What to do with a low number 1903?

[Mr Humble]

Again hate to point out the obvious but Hatcher's "facts" were gathered long before WW II.

Never heard of any Remington made 30-06 failures in WW II. Perhaps you could cite the committee in question and where I can obtain a transcript of their findings to include actual ammo testing. You may be confused with the soft headed ammo produced before WW I by WCC cartridge company (no relation to winchester or remington)
Some of the blow ups were traced to this defective ammo. Soft headed ammo in any cone breeched rifle is a receipe for disaster. I think Ackley blew up a few M 70s that way.

In England a Damascus barrel is a twist steel barrel. A'int any difference. May I quote ?:

"Damascus Barrels - Barrel tubes built up by twisting alternate strips of iron and steel around a fixed rod (mandrel) and forge-welding them together in varying combinations according to the intended quality and the skill of the maker. The rod was withdrawn, the interior reamed and the exterior draw-filed until the finished tube was achieved. Damascus barrels may be recognized by any of a variety of twist or spiral patterns visible in the surface of the steel. Before the 20th century, barrels were typically built in this manner because gunmakers did not have the technology to drill a deep hole the full length of a bar of steel without coming out the side."

Many of the quality makers produced barrels that passed Nitro proof long after smokeless powder came along.

If you were a subscriber to Double Gun Journal you would know of the extensive testing done with Damascus barrels. May I quote again: ?

"However, on the opposite site of the discussion, there has been an in depth field trial done by a writer in Double Gun Journal over the last 3 or 4 issues.

He has tested a couple of dozen damascus barrelled guns starting at the high end and finishing with some true "trash" guns - Belgium Guilds, no name British, cheap imported American brands.

He shot greater than proof level test loads and had the same result up and down the line.

The stocks, frames, and operating parts gave out on several occassions - but none of the barrels ever split or were damaged more than when they came in the door."

Sure you don't want to talk about Ross Rifles ? They blew up a lot too.

BTW, still can't ID that 03 can you ?

Now here's one Grandpa Robscheit had made for his frequent trips to German Africa. It is a standard grade Sedgley in 9.3x62 that probably killed everything but an Elephant. It was worked hard and the effects of cordite and corrosive primers are noticable. It still never blew up and, as it was a "customer supplied action" Sedgley left the markings intact.
Note the serial number...... it was a rod bayonet gun..... ah that it had not been torn down to build the 9.3. Still waiting for it to come apart. All action parts are original.
The barrel (as most Sedgleys) was made by Winchester.

Relative to the earlier Dunlap comment on 03 quality, he must have been on drugs. The workmanship on the early 03s surpasses any commercial rifle made today until you get into the high 4 figures. They were hand made rifles of the highest quality and the fact that a pre WW II bone stock 03 will outshoot any contemporary mass produced rifle says it all.




Another interesting 03'. I own the Mauser Werke original plans....



I sell reproductions (full size) of them so you can build your own 1903 Springfield Mauser.

[Multigunner]

Have to make another correction, and still can't edit.
When I posted

Back to the Springfield. During WW2 there were several incidents of defective ammunition being identified, enough to result in a Congressional sub commitee investigation. The records of that investigation are available at the Internet Archive.

I meant WW1, and I'm certain that I did type WW1. Perhaps the auto corrector someone else had a problem with is responsible.
This has happened several times in the past.
I'll be sure I typed WW1 but when I look at the post later it is displayed as WW2 instead.

[Multigunner]

If you were a subscriber to Double Gun Journal you would know of the extensive testing done with Damascus barrels. May I quote again: ?

"However, on the opposite site of the discussion, there has been an in depth field trial done by a writer in Double Gun Journal over the last 3 or 4 issues.

He has tested a couple of dozen damascus barrelled guns starting at the high end and finishing with some true "trash" guns - Belgium Guilds, no name British, cheap imported American brands.

He shot greater than proof level test loads and had the same result up and down the line.

The stocks, frames, and operating parts gave out on several occassions - but none of the barrels ever split or were damaged more than when they came in the door."

