Hatcher Hole in low number 03

[byrd45900]

Has any one had their gunsmith drill a "Hatcher hole" in a low number 03?What are your opinions on drilling this hole and changing the bolt to a nickel steel bolt?Will the rifle be safe to shoot standard pressure loads then?Thanks for any help,Byrd

[220swiftfn]

Neither "solution" addresses the issue with the low-numbered '03's. The problem was the RECEIVER, not the bolt. There was a problem with inconsistent heat-treating, leading to brittle steel that would shatter instead of deform during an overpressure event (in an unknown number of rifles). Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is destructive testing, which is why it is advised against firing the low ones. That being said, there are many who DO load for, and shoot, lower power rounds in them....


Dan

[13Echo]

The Hatcher Hole was to improve venting of gas from a ruptured cartridge and does nothing to address the heat treating. The Marines made the most use of the Hatcher Hole so a rifle with the hole was likely Marine Corps issue.

[avogunner]

......... That being said, there are many who DO load for, and shoot, lower power rounds in them....

Yep, I'm one of these. I have a 5 digit RIA that I shoot regularly with cast. I use Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook (Third Edition) data, which shows very low pressure loads with 3031 and the 311041. I use this (and another load with the 311299 boolit) and both shoot very good out of my rifle. I like the 200 gr for milsurp matches but the 170gr for general practice/plinking/fun shooting. I've put hundreds and hundreds of these through this rifle and I have absolutly zero qualms doing it. Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to convince, or encourage, anybody to do the same but I understand the "brittle receiver" issue of low numbered 03's, read extensively on it, and have made the personal decision to assume the "risk". Besides, WWI was fought with low-numbered 03's and if they're good enough for a "Teufel Hunden", they're good enough for me!
Semper Fi..

[Scharfschuetze]

I too use a circa 1915 Springfield Armory 1903 for reduced load shooting. Surprisingly, there are no blow ups documented to any rifle made in 1915. Don't want to be the first, so I'll just shoot cast in this one, but for that it is great with a good bore and all original parts. By the way, I bought this rifle for a song as I think that the seller was convinced that it would blow up just sitting on the table at a gun show.

While the USMC was aware of the brittle receiver issue, they used low number 1903 rifles right up through the Guadalcanal campaign. That may help explain why the Hatcher hole is often found in USMC rifles.

[jonk]

With respect to the above, there IS an issue with early bolt bodies and heat treating.

That said, I don't like the idea of drilling unneeded holes in the receiver...

[bob208]

I have a few low number 03s I shoot them with standard starting loads and cast loads. but them I do not try to make a magnum out of anything I load for.

I have read that most of the problems were with the bolts.

[byrd45900]

Thank you to all that replied to my thread,I value your help.Byrd

[Cmm_3940]

It was the receivers.

"Between 1917 and 1929 three soldiers lost an eye to receiver failure, and six more had unspecified injuries consider serious. An additional 34 soldiers received minor injuries from receiver failures. There were no deaths reported from the failure of a Springfield receiver. "

"The change in heat treating was instituted between serial number 750,00 and 800,000 at Springfield and by serial number 285,506 at Rock Island Arsenal."

Read and decide for yourself.

http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/



My low numbered '03 was made in 1910. There were zero reported receiver failures that year, and many others. I have shot and will continue shooting this rifle with surplus GI Ammo manufactured in the 50's. (Another suspected factor in the failures was soft brass cartridges manufactured during WWI). Since my rifle was rebarreled in a military armory at least once before coming into my possesion, I think it's fair to say that multiple owners/operators have survived doing the same.

I believe that blanket statements regarding the safety of low numbered '03s are inappropriate. Read the facts and judge for yourself.

[Cmm_3940]

My '03 Sporty receiver, ca. 1910, showing what I assume is the 'Hatcher hole'.



Barrel markings appear to be from much later, ca. WWII

[Scharfschuetze]

CMM,

Your photo got me to thinking that I should get a shot of my "low number" Springfield from 1915.

