Please don't tell me though, that all steel made today is better than the receivers on Swedish Mauser rifles, and supply some specific data to support that if you insist. You could literally hear 1960's vintage cars rust as they sat in your driveway.
All steel everywhere? That's a big order. But then, why would a firearms manufacturer buy steels from a foundry with no reputation? Kinda risky, don't you think? Buying steel from Tropical Jack's across the Tracks would surely lead to a recall, if the lawsuits from injuries did not put the gun manufacturer out of business. Just got my Takata air bag
https://news.yahoo.com/takata-airbag-recall-everything-know-201253740.html removed from a vehicle, Takata went bust, and every automobile manufacturer who used Takata air bags, and some estimates are 100 million air bags, is having to replace those airbags at their cost. That is why prudent manufacturer's have robust subcontract management so they know what they are buying, because negligence just ain't as profitable as it used to be. Once the public wanted protection from defective products, something called "Product liability", manufacturers became liable for the garbage they shoveled out.
In the period these Swedish rifles were made, while I don't know Swedish product liability, I can say, if an American customer lost his face and hands when a defectively made American rifle blew up in his face, pretty much, no compensation or even an apology. I am sure Sweden was not particularly advanced over the US as these concepts take time so spread. Modern attitudes towards safety and product quality are hugely different from a Century ago. When those 1905 rifles were being built, only a few ships had wireless. The Titanic had wireless, and the Captain had been charging through ice fields at night through out his career, and thought nothing of it. Then he finally hit an iceberg. And, of course, the ship did not have enough life boats for everyone, but that was the way it was. And people liked it. I have found metallurgical reports of the iron and steel quality on the 1912 Titanic, and the stuff had a lot of containments, which is what steel had back then, in the pre vacuum tube technology era.
Some person whose only education on steels is based on advertising used the term “Tool Steel” because they saw it in advertising, assumed it was a quality attribute, and used that term. If that person had thought cottage cheese, or brie cheese, or platinum was a quality attribute, they might have made the claim that Swedish rifles were made of green cheese or precious metals. Sam Colt called his materials “Silver Steel”. Ain’t no silver in his steels, but it made for a catchy phrase, and even today there are those looking for that fabled Silver Steel recipe.
And this is how myths and legends become established as truth. This stuff goes around and around till everyone believes it, though they don’t know what the heck they are repeating.
Why would any firearms manufacturer make a receiver or bolt from tool steel? What attributes do you want in the materials used in a pressure holding vessel? Hardness is not high on the list, I will tell you that.
This is a 60’s ad. I remember when vehicles had 100,000 miles and were considered worn out. And they were! (anyone remember plastic toothed GM timing gears that broke before the engine had 100,000 miles?)
I remember blue printing. The mechanic took every part out of the engine and measured it. Parts tolerances were so wide that it was critical to remove the loose ones, or the engine would throw a rod through the side, or out the oil pan, if a lot of power was applied. A engine putting out 400 horsepower was a powerful engine, and they did not last long at top end.
A lot of that was just the manufacturing technology, but even 1960’s materials were not so great. And that was 60 years after a 1905 Swedish receiver was made.
(A 700 horsepower production car never was made back then. They are now. In fact, I think there are some that put out 1000 horsepower.)
This is an abstract from a 1987 SAE paper. The number of micro inclusions had dropped in the early 80’s that noticeable improvements in bearing life were being noticed, and reported. And that was 30 years ago. And that was 80 years after a 1905 Swedish receiver was made.
SAE technical paper 871983
Improvements in Bearing Steel Cleanliness and the Effect on Integral Wheel Bearing System 1987
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44472886
CONCLUSIONS
1. The SAM Rating Method for micro inclusions and the AMS-2301 rating method for macro inclusions, when used in tandem, have proven to be effective tools for the evaluation of steel internal quality and for the facilitation of steel internal quality improvement.
2. Laboratory testing under conditions relatable to field use and mathematical modeling of service bearing consumption over time both confirm significant improvements in bearing fatigue performance correlating with improvements in steel internal quality
I personally believe that craftsmen have lived in the past that could produce specialized heats of steel that rival anything used in modern firearms. Swedish Mauser receivers being such a case.
Romanticism will never replace technological improvement. Even today I constantly encounter people who believe that Sigmund the Dragon slayer had a sword which could chop granite boulders in half, and still slice a silk handkerchief in the air. Of course, that was just exactly the type a sword required to kill a dragon!. A mythical sword and a mythical monster go hand in hand. And people believe this stuff, or rather, they want to believe it.
Back in the era when workers were cutting steel under gas lights, they built remarkable equipment, considering the technology. At the end of the production line were guys with hammers, files, who beat, or removed material, to make things fit. They don’t need to do that anymore, gun manufacturer’s can hold the tolerances without having workers file parts to fit. Did you know that the reason a number of those early machine guns had oilers on them, was because of barrel interchange tolerances?. Manufacturing technology was not precise enough to maintain chamber headspace in replacement barrels. Some chambers would end up long. To keep dry cases from having case head separations, they put oilers on the guns. Oil on a cartridge allowed the case to slide to the breech face, without side wall stretch. You can look that up in Chinn’s Machine Book series.
You old enough to remember vacuum tube radios and televisions? I am, and you know, they were big, bulky, unreliable, and very limited in performance to today’s stuff. Why should anyone think that the other products of the era were technologically as advanced as today?
You remember to call someone, you had to be at home, next to a phone connected to a wall outlet?
And the person you were talking to, was also at home, with their phone connected to a wall outlet? Kids can't believe that.
These were death traps, and uncomfortable. But they still look great