I believe I said that the Damascus barrels were strong enough unless rust infiltrated the welds between the ribbons. Obviously the man who did those tests used guns that still had good barrels.
I also repeated what W W Greener had warned of when smokeless powder first came into use for loading and reloading shotgun shells.
There were illustrations of split barrels and blown out chambers in a number of publications of the period.
I've seen plenty of split shotgun barrels over the years, so its entirely possible to split any shotgun barrel if proper care is not taken or the ammunition defective.
Some older high grade shotguns used Damascus barrels the were very thin in sections, the "Swamped" barrels I spoke of. They could make them like this because with the Black Powder in use at the time theres less pressure after the first three or four inches beyond the chamber and they left the muzzle portion thicker to make it more sturdy . You'll see similar Swamping of light field guns of the BP era.
I've seen Damascus barrels infiltrated by rust that showed both inside and out in places. When you squirt liquid wrench down the bore and it begins to seep through the barrel wall you have a wall hanger. Unless you have a smaller gauge barrel liner installed.
These Damascus barrels were just fine so long as you didn't let rust take hold and go too deep.

Many of the finest British bird guns were chambered for a 12 ga two inch shell. A size so unusual here that it would probably never cross someones mind that a modern star crimped 2 3/4 shot shell might chamber but when fired the forcing cone would be choked down by the now fully opened hull. Aguila makes a 1 3/4" 12 gauge shell, don't know what kind of pressure it generates.

With the lightest of Damascus barrels there may not be enough steel in front of the chamber to safely ream it out for a longer hull.

With a damascus barrel shotgun in very good condition I'd still be very careful about the ammunition I fed it.

Relative to the earlier Dunlap comment on 03 quality, he must have been on drugs. The workmanship on the early 03s surpasses any commercial rifle made today until you get into the high 4 figures. They were hand made rifles of the highest quality and the fact that a pre WW II bone stock 03 will outshoot any contemporary mass produced rifle says it all.

I'm sure Dunlop was speaking of some of the 1903A3 rifles not the 1903.
Anyone whos ever handled a Springfield 1903 would know these were some of the best fitted and finished of any military rifle.
Also someone here who loves to dis the Springfield at every opportunity has proven he doesn't know the difference between a STEN and a Sterling so I'd be a bit skeptical about any of his claims.

[gew98]

HiVel

Had ammunition quality been up to snuff there would have been far fewer blown LN Springfields.
.

Really ?. So all across europe they produced some pretty bad ammo during the great war just to stay in the fight...but gew98's , M95's , carcano's & SMLE's etc etc were NOT blowing up or otherwise going tits up like those fragile 03 bangsticks. We all have to admit the basic 03 action was a good thought...being pretty much a 98 mauser...but we again have to admit it was very poorly executed and made.

[Multigunner]

So all across europe they produced some pretty bad ammo during the great war just to stay in the fight...but gew98's , M95's , carcano's & SMLE's etc etc were NOT blowing up or otherwise going tits up like those fragile 03 bangsticks.

Exactly how many of the LN Springfield failures were ever stated to have happened during WW1 or WW2 combat?
Only mention of a U S rifle blowing up in France or England I could find was a journal entry where a soldier wrote that the "company Clown had stuck his rifle muzzle in the mud then tried to shoot the mud out, which cost him an eye. At that he did not identify the rifle as a Springfield and both M1917 and British SMLE rifles were in use by U S troops (the SMLE used by U S New York State National Guard troops under British command) and SMLE rifles were used by U S Troops during final training in England before being shipped to France.
The defective .30-06 ammuntion never made it to the front, it was discovered and pulled before any was shipped out, which caused some supply difficulties.
We don't have much in the way of evaluation of SMLE rifle failures or casualties caused by any such failures because WW2 bombing destroyed almost all personel records from that time and before WW1. The British MOD also destroyed almost all records on the development of the Lee Enfield in the late fifties or early 60's, a fact mentioned by Lord Cottesloe in his forward to E G B Reynolds "the Lee Enfield Rifle". Reynolds had quite a task in recovering the information.
We do have records from the Canadian house of commons listing dozens of failures of Lee Enfield actions on firing ranges in Canada and I've run across records of a Sgt being awarded funds to support his family while recovering from injuries when his Lee Enfield blew out at the breech breaking away the righthand receiver wall. His right hand was terribly mangled. That happened on a firing range under ideal conditions.
I've run across at least two fatal injuries to shooters due to blown out bolt heads, and one near fatal injury where the bolt head passed through the neck of a range officer standing to one side.
The injuries and deaths were not listed in any WW1 era documents, and with the "Slaughter" of MOD documents written of by Lord Cottesloe we have no way of knowing how many such incidents may have occurred during WW1 or WW2.
I seriously doubt German military medical records are any easier to find.
Since a study was made on LN Springfield failures these records are easy to find, but that does not equate to LN Springfield failures being the only such failures.