Here it is with a Colt 1911 made in 1917 and my wife's grandfather's tunic and helmet from duty with the 89th Infantry Division in France during 1918.

[John Allen]

CMM,

Your photo got me to thinking that I should get a shot of my "low number" Springfield from 1915.

Here it is with a Colt 1911 made in 1917 and my wife's grandfather's tunic and helmet from duty with the 89th Infantry Division in France during 1918.

That is a great display you need to make a case for this and hang it up.

[EMC45]

Awesome display!

[Mohillbilly]

There was a problem with rebarreled Johnson barrels , as the threaded shank was a bit large and put on some of these old dogs with brittle recievers did blow .....

[Scharfschuetze]

Thanks for the comments guys. Most appreciated.

I wanted to update the info on the Hatcher Hole. It is found on the left side of the ring, opposite of the gas relief hole on the right side. It matches up with the gas relief hole located between the locking lugs on the left side when the bolt is in battery.

None of my Springfields have the Hatcher Hole, but I found this photo on the web:

[Bob Busetti]

I continue to shoot my 1910 rifle unafraid. Most problems were with poor brass, greasing bullet/ cases to ease metal fouling. Most incidents of blowups were traced back to these things. Reportedly the last known blowup of a low # 03 was due to the owner shooting the rifle when the barrel was full of cosmoline. Owner thought it would be faster to shoot it out than clean the barrel the good old fashion way. Just saying.
Bob

[Hardcast416taylor]

A friend of mine has a low serial `03 in the 5xx,xxx range. His action has a single hole on the top of the front reciever ring that we`ve been trying to figure what it was there for, maybe now we know?Robert

[SlamFire1]

Neither "solution" addresses the issue with the low-numbered '03's. The problem was the RECEIVER, not the bolt. There was a problem with inconsistent heat-treating, leading to brittle steel that would shatter instead of deform during an overpressure event (in an unknown number of rifles).

The most probable cause was over heating of the billets in the forge room. But given the poor process controls to be found at Springfield Armory, the receivers could have been ruined downstream.

The Springfield 03 action is particularly poor in gas venting. A Hatcher Hole does not mean the receiver is safe or that the Hatcher Hole will do much in protecting the shooter from gas release. Gas will go flow down the left receiver rail and through the firing pin hole, directly into your eye. You should always wear shooting glassing when behind any 03 Springfield.

It was the receivers.

"Between 1917 and 1929 three soldiers lost an eye to receiver failure, and six more had unspecified injuries consider serious. An additional 34 soldiers received minor injuries from receiver failures. There were no deaths reported from the failure of a Springfield receiver. "

"The change in heat treating was instituted between serial number 750,00 and 800,000 at Springfield and by serial number 285,506 at Rock Island Arsenal."

Read and decide for yourself.

http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/

The referenced analysis is totally based on the list in Hatcher’s Notebook. What makes anyone think that Hatchers list is complete? It is a listing of 03 blows ups from 16 July 1917 to 1929. There is plenty of evidence, in the early Arms and the Man Magazine, (found on Google Books) that many receivers had blown prior to the creation of Hatcher’s list, but to then Springfield Armory and its supporters were able to misdirect and muffle this issue. While the Springfield had been properly designed to carry the full cartridge load, it was improperly manufactured. I believe the Army created a perverse incentive: paying the forge shop workers piece rate. It would therefore be in the interest of the forge shop workers to heat up the forgings, because the metal would be more plastic, and faster to stamp out. Who knows, but we do know that instead of the Army spending money for temperature gages in the forge ovens, it went the cheap route and relied on 19th century process controls: metal temperature estimations by eye. Regardless of the assigned faults, I believe Springfield Armory was a ship leaking at all seams. Pre WW1 articles provide excuses, such as, too much case hardening, for receiver failure. This is possible, to have too thick a layer of case, which will cause the part to be brittle. But who within the Army had the resources and records to argue with an Army Arsenal about its defective products?

