Brent, I am glad to learn that your eyes & fingers survived.
I have thought a lot about low-number 03s and Krags and why the 03s fail and Krags do not. My idea is that the Krags were case-hardened by men who were very skilled and were not under any war-induced pressure to hurry the job. The low-number 03s that fail are the 1917-1918 production actions, where production was everything and some less-skilled workers were given tasks that really needed better workers. Your RIA action was probably produced under those conditions. Do we ever read of 03 actions made in 1910 or 1912 blowing up?
Michael's 44 grains of 4895 is about 10 % lower than the ordinary GI M-2 150 grain load. That was 48 to 52 grains, depending on powder lot, etc.
Could there have been a problem with gas checks? Normally, they adhere to the base of the bullet, but not 100 % of the time. For a time, gas checks were hard to come by and there were/are some made from beer cans, etc. If a gas check had come off a bullet after being seated, or when being chambered, and was sitting loose on top of the powder charge, I would expect the confined powder to burn differently.
Once again, glad there was no permanent damage,
Richard