Dual opposed front locking lugs were adopted by most designers of military rifles, and all including Mauser copied that design feature from the 1889 Lebel rifle. The designer of the Lebel bolt was not permitted to patent his design so it was open to any one to copy without infringement.

[Mr Humble]

Well said. The uniformed (I'm being kind) babble out the same BS they've been reading in gun magazines from generations of authors who repeat what they read as callow youths without question. If, as you point out, accurate records had been kept of any group of millions of a certain military rifle, we would all be scare to shoot any of them. The poor 03 got a bad rap from Hatcher's flawed data and because he is one of the Gods of the NRA, the same BS keeps getting repeated w/o ever being TESTED. 99% condition low number 03s are so rare and valuable that no one is going to try and blow up a bunch. Thus we are left with Hatcher's outdated information vs the facts on the ground today. Still waiting to see a 100% correct, headspaced checked low number 03, shooting modern ammunition blow up. As I'm 72, bought my first low number rifle at 20, have owned a helluva a lot, shot them all (that had not been mucked with) and have yet to see a documented failure, I'll keep enjoying them as they are incredible rifles. Outside of a few interwar 98 Mausers they have no equal for fit, finish and performance. Anyone who has a bone stock 100% correct military low number 03 with a mint bore but is scared to shoot it, send it to me and I'll sent you a brand new Ruger American in your choice of caliber. You'll never have to worry about it blowing up.

Now when can we talk about Ross rifles blowing bolts through peoples' heads ?

[rmark]

Ross 1905 not a problem, changing from the two front lugs to an interrupted screw in the 1910 model. Too close of tolerances to handle dirt plus working the bolt slowly deformed bolt stop. Add the possibility of incorrect bolt assembly allowing gun to be fired with an unlocked bolt. I happily shot my 1905 in .303, never fired my 1910 sporter in .280. Couldn't afford .280 ammo at the time anyway, but the history of the guns made it a low priority. Bolt velocity should not exceed bullet velocity

[Multigunner]

When the GEW88 first went into service there were so many deaths and injuries it ignited a national scandal. When they revamped the design ot became a safe and reliable rifle.
The Boers regularly blew up their 1893 Mausers when using the Kort Nek 7mm cartridge.

After WW1 the Mauser 98 got a bad reputation among American sportsmen when low cost sporting rifles built on salvaged DWM actions flooded the market. The actions had been left unfinished at the factory and were bought up by low end German gunmakers who did not have the equipment for proper heat treatment.

The poor 03 got a bad rap from Hatcher's flawed data

I don't see that anything about Hatcher's data was flawed, and certainly not outdated. He was there and deeply involved, not revising history like many gun writers of today.
The LN rifles if properly forged and heat treated are strong enough, those few that were over heated during forging are accidents waiting to happen, nothing unusual about that.
The problem is there was no non destructive test available at the time for finding out which were which.
No doubt almost all the over heated rifles were trashed long ago, but a few may still be out there waiting for a bad cartridge to reveal its flaws.
The USMC LN rifles with Hatcher Hole are probably safe enough, the Marines had no problems with these.
I suspect boring the Hatcher Hole would have revealed whether the steel was brittle at the core.
As tough as it is to drill a Sprinfield receiver the machinist should have been able to judge the quality of the steel in the process and scrap any bad receivers.

