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Thread: `03 action soft or hard?

  1. #21
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMax View Post
    I agree, I received a PM from HappyWarrior consistent with our old friend, Mr Humble. Perhaps we should ignore him and as you say focus on the main topics of this forum.
    figured out who he was on his first post in the thread.

  2. #22
    Boolit Grand Master Char-Gar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMax View Post
    I agree, I received a PM from HappyWarrior consistent with our old friend, Mr Humble. Perhaps we should ignore him and as you say focus on the main topics of this forum.
    Yes, ignoring such folks is a good course of action. In all matters we are bound to have differences of opinions and experiences. We should all give our input to the topic and move on, unless further detail and clarification would be helpful. Trying to prove that we are right and others are wrong is never helpful.

    I learned a long time ago, that sooner or later the truth will out. Bickering about it just demeans ourselves and others. I know it is tempting to call a fool a fool, and have done so on occasion myself, but it is never a good or helpful things to do.
    Disclaimer: The above is not holy writ. It is just my opinion based on my experience and knowledge. Your mileage may vary.

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    A possible cause of slam fire with a Garand is if the rifle has been subjected to too many rounds that generated excessive gas port pressure. The bolt slamming hard against the rear of the receiver can distort the leg of the firing pin and jam the pin in the forwards position. Another reason that the 1930's era M1 Ball was considered unsuited for use in the Garand rifle and why long range match loads sometimes require a adjustable gas plug for safe use.

    In normal operation with suitable ammunition a well maintained Garand is extremely unlikely to slam fire.

    I've owned only one Garand but have fired several in various conditions. When restoring my Garand a gunsmith gave me a flier he had received detailing the known causes of slamfires in the Garand. It may still be here someplace or other.

    I have no reason to doubt that Sedgley and some others had LN 03 receivers re heat treated. Hatcher mentioned that as an option considered at the time with the decision being that it would be too expensive and might not cure the problem completely.

    The failures of LN receivers seem limited to certain years of production and certain months of those years. I'm sure that modern testing methods could weed out the bad receivers. Most defective receivers were probably weeded out in the normal order of events as worn barrels were replaced and Hatcher Holes drilled.

  4. #24
    Boolit Master
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    It has been an interesting thread - at times almost excessively interesting, but may have helped us make up our minds about all sorts of things.

    I think the situation is about cleared up. Some of the pre-800,000 rifles are perfectly good, as they didn't get the temperature wrong all the time, and a high proportion of the failures were due various unwise practices - it may have been more, veiled by natural reticence - or to the use of defective wartime ammunition. Eliminate those and use only SAAMI-spec ammunition, and the risks become much smaller.

    As far as discussion as a combat sport is concerned, the trouble is that all this was about cleared up by General Hatcher's record of accidents. Others have pinned fair to middling reputations on saying pretty much the same things, but he pinned a very large one. About all that has changed since then is that unless you are lucky enough to find a near-mint early Springfield, the one you have is likely to have experienced a lot more shooting than it had in the 1920s.

    I'm not sure what slam-firing semi-autos brings to this issue, but if it happens, I think it would be as the bolt slams shut after firing a round. (I have the French Permanent Commission's specification which produced an exceeding good military revolver in 1873, and says the parts should "click into place in a military manner". But if a rifle could be slamfired that way, men could surely have been told to close it wimpishly.) So this would be comparing a slamfire with the rifle pointing where it was desired to fire, with an explosion in which direction didn't matter.

    The best heat treatment and nickel steel must be reckoned improvements in any rifle, and so, I think, is an aperture sight over an open one. But I agree that the Springfields so often mistrusted are made to a beautiful standard of workmanship and finish, which wasn't equalled later.

    I think the main virtue of the "Hatcher hole" is that it caused the gas from a ruptured case to be squirted in a safe direction after the receiver ring has either gone toad-shaped or suffered no damage. High-speed gases are reluctant to change direction, which is why a revolver's cylinder gap isn't a much worse source of velocity loss than it actually is. A gas is an almost perfect spring, and escaping gases can achieve a far higher velocity than the bullet. If the receiver ring is liable to burst, it will burst through impact, not pressure buildup, long before the gases change direction and are channelled through a hole.

