springfield SN check

[bohem]

I'm talking with a seller on another forum about buying a sporterized Rock Island made 03A3 rifle.

S/N is 328xxx

This falls inside of the 800,000 "danger zone" as I remember it. Can someone tell me FOR CERTAIN whether or not I should be concerned?

I don't feel like having to load 45 ksi ammo for the 30-06


EDIT:

I just found the answer. 800,000 is for Springfield Armory Receivers, 285,506 is number for RIA receivers. This one should be GTG, and it's made during 1919 which is one of the few years which they've never managed to burst a 1903 receiver even when subjected to 125ksi loads.

 

[Guest]

Re: springfield SN check

It is not an 03A3. Only "real" 03's were made at RIA.
The whole blowing up 03 myth is just that. The NRA keeps pushing it because Hatcher was one of their Gods. Nobody has done a modern analysis of his data (save me) that proves beyond any doubt that all so called failures were do to soft head ammo, plugged bores, shooting the wrong cartridge or coating bullets with heavy grease to try and cut down on fouling. When you sort out all the known reasons, the unknowns are so few that were the same criterial applied to P-17s, SMLKEs, M-1s. M-14 etc etc, we would all be shooting bows and arrows.

Especially funny when you see all the WW II rebuilds using "low number" actions that went to war and came back intact.

Have a look at the serial # on the R.F. Sedgley 9.3x62 Springfield that has digested 100s of full house German 9.3x62s. It is a Rod bayonet action....should have blown up decades ago.

Like so many gun myths, one guy says it and it just gets repeated over and over w/o ever being critically examined.

 

[oneshot onekill]

Re: springfield SN check

From what I've gathered after reading a lot about this: Apparently in the early days of the '03 they would determine if the receiver had been heat treated sufficiently by simply looking at the color of the metal. It was decided that (apparently after a couple of catastrophic failures) this method was unreliable because if it was a cloudy day or a sunny day the results would be different. I read this in two or three different articles which is why I figured it's probably right... As crazy as it sounds!

 

[Guest]

Re: springfield SN check

It is crazy and each writer just repeated what he read from the guy before him.
For years I had a $1000 reward out in the 03 community to anyone who could produce a properly headspaced 03 fired with modern ammo, that "blew up".
Needless to say I never paid.

Wait till you see the guys who claimed to have hit a low number action with a lead hammer and had it fly into pieces. Funny they can't produce them.....

Funny how the same guys who built the low # 03s also built all those Krags, that don't seem to be blowing up right and left although the NRA sold 10s of thousand to members.......

 

[Armed Ferret]

Re: springfield SN check

I thought it was early in the season for the walleye to be active...guess not.