[gew98]

I for one won't be a statistic by using the low number potential inferior peices. And if you know anything about the early gew88 it was burst barrels due to bullet vs bore diameter and new types of smokeless powder and bullet jacket material as they expolred uncharted ground. Not iffy heat treating like the 03 range queen. And Boer Mauers - their german allies sent them the wrong ammo. When you use the wrong ammo bad things happen.... unless you have a low number springy thingy. But if you were fighting a foreign oppressor I guess you too would use whatever you could get.
Low quality parts make low quality rifles...just like the low number 03's.

[Multigunner]

I for one won't be a statistic by using the low number potential inferior peices. And if you know anything about the early gew88 it was burst barrels due to bullet vs bore diameter

If you knew as much as you think you do you'd know the JudenBusche failures had nothing to do with bullet and bore sizes. The various changes in groove depth were not an issue, it was poor design and insufficient training of the troops that caused the accidents. Several modifications were made and better training made accidents rare.
The anti-semetics had started a ruckus claiming Ludwig Lowe had sabotaged the rifles to kill German troops. It was a real low point in Germany's reputation.

The 93 Mauser didn't hold up well to bad ammo, the LN 03 didn't hold up well to bad ammo. Neither was recruit proof so sad sacks trying to blow a stuck patch or two inches of mud out of the bore by firing a round accounted for a number of failures of these and rifles with much better reputations like the M1917 being loaded with a 7.92 cartridge.
The British Home Guard managed to wreck a few M1917 rifles, how they did so is unclear.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

[QUOTE=Mr Humble;2997791]The endless stupidity about low number 03s. As a 50+ year 03 collector (pre WW I only) I have yet to see a documented case of a low number gun, with proper headspace and using modern correct ammo blow up. For years we had a $5000 offer out on the net to anyone who could produce such an event ...... nobody collected. IF you actually read Hatcher's book and do a spreadsheet analysis of all the "blowups", the number that can not be explained by human error is in the single digits. Take your new 30-06 model 70 and shoot a full power military 8x57 in it and see what happens. Take 220 grain cupronickel bullets, smear Mobil chassis grease on them (thought to reduce fouling) and run a dozen through any 30-06 you want. The list goes on ..... as Gump said you can't fix stupid.
Hatcher is an NRA "God" so they continue to spout this BS. It helped me buy a lot of mint 30-03s and 30-06s made before WW I. A bit odd that our wonderful government sold tons of "unsafe" 03 actions to firms like G&H, Sedgley and Jaeger who made them into wonderful sporting rifles that have yet to blow up.
Then in WW II they pulled 1000s out of storage and used the actions to make a rifle with an 03 action and 03A3 parts. Sent our boys off to fight with them, guess the "brass" didn't care if they blew up.
Just more hokum like fine twist steel shotgun barrels are a bomb waiting to go off. Amazing how many of them can still be found, reproofed for Nitro and still working as well as they did in the 19th century. Not bored yet ? We could get into the Ross rifle myth next ?[/QUOTE]



I agree with most of what Mr. Humble says, although I don't think anybody is in terribly much danger of being too kind at the moment, and some other factors, including some built into rifles, aren't totally to be ignored. I wouldn't be anywhere near as venturesome in loading as with a late Springfield or non-emergency European Mausers.

I am a long way from my copy, but agree that General Hatcher documents these blowups extremely well, and comes close to eliminating those without some human contributing factor we are unlikely to repeat nowadays. Expecting to use a .30-06 cartridge is not an unreasonable expectation, and managerial toes would curl up in the ammunition industry at the idea of letting through over-annealed cases, or those he describes as drawn from blanks with a dent in one side from the last row punched out. There is always the possibility (though not on the '42 barreled rifle under discussion) of one of those barrels made from overheated steel being used, or the feed ramp being cut too far forward on the case body.