    Here is my photo of a double ring bulge, experimentally induced by an obstruction in a condemned shotgun barrel. In the time it took for the shot and obstruction to move two inches, the pressure wave that produced the bulge has bounced back to the inside of the cartridge, bounced forward, and after about thirty inches of travel, has hit the shot again and made another bulge.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #25
    In Remembrance


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    GEE! I`m glad that I didn`t ask a controversial subject question?Robert

  6. #26
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    Well after the way my simple question went both South and deep into left field with comments far from what I asked for I thought I`d share some info. The action in question went for $63 + 10% commission + 6% tax. I passed on getting it.

    Moderator: Please stop and remove this thread.Robert

  7. #27
    Boolit Master
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    That entire article is a total statistical joke.
    Conclusion the doctor(he is only an MD not a Phd mechanical engineer or any kind of engineer for that matter) tried to talk his way out of real testing with garbage statistics.
    If you want to analyze the low number Springfields you have to run destructive tests on them. When you do that they break. You do real testing with the real items since they still exist.
    But please do not drop one because it might break. It is clear that with a million or more defective receivers that dozens of US Army and civilians could have lost their jobs if the cover up was not thorough.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Quote Originally Posted by HappyWarrior View Post
    Suggest that the link provided by Remeil is REQUIRED reading.

    The author's conclusion is clear: quote:

    Conclusions

    The problem of Springfield receiver failures was a rare event throughout the service years of the Springfield rifle despite statements to the contrary. It was also concentrated in certain years of manufacture suggesting that an important component of the failure was human error in heat treatment. The heat treatment problems had been present long before the manufacturing pressures of 1917. The receiver failures were also compounded by a design flaw in the support of the cartridge case head in the Springfield rifle, and this problem was exacerbated by uneven manufacturing of brass cartridge cases during 1917-18.

    Eleven receiver failures in 1917 prompted an investigation and a change in the heart treatment of the receivers. The decision in 1928 to replace the low numbered receivers as rifles were returned to arsenal for repair was an effort to provide soldiers with a greater degree of safety. The board of officers recommended that the low numbered receivers all be withdrawn from service, but the general responsible for reviewing this decision did not concur with the board's decision, and left most low numbered receivers in service until replaced by the M1 Garand in the early 1940's. He took a calculated risk, and the risk paid off. There were no further receiver failures after 1929.

    It also suggests that ammunition manufactured during World War I likely played a major role in receiver failures.


    In addition to the military's findings, there are no fully documented cases of receiver failure in WWII or since then, military or civilian that are not linked to user error.

    The link is an excellent update of Hatcher's info and illuminates what Hatcher found to be the major cause of failures.

    A single heat treated action is more brittle than a double HT one. Both are more brittle than a nickle steel one.

    A SHT action is also slicker than snot, hand fitted and as made. a thing of beauty. Anyone who owns a pre 1906 unmessed with, mint 03 military rifle or a high grade custom sporter built on a SHT action can attest to that.

    If you do own one and don't wish to shoot it, that's fine. If you do, probably wise to have it tested for cracks, make sure headpace is correct, use quality ammo (03's like M70s have an unsupported case head) and stick with conservative handloads.

    Why the Alaskan is not all the way back .... who knows, but this RF Sedgley 7x57 was built on a low # action in the 1920-30s and is quite nice. I doubt G&H would take the chance on selling an unsafe rifle.

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    EDG

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hardcast416taylor View Post
    Well after the way my simple question went both South and deep into left field with comments far from what I asked for I thought I`d share some info. The action in question went for $63 + 10% commission + 6% tax. I passed on getting it.

    Moderator: Please stop and remove this thread.Robert
    No need to stop and remove, the offender was banned and thread cleaned up
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
    ― The Dalai Lama, Seattle Times, May 2001

  9. #29
    Boolit Master
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    Well here's my Sedgley Springfield in 30-06Click image for larger version. 

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    It came with a 1 3/4 power scope along with the original peep sight. Don't have any pictures of the rifle with the scope on it but the mount looked like it was made by Sedgley, it has the "S" stamped on the under side of it. I also have the original leather sling which is also stamped "Sedgley of Philadelphia"
    Just wondering if there is a list of Sedgley serial numbers out there because it has #5 stamped on the tang which is where Sedgley placed his serial numbers. Serial # 5 would make it one of the first produced by Sedgley.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check