Re-Heat Treating Low Serial # Springfields

[dustoff31]

I posted here rather than in the C&R section as this has more to do with the heat treating process than old rifles as such.


As many know "low serial number" 1903s are considered unsafe to fire due to some receiver heat treating issues.

Can they be re-heat treated? I know that Mauser actions of the same era, can be and are, routinely heat treated again when doing rebuilds.

In fact, there was/is a shop in UT, that specialized in this. I lost the contact info, or I ask them.

[swifty]

My understanding is that the military tried re-heat treating the recievers but the results were not satisfactory. All subsequent publications I have seen said don't do it.

This is not to say that some facility did not pursue this further with modern techniques.

[bridgeport]

That is a no-go on re heat treating the old receivers. Reason.... it was not the heat treat process that was flawed, rather it was the lot of steel which the receivers were made from has either or both the wrong carbon content as well as alloying elements in the steel to allow for proper heat treating of the metal.

[emilio]

they are more valuable as a low serial number specimen than as a shooter.

- emilio

[popeye4]

That is a no-go on re heat treating the old receivers. Reason.... it was not the heat treat process that was flawed, rather it was the lot of steel which the receivers were made from has either or both the wrong carbon content as well as alloying elements in the steel to allow for proper heat treating of the metal.

I'll go back and re-read the section in Hatcher's book on this, but I believe it was indeed the heat treat methods (eyeball, experience, no procedure, no instruments) that got them in trouble. They went to a double heat treat method to resolve the problem, then later went to a high nickel alloy steel. BTW, it certainly wasn't all of the low-number Springfields that had the problem (I believe the number that actually failed were less than 100) and if you hit your receiver with a hammer and it doesn't shatter it is perhaps OK (but then, if it does shatter, you'll have to put Humpty Dumpty back together again for a real wall-hanger). It is the liability attached to a rifle blowing up that caused them to say "don't shoot any of them". But Hatcher's Notebook has a long dissertation on this and he's the man (rely on him, not my memory of what he said )

BTW, if you are at all interested in US military firearms from the first half of the 20th century, then Hatcher's Notebook is an excellent read.

Just so you know, this is NOT a recommendation to fire a low number Springfield, as the consequences of screwing up could be rather severe......

[bridgeport]

I have read Hatchers book, and do not entirely disagree with his conclusions.
the Army did decide to switch alloy, and to revise heat treat methods, even though the existing heat treat method had been acceptable up to that point.
They did find that the "new" workman were not as capable as the older more skilled craftsmen at discerning the proper heat for quench, but still that method had been the standard since day one of production. Asses were on the line and so the whipping boys became the " new" guys who supposedly could'nt do it right, hence the addition of new safeguards into
the manufacturing process in the form of mechanical measuring systems to augment the new alloy which was chosen for use and which actually required these systems for proper heat treat. Their are other factors which
were looked at in the process, ammunition, headspace, etc.
Bottom line though is the military decided against trying to re- heat treat the receivers that were considered bad, most likely due a lack of trust in the material they were made from....even though they had the means to attempt a fix. I think that fact, that they essentially shelved the repair idea along with the change to the alloy, strongly suggests they well understood their was a problem with the steel used in the batch lot of receivers in question.

[dustoff31]

That's for the input guys.

I too have read Hatcher's and others work on this. On one hand they seem to be saying it isn't that big of an issue, but big enough that we should pull them out of service. Although we will re-issue them if we really need to.

I don't intend to shoot them, just to err on the side of safety. But if it was simply a matter of having them treated again, I'd be willing to do that.