Remington made it? Is that a peen mark next to the R?

some ones been fireing that puppy for sure in the past they replaced the bolt to make sure its stronger then the orginal
check this one out on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPRINGFIEL...810272?hash=item285c0960a0:g:eZ0AAOSwhfdad-yL
cant wait till yah test fire it i bet its fine

 

[saiga308]

​

 

[saiga308]

View attachment 803387
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPRINGFIEL...810272?hash=item285c0960a0:g:eZ0AAOSwhfdad-yL
T

this one on ebay has the smaller R i see? then yours

 

[LoonWulf]

You may look and feel like a goof but in the cases where these shattered, it became a fragmentation device. It won't look like an overpressure event where you have the metal peeling apart and taking much of the force with it. Think fragmentation grenade.

This is why I won't have my buddies on the line with me. His choice to shoot it, even aware of the possibilities, I'm fine with that.
But the way these guns come apart is more destructive than a modern rifle blowing a case head, or barrel.

Take the necessary precautions, be as safe as you can, and report back with your success in firing the rifle.

 

[saiga308]

This is why I won't have my buddies on the line with me. His choice to shoot it, even aware of the possibilities, I'm fine with that.
But the way these guns come apart is more destructive than a modern rifle blowing a case head, or barrel.

Take the necessary precautions, be as safe as you can, and report back with your success in firing the rifle.

after shooting it, if it has issuses wouldnt the brass cases look weird like bulging or pressure signs at the base?
as the replacement bolt is not tight enought ?

 

[Merle1]

after shooting it, if it has issuses wouldnt the brass cases look weird like bulging or pressure signs at the base?
as the replacement bolt is not tight enought ?
View attachment 803414

Not likely - it's like bending a glass rod - all is well until it snaps, with no warning at all.

 

[LoonWulf]

Not likely - it's like bending a glass rod - all is well until it snaps, with no warning at all.

Good analogy.

after shooting it, if it has issuses wouldnt the brass cases look weird like bulging or pressure signs at the base?
as the replacement bolt is not tight enought ?
View attachment 803414

If there are minor headspace issues those might be noticeable depending on how tightly the extractor holds the case to the breach face. If it's held back tight against the bolt face it's very possible they won't be that obvious. Another thing about the 1903s is that they don't handle gas escapes well. So I'd much prefer to have the headspace checked BEFORE firing.
If the headspace was bad enough it's also possible the lugs wouldn't be engaged at all on firing and the bolt would hammer back against the receiver.


If headspace checks ok, and it likely will. I think the more dangerous issue would be one lug bearing more than the other, or not at all. That would apply less even pressure on the receiver ring on firing, and perhaps even allowing the floating lug to slam back against the receiver ring, tho I don't know if bolts will bend enough to allow that.

 

[Kendal Black]

Better designs? What better? Where ? In 1903 the 98 Mauser was state if the art.

The Schmidt-Rubin 89/96 showed significant promise, as did the Lee Enfields. Both held more ammo. Both were fast to cycle. Either would have been a fine basis for further development...as each proved to be, in its own land.

A semi-auto battle rifle would doubtless have been going a bridge too far in that era, but gas operation was used successfully in the 1895 Colt "potato digger" machine gun. The Mondragon rifle was not too many years hence, but it was a bit of a turkey.

 

[Nature Boy]

You should at the very least take it to a gunsmith and have him check headspace before you shoot it.

I took over my dad’s sporterization project on a 1903A3 he began back in the lat 50’s but never finished.

Before I ever fired the first shot I took it to the smith to check headspace because there was no telling whether the bolt was originally with that rifle. It checked out fine and I had the additional piece of mind that it wouldn’t rupture a case.

It was worth every penny of the $25 it cost me

 

[boom boom]

after shooting it, if it has issuses wouldnt the brass cases look weird like bulging or pressure signs at the base?
as the replacement bolt is not tight enought ?
View attachment 803414

A bad chamber/headspace is a separate issue that can cause fragmentation in a brittle receiver. Imagine an impact from the brass case expanding or even separating to provide hot gas/material impact to the side of the receiver chamber--it would act like a hammer blow inside the chamber. Simplistically, a brittle receiver breaks from impact because it lacks the ability to deform enough from the impact (which a properly case hardened receiver would have) and the key bad place to happen is at the receiver ring/barrel/bolt interface. A messed up receiver tang might cause other problems but not a kaboom. The coned breech in a 1903 in some ways makes it worse due to reduced support around the case head and as LoonWulf says Springfield 1903's have inferior gas handling than do Mauser 98's. The key thing is you won't know whether you have a brittle receiver until an exciting event occurs and then it would take someone with expertise to determine exactly the sequence of events and causation.