What made the 1917 event at National Brass and Copper Tube different and something that the Army had to acknowledge, were these blowups occurred outside of the Army chain of command. Springfield Armory did make up convincing sounding, but fallacious arguments: “cartridges cases not up to standard and secondarily, to receivers somewhat below the standard” but National Brass & Copper had qualified metallurgists, who could counter all of the self serving denialism coming out of Springfield Armory. Plus, National Brass & Copper could go outside of the Army chain of command and complain to their Congressmen . This was not an entity that the Army could bury and ignore, as it obviously had done to date with all Army personnel who had reported blown rifles. In fact, in print in 1917, the Army denied that there was anything wrong with their rifles.

There are known blows afterward, proving that the laws of physics did not end in 1929, and also proving that any failure rates based on Hatcher’s Notebook are false, and that any analysis based on the list has no validity.

Blown up 1932

Receiver 323816




Receiver 570, 095 Blown up 1932




1931 Receiver 718, 233




Receiver 764, 040 blown 1931





It is remarkable that Hatcher had any reports at all. I don’t know how he got them, but he was Head of Army Ordnance during WW2. It is Army policy, nay, DoD policy, not to release Safety Accident Reports to anyone except Military Law Enforcement, and then, only if the law enforcement request is legitimate. I don’t know what you could get with a freedom of information act request, probably nothing of value since all you can do with a FOI is to ask, the agency gets to decide if the information “compromises” national security.


In 1927 an appointed Army board examined all data and wrote a report recommending that all low number receivered rifles be withdrawn from service. This was, in today’s money, a half a billion dollar recommendation. This is recorded starting page 221 of Hatcher's Notebook. But what Hatcher reports is edited. Hatcher never put out the percentage defective receivers, which would have had to been in the report, and I believe he did not put that in his book because it would have shown the gross immorality of the decision to retain single heat treat receivers in service. The board was over ruled by a Brigadier General who put out a retention policy with the following logic “ Our ammunition is getting worse and accidents may be somewhat more frequent. On the other hand, some of these early rifles have been in used for many years and undoubtedly some of them have worn out several barrels. I do not think the occasion merits the withdrawal of the rifles of low umber in the hands of troops until the rifle is otherwise unserviceable”

In my opinion this was an immoral decision by an amoral leader. That BG decided that in between such time that the rifle wore out, if that rifle blew up taking the hand or head of a Trooper, well that was just too damn bad. He decided that the health, pain and suffering of a Trooper was not worth $40.00, the cost of a single rifle. In fact, if you look at it, it was cheaper to the Army to injure Soldiers than replace rifles as the cost for rehabilitation was borne by a different Government Agency.

Obviously not all low number receivers were bad, but lacking the information in the report, we don’t know just how many are bad, are marginal, etc. Because they were made of low grade materials, that today, are used for rebar and railroad spikes, you cannot expect any margin of safety in an overpressure event or case head rupture, even with a "good" one. Given the poor quality of steel around WW1, you can’t expect the material to even meet the structural strength of the same materials today. There is risk with these old receivers. The Marine Corp tested their low number receivers by two wacks with a heavy hammer. I recommend this technique to all low number receiver shooters. Take the action out of the stock, remove the bolt from the receiver, give the receiver ring a sharp hit, the right rail, and the receiver bridge. The goal is a sharp enough hit to make the receiver ring. If the receiver breaks, then, it is a bad receiver.

American Rifleman Dope Bag Oct 1945

“All old Springfields Weak”

A long letter written by gunsmith, R.E Simmons to Mr Ness, the editor of the Dope Bag, describes a SHT Springfield that had blown. This section was about midway:

“I just received a letter from George Vitt of the A. F. Holden Company. This company is one of the foremost heat-treaters in the United States and he says that they will not even think of accepting one of these old actions for reheat-treating. To quote him:

“The old Springfield receivers were made of cheap, almost plain, carbon steel, that was merely carburized and quenched. The type of steel used would not readily lend itself to good results from the best heat-treating practices, even though there are one or two outfits in Pennsylvania and elsewhere (Note: Sedgley was in Philadelphia) who advertise the so called reheat-treated Springfields for sale I would no more trust these receivers without making a chemical analysis and without testing them on the Rockwell machine that I would jump off the Empire State Building.

