I always love when people bring up the "low numbered" deal.
If you are new to 1903's read this...been out a while.
I have a 500,000 range rifle...have shot it quite a bit with no problem, I will however state that I do use the same loading that I use in my Garand.
Daffy Doc is just another fan boy justifying his use of low number 03’s. 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 before and there are known failures after. Any risk calculations based on Hatcher’s Notebook are invalid and worthless.
Daffy Doc’s risk 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. The Army does not release safety failure reports to the public, never has. How Hatcher got his database I don’t know. But the guy was the head of the Ordnance Department during WW2 and was planning on writing more books after retirement.
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 the patients he killed through incompetence. I will bet it won’t be decades.
There was a 1927 Army Board that recommended scrapping all low number 03’s in service because they were too dangerous and the bad ones could not be non destructively screened out. The recommendation was over ruled for monetary purposes. It was cheaper to injure Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines than replace the total inventory This was an immoral decision by an amoral General.
For those shooting low number receivers, until the thing blows, you just don’t know if you have a good one or a bad one. These actions were made of inferior, plain carbon steels, made under primitive process controls, they have no margin of safety if a case head ruptures, even good 03’s have poor gas handling characteristics, and if you get injured, the cost is all on you.