Saiga308, If you are getting weird bulges in brass from firing, I would suggest cutting that brass open to determine what is going on after you use calipers to obtain key measurements to compare with chamber specs. You can also detect a suspected incipient case separation using the hook method if you have the right touch or using a cheap usb camera for internal case examination. Definitely do a chamber cast and measure. Absent the brittle receiver or severe overpressure, case separations generally involve escape of hot gas which may or may not cause serious problems (this can cause pitted chambers btw which is a good sign to avoid that rifle).

Older rifles that have a rimmed case in this case have a safety advantage over those using rimless designs. While Krag kabooms have happened, especially when jokers fired high pressure rounds through them, the problem has not be as prevalent--my guess is the rimmed case design if the rifle is sound. Similarly, although the Brits used nickel steel early in SMLE production, the rimmed case design and good gas handling probably reduces the risk of a catastrophic kaboom if the rifle appears sound and headspaces properly. Mosins appear also to fall into this category or even Lebels/Berthiers. All have rimmed cases, in part, because of bad ammunition, mercuric primers, and bad brass during the early WWI era.

I have seen similar reports on Model 93's and 95's, and 96 Mausers though. These did not handle gas that well either, used rimless (really rebated rims), and some may have brittle receivers and improper heat treatment. The 1888 GEW, Slamfire documents the historical issue that caused this rifle to be retired in only a few years due to similar issues to the 1903. That is why I do not shoot mine at all. Those with thumbcut outs on the left side of the 88 GEW (aka Commission rifle) are the worst culprits as this was not original. Slamfire and some others do have kaboom pictures of old Mausers that look pretty bad.

 

[boom boom]

Yes, Roosevelt did interfere with the design. He took one look at that stupid rod bayonet and ordered it removed from the gun. A wise decision.

Better designs? What better? Where ? In 1903 the 98 Mauser was state if the art. If anything, since we ended up paying royalties anyway, we should have copied the Mauser more closely and stuck with the one piece firing pin

BTW, did you know there was a 1901 Springfield? It is at the very top of the pic. The Army had a few manufactured for testing and decided they didn't need that much barrel. I had hoped to get a close up pic during inventory but the museum inventoried while I was in California. I haven't examined it close-up but I wont miss the next inventory!!

Tark, they were auctioning something on Gunbroker that was purportedly a 1901 Springfield receiver just a few days ago. Update--it is still there https://www.gunbroker.com/item/785462955 Receiver ring appears scrubbed so who knows.

At one time, the dealer running Oldguns.net had bits and bobs of old Springfield bolts and parts for the forerunner of the 1903 with a warning that these were probably never heat treated and were not finished.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

i see the op has no punch marks or drill holes into the reciever??
wait it think i see it now look closer its hidden by the angel under the 66

check out these 06/1907 productions they have punch drill holes but the op doesnt?View attachment 803177

View attachment 803178 View attachment 803179
http://www.jouster2.com/forums/showthread.php?50919-Two-very-early-Rock-Island-1903-s-rifles

The problem with trying to Brinell (punch) test these receivers is that the QC process was so haphazard that it may be fine in one spot, brittle in another, and too soft in a third. Also, the depth of the treatment isn't consistent.

The holes were not for testing the hardness of the material, but rather gas-handling ports to try to mitigate the effects of a case failure (Hatcher holes). They are of dubious worth, but probably better than nothing.

 

[243winxb]

However it is 99 years old, so my logic is that it probably would have blown up by now if it was going to.

My thoughts exactly. But i'm not the person shooting it.

