Over a century ago the US Army built 1,000,000 M1903's, which later tests proved, that 1/3 of the them would fail in overpressure incidents. An unknown number of them blew up with standard issue ammunition. There is evidence of one person dying when his low number M1903 Springfield blew up. The Army never with drew these rifles, instead issued them until such time the rifle wore out, in which case the receiver was scrapped, or it blew up in service, in which case any injured personnel were medically stabilized. If due to their injuries any Soldier/Sailor/Marine unable to perform their duties they would have been granted a medical discharge, removed from service, and the unfortunate suffered for the rest of their life with their permanent debilitating injury. Those in the VA system know just how generous VA benefits are, and how easy they are to get.
The basic problem in the Arsenals was that temperature gages were not in place in the forge shop nor in the heat treat ovens. Temperatures were judged by eyeballs and if any has watched "Forged in Fire", you can see how imperfect eyeballs are in judging temperatures. Often knives are overheated and cracked even though the makers are highly skilled knife smiths. It has gotten so bad that the judges won't test a knife that is cracked. Early on in the show a number of these cracked blades shattered and you could watch sharp shards flying about the sound stage. Damned dangerous to everyone. Sometimes, a blade is overheated without a crack showing, and if the blade breaks, the testing stops.
The Army Ordnance Corp was clearly at fault, having built a population of defective weapons, which blew up with their ammunition But instead of withdrawing the things , warning the users, thereby admitting to incompetence and accepting fault, the Army Ordnance Corp came up with a coverup to absolve them of all fault and push the blame on the user of the rifle. At the time shooters were greasing their bullets. The Army therefore blamed the grease for the blowup. Claimed it greatly increased pressures and bolt thrust. Because shooters consider the Army an honest institution, and don't have the technical background to question, this has been accepted unquestioningly for over 100 years. However, a bit of research shows that many period Armies were in fact greasing their bullets, the Swiss continued to grease their bullets up the 1980's.
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I am going to say it is surprising how few of the shooting community are aware of the history of automatic weapons,even though anyone can read Chinn's Machine Gun series for free. I recommend reading Vol IV, start with the blow back section:
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/
There must be a hundred service weapons that used greased ammunition. About the same number, if not more, used oilers which oiled the ammunition as it went in the chamber. The 20mm Oerlikon, used by the Army, Navy, Air Force, had to used greased ammunition or the thing would malfunction to the point of blowing up! About 150,000 of the things were issued during WW2 and were used on aircraft, PT boats, ground equipment. It shot around 800 rounds of 20 mm cannon fire a minute. An Army bud of mine stole one from the USAF during the Vietnam War. At this time the Oerlikon was using an oiler which put a drop of oil on each round just as it went in the chamber. Bud, and his fellow river pirates, mounted the Oerlikon on their armored river barge. If they took any incoming, that Oerlikon would absolutely stop any hostile actions!
None of this is well known within the shooting community. Instead the shooting community is still in lock step with a 100 year old Army coverup. Any oiled or greased ammunition loaded within SAAMI pressures is safe in any weapon designed and built for the round. The action is designed to fully support an oiled round. If anyone is really concerned about bolt thrust, they need to cut their loads.
I have been fire forming cases with grease or oils. I want first fired cases to fire form without any stress. In the example of these 300 H&H Magnum cases, I don't want to stretch the cases. They cost about $2.00 each, maybe more by now. If they are in stock. (!) The base to shoulder distance is not controlled with belted magnums and if you don't carefully fire form belted magnum cases, you run the risk of case head separations in a couple of firings. Instead of the case neck adhering to the chamber with the sidewalls stretching till the case head touches the bolt face, my 300 H&H cases slide to the bolt face, the shoulders fold out, stress free and perfectly fire formed. This is a practice that Bench Rifle National Champions do, they need a perfect case, and fire forming lubed cases results in case perfectly formed to the chamber and stress free.
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