From the references I have, the reheat-treatment of these receivers amounts to the same thing as the so called double heat treatment that was practiced at the Springfield Armory prior to 1929 In other works neither of the two is much good for the reason of low-grade material used in the receiver” (End of Mr. Vitt’s quote)”
“Incidentally, I noticed that you mention a well-known reheat job which is being done on these Springfield receivers by a well known firm. I wish to state that many of these old actions treated by this firm (which is like the one I sent you), are letting go in every direction. In fact, I personally believe these are about the worst in the bunch, because they simply softened the receivers, which would allow a very powerful proof load to be fired without any danger, but which allowed the bolt to gradually set back, increasing the head space dangerously (1)

.


Mr Ness, the editor of the Dope Bag adds a long section starting with this

“Comments: I agree with P.O. Ackley that the only good Springfield action is one made of nickel steel….

The attitude of the metallurgists is that the poor material in these Springfield actions makes any of the carbon steel variety undesirable, including those double reheat-treated at Springfield Armory in the series above 800,000"

An alternate technique, instead of wacking the receiver, is to shoot the receiver enough to see if it catastrophically fails in front of you. While the risk might be small, the consequences of a catastrophic failure are loss of limb, loss of eye, a report in the Arms in the Man from 1917 says a shooter of the period lost half his face, so, it is your decision.


(1) This was Sedgley. A magazine article in the Rifle Magazine confirms the story that Sedgley annealed their SHT receivers, softening them, and did not actually do a real heat treat job.

[Larry Gibson]

Bottom 2 photo's are from bore obstructions, not faulty ammo or the receiver letting go on it's own. Unknown on the top action. We can post any number of similar photos of blown up M70s, M700s, M77s, M1As, Weatherbys, etc. add nauseum. Yes the actions of LSN'd '03s can be brittle. I'm not saying one way or another to use them or not. But simply because one has "blown up" does make it the fault of the receiver. There are many reasons rifles blow up and "modern" actions blow up just as bad under many of those reasons.

Just think we should be sticking with the facts on the cause of the blow ups is all. If we looked at all the actions that have been blown up we would probably assume they were all just as "unsafe", quit shooting, and take up underwater basket weaving.........

Larry Gibson

[SlamFire1]

Bottom 2 photo's are from bore obstructions, not faulty ammo or the receiver letting go on it's own. Unknown on the top action. We can post any number of similar photos of blown up M70s, M700s, M77s, M1As, Weatherbys, etc. add nauseum. Yes the actions of LSN'd '03s can be brittle. I'm not saying one way or another to use them or not. But simply because one has "blown up" does make it the fault of the receiver. There are many reasons rifles blow up and "modern" actions blow up just as bad under many of those reasons.

Just think we should be sticking with the facts on the cause of the blow ups is all. If we looked at all the actions that have been blown up we would probably assume they were all just as "unsafe", quit shooting, and take up underwater basket weaving.........

You totally miss the point, these are blown single heat treat receivers, blown in Army service, that do not appear within Hatcher's Notebook, conclusively proving that any calculations of risk based on Hatcher's list is invalid.

If you wish, go to the Springfield Armory website and search all pictures and find all pictures of blown single heat treat receivers. I quit after I found a few blown after 1929, I did not need to search any further.

There are a number of other aspects, which I won't go into, why the Doctor's risk analysis is bogus, more than the incomplete list of blowups from Hatcher's Notebook.

"modern" actions blow up just as bad under many of those reasons.

An over broad statement and without supporting data to justify. Shooter protection features were an after thought in the 03. The M700 is particularly good in this aspect and I have seen any number of overpressure incidents that the Rem 700 held, protected the shooter, which would have turned a plain carbon steel 03 into pieces. The inferior metals used in these period rifles will not hold up to pressures that "modern" actions will hold, and when these brittle receivers go, they tend to fragment.