 

[boom boom]

One school of thought claims just that. A Dr. named Lyons applied survival analysis and came up with estimates of the relative danger of firing them. Believe you can find that on http://m1903.com/ which has both serial numbers and times of production etc. However, others point out several things--first, the government quit keeping tabs on them after 1929. Second, they only destroyed receivers apparently when a rifle was brought in for refurbishing at armories, at least according second hand to Hatcher. Unless someone is willing to go into the morass of training accident records when the army ramped up or reports from battle use, there is no easy way to get data on failures, particularly after 1940 in govt. service. Indeed, if there were failures, things were so grim early in the war, it is possible such reports would have been squelched as the U.S. needed rifles and would not want soldiers to fear firing them. I have no idea on issuance but it is also possible that the older stuff was used, like 1917 rifles, for sentry duty, rear echelon usage, etc. After WWII, they did drop the 1903 and 1917 rifles and surplussed them to the DCM.

At this point, all evidence of kabooms comes from individuals reporting these but prior to the internet, there were few ways to share this information widely aside from the American Rifleman or Gun Digest. Thus, failures have definitely occurred since 1946 but any identification of the firearms, the conditions such as whether it was a low number receiver, hacked on by Bubba, poorly maintained--pitting etc, overpressure, faulty ammo, bore obstruction, etc. Any information collected for 40-50 years of data is purely by happenstance. Even now, there is no central database of failures of receivers and conditions.

Thus, can anyone say whether a given rifle by statistics will blow up the next time fired. No. Can even an adequate estimate be obtained via using 80-100 year old statistics, no. too few data points for significance. I have done survival analyses for specific papers submitted to journals including event counts, multiple event counts, semi-parametric measures, etc. What is happening here is you have time series data with a large number of missing observations which makes any statistical analysis dubious.

There was a problem with burnt steel in barrels made by Avis in WWI, there was also problems with soft brass, mercuric primers, etc. Most of these causes can be readily eliminated by simple observation including not firing a 1903 that is otherwise not up to snuff--bolt lug engagement, headspacing, avoiding the old single heat treatment bolts, etc. The joker in the deck is brittle does not mean it is not strong. The faulty heat treatment made the receiver hard throughout in places on the receiver body as Nightlord notes above which means that it could have been fired repeatedly and not failed because the place getting the impact (mostly lug recesses) were not problematic. But, let's say that you have a .30-06 round that has a case separation or a new bolt has been put in the rifle with insufficient lug engagement or you drop the rifle even, the receiver can shatter on impact because it is so hard that it cannot deform (it lacks toughness to use an inappropriate word here). You may have antique glass in your house that is over 100 years old. But, you drop it on the floor, it shatters.

Some of these receivers have shattered when put in barrel vises to change barrels, some have shattered upon being dropped on the floor, some when hit by a hammer, and some when tapped. But, don't take my word on it.

Want some expert advice--call Chuck in Denver (milsurps.com) whose real name is Chuck Moline of Warpath Vintage LLC in CO. Phone 720-841-1399. Gunsmithing old milsurps is what he does. He does answer questions at times on milsurps.com Recent Example http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=5632

He has exceptional reviews btw.

 

[bfoosh006]

Your face is worth CONSIDERABLY more then that rifle.

I would , personally block the chamber and use it for a wall hanger... I would NOT fire that rifle.

 

[tark]

Tark, they were auctioning something on Gunbroker that was purportedly a 1901 Springfield receiver just a few days ago. Update--it is still there https://www.gunbroker.com/item/785462955 Receiver ring appears scrubbed so who knows.

At one time, the dealer running Oldguns.net had bits and bobs of old Springfield bolts and parts for the forerunner of the 1903 with a warning that these were probably never heat treated and were not finished.

Interesting.. It is a 1901 receiver, obviously unfinished and not heat treated. I wonder where they got it, and what would you do with it?

 

[tark]

The Schmidt-Rubin 89/96 showed significant promise, as did the Lee Enfields.

Good point about the Lee-Enfield, but Lee had submitted a 45-70 version that the ordinance department didn't want, if I remember correctly. The Swiss 89/96 was for too weak of an action for the 30-06.

 

[Art Eatman]

Those old suspect Springfields are best used as the base for a pole-lamp project.

 

[bfoosh006]

Those old suspect Springfields are best used as the base for a pole-lamp project.

Excellent idea... now if the bolt action could "turn on" the light... that would be even better !