Any of these rifles is extremely likely to have been used in the First World War, and this cuts both ways. It has probably done a lot of shooting, with numerous batches of military ammunition, then a lot more with the rebarreling, and was sold to the public in a day when the government wasn't desperate to put rifles in people's hands, and wasn't irresponsible about what it sold. I mostly accept these arguments. but it is hard to believe General Hatcher got all the incidents that happened. People didn't search WW1 battlefields in case they got the death certificates wrong. Some rifle accidents probably did go unnoticed, or unreported by people who had other problems while there were rifles lying around to be picked up, or just wanted into a sympathetic hospital with light injuries, instead of the Self Inflicted Wounds one.

I haven't read all the posts, but one factor that could have been involved was Col. Townsend Whelen's tin-plated bullets, inspired by the French strips of tinfoil in their artillery charges, which did indeed reduce nickel fouling. They produced extraordinarily high bullet pull figures, and yet not greatly elevated pressures. Trouble came in the National Matches of 1921, when people were keen enough to dip their bullets in Mobilube grease. (They had been warned not to, which proved it had to be particularly good.) Very dangerous pressures then resulted - supporting my belief that bullets don't pull (or push) out of the cases, but are released by pressure, like blowing into a clinging rubber glove. Grease (or perhaps even water) in the chamber neck would prevent this expansion. Plating was replaced by powdered tin in the powder (already a Dupont patent) where it remained for many years.

I think everybody knows some Lee-Enfields did fail in use, although much more often having a soldier reporting his rifle had behaved oddly, than a dramatic blowup. I also know of one fatal and extremely destructive P14 Enfield blowup which could happen with any spring-extractor rifle, but could easily have been attributed to some other cause. It may have started with a misfire, or the user trying to empty his magazine by loading and ejecting each round in rapid succession. The extractor claw broke off (it has happened to me), and he slammed the next bullet nose into the unfired round which hadn't extracted.

I have a great admiration for the M1895 straight pull Mannlicher, in which I have a sporter-style 7.7x60R which might be a rare and valuable experimental rifle but for being totally refinished, unmarked and probably restocked. But if accidents like those of the early Springfields happened there, what are the chances of their every being documented at all, in a nation splendid in peacetime military engineering, but miserably bad at everything else connected with war?

Damascus barrels are a totally inappropriate analogy for anything physical about a rifle barrel drilled from homogeneous steel. But I think they are a first-class analogy when it comes to people's reactions, and to its suitability for use in the intended manner. I think its origin lay in the inevitability of flaws being in steel of the early nineteenth century. If an ingot was simply drawn out into a rod and bored, the flaw would be stretched out along a considerable length which mightn't matter in a ¼in. thick rifle barrel, but in a .004in. shotgun it certainly did. A damascus barrel interwove bad metal so intimately with good that no significant weakness occurred. Of course its use was prolonged far longer than it needed to be, by the extreme beauty of the best damascus, and the cheapness of the most basic twist.

Good damascus isn't as strong as homogeneous barrel steel, but strong enough to make a good nitro shotgun barrel without excessive thickness. The trouble is that dents occur quite easily, and it can be weakened if it has been dented more deeply that a gunsmith should have been willing to raise. It could be that the hundreds of tiny welds have been cracked.

I do not feel I deserve great credit for taste of judgement in resisting the blandishments of teenaged nymphettes who would lure me to my fall. The truth is that they hardly ever do. Most condemnation of damascus barrels comes from those who don't have one.

I know nothing about ultrasonic testing, but am unsure that it would work in thin sections. What I would recommend is magnaflux testing, which involves magnetizing the object and rolling it in an "ink" of very fine magnetic powder. Any discontinuity in the metal, even below the surface, becomes north and south magnetic poles, and acquires a powdery whisker. I would also do this with an early Springfield which had no recent history of firing, or had been knocked about afterwards, as drill rifles sometimes are. With that proviso I would feel happy shooting it with ammunition calculated and tested to behave the way the military round was meant to.

Another myth you don't mention is that cast bullets necessarily generate lower pressures. They may... But if the throat and first two or three inches of the bore are eroded, a hard case bullet which is bumped up to that diameter and then swaged down in the less eroded part of the bore, may actually give higher pressure than jacketed.

