Custom Springfield, cont
It doesn't seem to be understood that among that 800k early 03 Spfld production an unknown quantity of receivers were burnt. That means, due to spending too long in the furnace above rechristalization temp in the forging process, carbon precipitated into the steel's grain boundaries irreversibly destroying its' mechanical properties. No amount of double heatreating can restore burnt receivers. Those early receivers that were unburnt do benefit from double heat treatment but are only good for a 50% overcharge, below that of a properly made receiver.
While 60 burnt receivers blew up, there's no saying the bad ones have all let go. As there was no way of sorting burnt from unburnt receivers the whole batch and against expert advice to scrap them all, higher powers placed them into "War Emergency" storage. Disregarding their history, greater wisdom also put these rifles on the civilian market
Have an expert scrap and replace the bare stripped receiver, keeping the bolt and finish it up. The rest of the gun is well worth it.
I'd use an 03-A3 receiver.
While 60 burnt receivers blew up, there's no saying the bad ones have all let go. As there was no way of sorting burnt from unburnt receivers the whole batch and against expert advice to scrap them all, higher powers placed them into "War Emergency" storage. Disregarding their history, greater wisdom also put these rifles on the civilian market
Have an expert scrap and replace the bare stripped receiver, keeping the bolt and finish it up. The rest of the gun is well worth it.
I'd use an 03-A3 receiver.
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The double heat treated receivers were not just redone single heat treated receivers, but a different process. the original process when done correctly resulted in a receiver that was hard all the way through. the double heat treatment was a two stage process, the first resulted in a soft but quite elastic receiver. the second portion of the treatment affected the external surfaces and only penetrated a short distance into the metal. this process made the affected metal quite hard. so what was obtained was an action that had the benefits of both worlds, a hard outer surface and a resilient inner core.
By the way v35, I've been giving that foreend a lot of thought. e-mail me if you are interested, or if you have had it repaired to your liking I would appreciate hearing about it.0 -
Yes, that's true but further heattreatment will benefit only unburnt receivers. The result are surface hardened, softer actions that will stretch and bulge under heavy overload.
The strength of burnt receivers cannot be restored by any means. That's why General Hatcher (Mr. Springfield) recommended they all be destroyed. Understanding what burnt steel really means is key to understanding the risk of playing Russian Roulette. Only here the number of burnt receivers is unknown so you can't calculate the probability that you might own a bad receiver.
This subject has been gone over several times here, yet there are those who don't know or don't want to know the reality of this issue.
I'll email you on the Sharps forend. The R25 came out OK. I haven't assembled and fired it.0 -
I have seen a low numbered Springfield that was shattered by a strike from a ball peen hammer. I had a re heat treated one that was punched out to a 300 Gibbs. Minimal body taper to me means less bolt thrust which made me feel better. I fire formed my own brass and that was the second best rifle I ever shot. I did give it back to the guy I got boughtt from so he could feed his 7 kids.
If there are no other rifles to be shooting I guess I'd press a low numbered Springfield back into service but not until then.0
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