model 96 mauser strength

I use the term rebar because it is pejorative. But materials similar to the old “Class C” materials are used as rebar.

Given that a receiver and bolt are such expensive items to make, a modern designer would have a hard time justifying using a low grade material such as plain carbon steel in such a safety critical application.

At least in court. Even a very bad product liability attorney would make anyone look very stupid for not using alloy materials with their higher yield and tensile strengths in a firearm.

I looked at Matweb, and so can anybody, for material properties. I assume the plain carbon steels used in the 03 Springfields are representative of what would be used in other service rifles. You can look in Hatcher's Notebook for exact compositions of a few foreign actions. It is my recollection that the M98 was a low carbon plain carbon steel. P.O. Ackely blew up some M98’s, in his book he claimed that M98 materials were close to SAE 1020 to 1035.

Forty two years at the production start of the 03, and about 18 years after Springfield stopped using class C materials in the 03’s, the Oct 1945 American Rifleman Dope column material experts were calling the materials "just plain carbon steel". Even then they understood just how low grade class materials were.

Looking at data on Matweb, the low carbon steel used in these early 03 receivers "Class C" is not used for complicated parts, unheated it is used for rebar, if heat treated for medium duty shafts, studs, bolts and nuts. I did a composition search and found AISI 1117-1118 steel, which is similar in composition to Class C steel. I could not find something that was just carburized and quenched , I found data for 1 inch round AISI 1118 mock carburized, reheated to 1450 F, quenched, tempered. This is similar to the double heat treatment. The Ultimate strength is 103,000 psi, yield 59,300 psi, elongation at break 19%. For something similar to WD2340 Nickel steel, I found one inch round AISI 4820. For that material, mock carburized, 1450 F reheat, water quench, the ultimate strength was 163,000 psi and the yield strength was 120,000 psi, elongation at break 15%. I have not done an analysis of the M1903, so I do not know the actual loads in the considerably thinner than one inch receiver bridge cross section, but it would appear to me that even the double heat treat receivers have a low yield strength, never mind the elongation.

Today’s receivers are usually made of 4140. For a 1 in round AISI 4140 Steel, normalized at 870°C (1600°F), reheated to 845°C (1550°F), oil quenched, 260°C (500°F) temper, ultimate strength 270,000 psi, yield 240,000 psi, elongation at break 11%

SlamFire1, I enjoyed your post. Short and to the point. I knew a bit about the subject but never considered it in those terms. Kind of makes me nervous about shooting my 1927 mosin ex-dragoon, now.

Kind of makes me nervous about shooting my 1927 mosin ex-dragoon, now.

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Just be nice to the old things, don't hot load them, always use good brass. It is easiest to keep the things in the original calibers and use loads that are appropriate for the period.

In my opinion, keep the things in the original military configuration and if you want a sporter, instead of spending gobs of money ruining an all original military rifle, find a nice M700/M77/M70/M110 in the same caliber.

Weren't all Mauser 1896 "Swedish" Mauser rifles built by Mauser using steel supplied by the Swedes

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No, only the one's with receiver stamped Mauser Oberndorf, which was a small part of total production, a first run I believe in 1898, then as recently discovered a smaller number made in 1900. Most of the remainder were made at the Carl Gustaf armory, and later by Husqvarna.

I have an early M-96, 1898 by Carl Gustaf, next a "short rifle" a two digit serial number model dated 1900, by Mauser Oberndorf ( one of the odd lot, probably about 5000 rifles in that bunch) and cut down by Husqvarna to the short rifle form, probably in the late 1930's. The rest are all CG models in the 19teens. I do have one commercial sporter made by Husqvarna in 1929 in 9.3x57.

In the military models I only shoot surplus 6.5x55 or reloads that mimic those pressure levels and have never had any problems. As far as the 9.3, all I have used is reloads as commercial ammo is virtually unavailable, and there is not much reloading info out there, but enough.

Someone mentioned lack of heat treating, yes some of the early Springfields where extremely brittle and had problems with high pressure loads, metalurgy changed and they were fine for use in both world wars. Don' t forget that the 98 in the Mauser 98 stands for 1898 so they go back to the days of as someone said "re-bar" quality steel. All those guns going back about 115 years were adequate for loads that are still considered modern and high pressure. We see the pictures of the catastrophic failures and it would be interesting to know what load caused the failure.

I find it interesting how long historical memories last. For centuries Swedish iron ore was the best you could get, at least in Europe. Call it what you may, but I consider it a fortunate accident of geology, Swedish iron ore was low in bad “impurities”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregrounds_iron The people using the stuff did not have chemical analysis abilities, but the end product was good. Deservingly, Swedish iron and the steel made from Swedish ore gained a reputation for quality.

The Bessemer converter brought in the steel age. Bessemer’s revolutionary process made steel cheap. But without the happy accident of Swedish iron ore, the steel age would have been delayed:

Well, Bessemers work, and the work of many others, supplied the (here much simplified) answer. Bessemer used Swedish iron ore for his experiments (you always use the best in lab experiments), while his industrial country fellows used English ore - and this stuff contained some phosphorous. The Bessemer process (possibly in contrast to the old-fashioned steel making process) did not remove the phosphorous, and small amounts of P are sufficient to render steel brittle. As we know now, P segregates in the grain boundaries and changes the local properties in a detrimental way.

Phosphorous had to be removed (if you lived in merry old England, out on a conquest to assemble an empire, you did not want to have your steel production depend on the supply of Swedish iron ore). Two cousins, Sydney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Carlyle Gilchrist, found the way in 1875: Take (among other things) chalk stone for the lining of the Bessemer converter and even add some to the melt. The phosphorus would react with the CaO of the burnt chalk and end up in the slag which could be skinned form the liquid steel, or stuck to the lining.

There were plenty of other problems - on occasion, e.g., some oxygen remained in the steel and rendered it useless. Mr. Mushet, another Englishman coming to the aid of his country, found the solution: Add some "Spiegeleisen" (an iron - manganese alloy found somewhere in Germany) and your problems are gone. The Mn reacts with the surplus O and forms slag. It also neutralizes any sulfur n the miX, which would otherwise create real trouble.

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From A Brief History of Steel http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/kap_5/advanced/t5_1_4.html


Bessemer Converters are now pictures in history books, or relics in steel museums. Modern steel smelters use just about anyone’s iron ore, they burn out the impurities add alloys, and today's technologies are producing the best steels in human history.

But the historical memory of the quality of Swedish steel still remains.

All the steel technologies in the world aren't going to overcome "stupid" at the reloading bench, which is the cause of most rifle failures, both military surplus and commercial....chris3