That guard cartridge was the one that always did puzzle me. I don't remember if it was actually being fired at anyone, but if it was, it might easily have been pointed at the ground, or at his legs - although General Hatcher, in his "Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers", advises that into the air is much safer. These cartridges, needed in small numbers, may not have been loaded by automatic machinery, and I think a multiple charge is the most likely explanation.

[Mr Humble]

Excellent post. As you point out VERY few of Hatcher's failure could not be explained by human error or bad ammo.
As far as Ross rifles go I own 2 280 Ross stalking rifles. Only a dolt would assemble them incorrectly as it takes considerable force and obvious failure to follow RTFI. After having a bullet swage made, they shoot as well as any high intensity "7" mm with a 28" skinny barrel and iron sights. Again, there are no documented cases of a properly assembled 280 Ross using correct ammo blowing out a bolt.

As with the low # 03s, impossible to find a documented example that can be attributed to a defect in the rifle.

Absent that, it's just what me Dad called "tits over the back fence."

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Thank you for that kind remark.

As you say, very few are unexplained as human error by Hatcher, and those could still have been due to it.

There were plenty of briefly trained amateurs in the early days of the British Home Guard, who might have done anything with a rifle - as well as the bravest and the best who weren't allowed out of their day jobs in essential industries, and the sort of old man you do not want hunting you. But General Hatcher also documents numerous receiver failures with the M1917, caused by defective heat treatment of the basically excellent 3½% nickel steel. This seems to have centred mainly on production at the Eddystone plant, and to have taken two forms: extreme hardness and brittleness, and burnt steel which is grainy and soft.

I don't know if this specific problem happened with the British P14 contract which preceded it, but there certainly were a lot of problems, which Winchester and Remington blamed on excessively literal interpretation of specifications by the British inspectors. I don't know whether those were standards of how much you get blown up, or genuinely pettier matters. Matters were much improved by the future Lord Reith of the BBC, who qualified for the job by being shot through the head and shoulder by a sniper on the Brickstacks at Cuinchy. He wrote notes to tell family and friends he was perfectly all right, walked half a mile to the hospital with his stretcher-bearers tagging along in panic, and went to see "The Birth of a Nation" three weeks later. He was not a resistable kind of man, being 6'6", a Presbyterian fundamentalist, prone to fixed antipathies. Some said there were better places to hit him. He did reach many compromises on the specifications, but by that time the SMLE factories were meeting demand, and the SMLE was better in mud.

My P14 was an Eddystone, which saw a great deal of shooting after I converted it to a .300H&H and trusted in the primers and head measurements which suggested that heavier than manual loads were fine. Still, I had the drilling test to rely on, and its amputated ears to test as much as I liked.

Incidentally Hatcher claimed the original gas vent holes had been drilled on the wrong side, which he seems to attribute to the designer having taken refreshment. I think that as with any other rifle, these might well control where gas gets squirted after a case rupture hasn't turned into steel fracture, which is very well worth doing. But I think it would be too slow to prevent a blowup if the escape was massive enough.

The Springfield was undeniably Mauser inspired. All of these relationships are complex. But it would be the 93, 96 and similar Mausers, on which it must be considered an improvement. I don't believe any feature in it can be traced to the Mauser 98.

[wayne h]

Hang it on the wall. I never play with a stacked deck. Just my opinion. Wayne h

[Multigunner]

I have read of two blow ups of P-14 or P-13 rifles during field testing.
The cause of each incident was the soldiers that fired the rifles were short men with short arms. While firing in the prone position when armed with the SMLE each had developed the bad habit of letting the muzzle drop while reloading, the bulky muzzle cap and bayonet lug preventing to muzzle of the barrel from touching earth. When they did this with the new rifle they ended up getting sand in the muzzle.
The barrels split, which was unexpected even with bit of sand in the muzzle, so they put both rifles to extensive metalurgical testing. The verdict was "Burnt Steel".
Not sure where these rifles were made. If P13 experimentals they may have been built by Vickers. Vickers lost out on the P-14 contract because they had depended on a Yugoslavian sub contractor and events proved that unworkable.

