You are correct about the Eddystones but WRONG about Remingtons being soft. If pushed I'll Get John Lawson a WWII Ordinance officer to tell you exactly why the Remington was the Gubbamint choice to recon for secondary service duty. Also it is the choice of Art Alphin (spelling?) for his Hannibal series of DGR rifles and every other oldtime gunsmith. Ever hear of Mod 30 Remington
Please remain calm. Everything is under control..
What often is not realized is that even the early low number Springfields where not all brittle. Some were and some were not. They were not all made bad.
I would be the first to admit that not all the Remingtons had soft recievers either. I am not an expert on this story of the soft Remingtons but they may have been early production runs and just as the problem of the brittle early 03's was finally corrected I imagine that the Remington problem was probably corrected as well. This would account for the strong reaction of some people on this matter especially those that have converted them to powerful sporting calibers and had no problem with them.
I really want to tap into your experience base. I have read about the problems that Springfields had with soft receivers in the pre-war years, but this is the first I've heard about the P14/P17 rifles having this problem.
Actually to my knowledge there were no "soft" 03 Springfield receivers, it was the opposite, they were to hard.
I once saw a demostration many, many years ago where a man hit a low number '03 Springfield with of all things a plastic hammer and give it only a light tap and the reciever shattered before my very eyes. That was a shocking sight.
Hey thanks for your reply and although I can definately tell you where I read about the brittle Enfields (which was in the American Rifleman magazine from many, many years ago,) I just read about the soft Remington recievers about a year ago and I cannot remember wether it was in the "American Rifleman" or perhaps in "The Rifle" magazine.
I read about every magazine on guns that is out there and my basement is stacked to the ceiling with magazines as far back as 1949. So some times I do lose track of what magazine and what issue I read something in. And at the other end of the basement it is piled up with gun books. I wish I had all of it on computer so all I would have to do is punch in a queastion and come up with the book or the magazine that had info on the subject in question.
If you belong to the NRA, and every gun owner should, you could write them a letter and they may be able to give you the production years and serial number ranges of the Soft Remington Recievers.
