I have read all the statistics from Hatcher and the doc who did a statistical anyalysis of receiver failures (m1903.com). Has any other rifle whether military or even commercial ever come under such scrutiny? Come on! Here is the important number: .0001% of 1903 receivers failed.
The Daffy Doc’s statistics are based on Hatcher’s Notebook which is not an all inclusive list of all 03 failures. Hatcher’s list starts 1917 and ends 1929. There are known failures after. Likely there were failures before, but they just were not reported or in the documentation which Hatcher had access.
I also disagree with Daffy Doc’s risk percentages. His percentages are based on the total number of rifles built, not the rifles in use. There were about one million of these rifles built, but post WW1, there were never one million at service at any time. By the time you get to 1922 Congress authorized only 136,000 Officer’s and enlisted in the Regular Army. I could guess how many rifles were in service with an Army that small, and it sure would not be one million. Lets say, as a ridiculous example, that their were four rifles in use and the remaining one million in storage. Let also say that one of the four blew up. Daffy Doc’s analysis would give you the risk as one in a million. But for those rifles in use, it would be 25%.
Daffy Doc’s analysis also does not take into account the destruction of single heat treat receivers. As rifle came into depot, the Army scrapped these receivers. The population of these things liable to hurt someone just got smaller and smaller over time. Any risk calculation based on the total production is misleading because that is not the actual risk to the user. The user’s risk of harm is much higher. By what amount, I don’t know.
I am certain there are no databases extent which would allow the calculation of risk based on active duty rifles, but the Army had seen enough accidents and decided to take a course of action which would remove single heat treat receivers from the inventory.
Daffy Doc also says:
No receiver failures were reported in the training period before the battles, and during the four major battles that occurred in the seven month period in 1942-43. While it's not possible to estimate the exact number of rifles involved, up to 7,000 would have been in use by the three rifle regiments of the 1st Marine Division, Based on the failure rates of 1917-1918 between one and two rifle receivers would have been expected to fail.
Daffy Doc could not find any failure reports and is making the conclusion that absence proves no receivers failures. I disagree with this. The absence of records indicate the absence of records. That does not mean that there were never were records; there could have been. There are buildings full of records that the US Army and Marine Corp have right now which Daffy Doc will never see. These records will be disposed of by the lowest cost method which will guarantee the least embarrassment later. Might as well ask Daffy Doc how long he maintains paper records of his patients. I will bet it won’t be decades.
All organizations have to undergo reoccurring data dumps, or there will not be space for the workers. The lack of records might also be due to there was a shooting war going on. Even the military prioritizes efforts as the culture changes from peacetime bureaucracy to a life and death struggle. How high a priority would there be to create rifle failure reports in a war time expansion? I think the correct answer is zero. If a rifle broke, someone threw it in a scrap bin and got busy filling out paper work for the real important things. Like the Guadalcanal invasion.
Daffy Doc is just another fan boy making excuses for his toys.
In so far as strength, in the 1969 Gun Digest John Amber provides the only shear data I have seen on modern actions.
Ruger made its M77 out of 4140 steel. Ruger conducted shear test comparisions against Military Mauser and Springfield rifle bolts.
The force required to shear the lugs of the surplus bolts was at 1/4 to 1/2 of the force required to shear the M77 bolt lugs.
So, one of these actions will be 1/4 to 1/2 as strong as a modern action made of modern alloy materials. A contemporary M1898 will be much safer than any 03 , even though those are also made of plain carbon steels , due the design features that Mauser put in his action. Shooter protection features are virtually missing in the Springfield design. Off the top of my head, the safety lug is about it. The hole on the right side of the receiver is totally ineffective, must have been an after thought. Gas handling of actions such as M1898 Mausers, M77's, Savage M110, Remingtons M700, are vastly superior to the Springfield. Pop a primer in a Springfield and all that gas comes right down the firing pin shaft in your eye.
