Re: Unsafe?
The early 1903 receivers were heat treated by eyeballing the color of the steel instead of using pyrometers. Some of the receivers were heated much too hot, and the result was a glass hard receiver. Some were so brittle that they could be shattered when tapped with a hammer. There were reports of GI's using 8mm Mauser in their 1903, but as most of the reports came from US Army bases it has never been explained how US troops got 8mm Mauser ammo on a US Army base. It was also a fact that these receivers had a safety factor of only 50% where the later receivers had a safety factor of near 150%. When gas got back into one of the brittle receivers, it shattered into pieces where the later heat treated receivers would bulge but remain intact.
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