I don’t handload, and I don’t buy guns I can’t shoot. If I get it, I’ll be banging away with Wal Mart .30/06 ammo.
I’ll give it a good lookover tomorrow. My inclination now is that 90 guns out of a million is pretty good odds.
All the back and forth over Low# '03's aside (pick your side of the century old argument)...
But consider that todays OTC commercial (30-06) rifle ammo is loaded to higher PSI than what the cartridge was loaded by the Arsenals and Commercial loaders back during the Wars.
10k to nearly 15k psi higher today.
Add that to the chance risk of running it through one of the brittle recv'rs .
That's exactly what they are,,glass hard brittle in laymans terms ,, as they were case hardened but not in the sense of a true 'Case' of a few .000" deep hardened surface.
But instead the extreme hardened surface went much too deep and being from all directions on the part sometimes left little or no soft inner core to the part as was expected of a Case Hardened surfaces.
The 'Big Fix' of Double Heat Treating the recv's and Bolts was nothing more than doing the exact same process as before but with some better control(s) to temp and times in furnace.
Then a second heat treatment session of the part to draw some of that extreme hardeness/brittle nature out of it.
Draw it back a bit from being brittle hard but leave it still tough for wear and strength.
Once in a while one of the old L# 03's still gives it up.
A couple yrs ago a L# Rock Island rifle that had been built into a classic sporter back in the 20's by a very well known 'smith was being shot at a Vintage Rifle Match.
The rifle had been shot all those yrs after being built, still in 30-06. Several owners documenting the loads. The rifle could be traced by collecors and match shooters through all the yrs. Loads carefully listed, ect.
In the middle of a particular match, after firing a number of rds, mild cast bullet target rounds, the rifle just about disintegrated.
The shooter suffered some injuries. The recv'r blew into small shards of metal, stock shattered, ect.
No fault could be found in the load or loads. No defects, no reason to list as a possible fault other than the low#.
In a very LGS I once work in, we had a shattered into pieces Low# 03 glued to a display board anging on the wall.
A souvenier of the gun range out back from the late 60's when someone fired it with surplus ammo and it let go.
That ammo was likely $1 /per 100rd at the time and rifle sold for $25.
As many pieces as possible were recovered and made a display of. The shooter un-hurt I was told.
If the Low# 03 is glass hard on the surface (recv'r) I wouldn't shoot it at all,,even light loads. As some 'light loads generate psi in 20K+ range and that's plenty to blow apart a brittle chunk steel.
There isn't much at all to a bolt rifle recv'r as far as thickness and mass.
IF the 03 is soft enough to cut with a file, I will shoot it and have done so. I still have a Sedgley Sporter L# '03 I shoot regularly. But still with cast loads.
They (Low# 03's) were orig CAse HArdened, so they were orig HARD and a file will not bite into them.
If I can cut them with a common sharp fine file, they have been annealed or drawn back and I do not have fear of them to shatter.
Sedgley routinely did this (annealed) to the thousands of L# 03 recvr's they bought as surplus/scrap from Unc'a Sam and built sporters on them.
But that's just my take on it all.,,and my fingers and noggin'.
I sometimes still shoot damascus bbl'd shotguns w/smokeless loads as well.
If you don't want to deal with any of this, just get a High#/Nickel Steel 1903, or a WW2 era Remington 1903 rifle and save yourself all this worry
and concern.