Thats all I can remember, I read of this about 40 years ago.

[13Echo]

I possess the LN Springfield that started this thread. It has a receiver made in 1916, and 1942 barrel, and a J6 bolt with Remington guts. It has obviously seen a lot of use without becoming a grenade. It also has a punch mark on the receiver ring that seems to have been from testing for hardness. I don't think this was done when the actions were made which makes me suspect it was examined and tested much later. It seems to have passed. Has anyone else seen a hardness test punch mark on any other LN '03 receivers?

Jerry Liles

[gnoahhh]

That punch mark was put on when it was rebarreled at a gov't installation, or in the field by a battalion-level artificer (gun repairman who traveled with a combat unit, who repaired weapons in the field). I had a friend who was one of those guys, in WWII, who explained the meaning of that mark to me.

He also confirmed my long held personal feelings regarding the use of low number '03s when he described fully half of the bolt guns he serviced in Northern Ireland (pre-invasion when his unit still had yet to be issued Garands) were low numbered guns- and posed nary a problem. I would prefer a nice low-number gun over anything made later, with the exception of a 1903A1 National Match (I have one) or an NRA Sporter (wish I had one!). As has been stated earlier, once the unwarranted bad rep was splashed into the gun press, generation after generation of gun writers blindly regurgitated the drivel, and many an otherwise rational gun owner bought into it. Good, I say. That means all the more for me to pick over.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I have read of two blow ups of P-14 or P-13 rifles during field testing.
The cause of each incident was the soldiers that fired the rifles were short men with short arms. While firing in the prone position when armed with the SMLE each had developed the bad habit of letting the muzzle drop while reloading, the bulky muzzle cap and bayonet lug preventing to muzzle of the barrel from touching earth. When they did this with the new rifle they ended up getting sand in the muzzle.
The barrels split, which was unexpected even with bit of sand in the muzzle, so they put both rifles to extensive metalurgical testing. The verdict was "Burnt Steel".
Not sure where these rifles were made. If P13 experimentals they may have been built by Vickers. Vickers lost out on the P-14 contract because they had depended on a Yugoslavian sub contractor and events proved that unworkable.

Thats all I can remember, I read of this about 40 years ago.

What a shame it would be, if someone blew up a P13 trials rifle which could have stayed together! I saw a beautifully light-walnut stocked one in near-mint condition auctioned for £480 in the UK, certainly after 1990, and I very much doubt if you would get away with an extra zero nowadays. The .276 round should be thoroughly usable with modern components, too.

I don't dispute the burnt steel, though you should probably get away with that indefinitely - if an obstruction doesn't contribute, and if it is confined to the muzzle of a rifle. Sand is very odd stuff. You would think it would be less of an obstruction than mud, but it isn't, and dry is worse than damp. I've posted just recently on an experiment of Dr. Mann in 1909, with the last 3/8in. behind the bullet in a .32-40 case filled with dry sand. It tore off the necks, to be carried down-range with the bullets. Clearly dry sand, which you could poke your finger into, locks tightly together under a close to instantaneous blow.

I'm not sure how seriously the government ever were about awarding the P14 contract to Vickers. The Army had suddenly wised up a lot about the heavy machine-gun in the course of that autumn.

[13Echo]

Another thought about the LN "03 receiver punch mark. It had to be placed with a steel punch and a hammer. If the receiver ring was truly brittle that should have shattered it rather than just leave a mark.

Jerry Liles

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Another thought about the LN "03 receiver punch mark. It had to be placed with a steel punch and a hammer. If the receiver ring was truly brittle that should have shattered it rather than just leave a mark.

Jerry Liles

Does anybody know whether that was just hit with a hammer as conventionally swung by hand, and whether any further assessment of the mark took place? It sounds a bit like the sort of hardness test which was done by applying pressure with a spring or with a specific weight falling a specific distance, and the dent then assessed with an optical micrometer and tables.