Reading this thread has prompted me to re-read stuff I first read years ago on low number Springfields. There has been a lot of conjecture and misinformation written about this subject, and many even feel that Maj. Hatcher's report on these guns was incorrect and placed the blame in the wrong places. What is known is that failures are pretty rare. However, when they do fail, the results are fragments of shrapnel rather than bulging metal and venting of gasses.
Apparently, the U.S. Military made the attempt to re-heat treat a good number of these single heat treated receivers. The results were OK with the ones that weren't burnt in the first place, but it did nothing much to help the ones that were bad. Burnt is burnt, and you apparently cannot unburn steel that has been overheated and turned austenitic. Actually, it seems more likely that the damage was done, at the much higher temperature during the forging process than later during heat treating.
Several people have commented about being happy that Brent wasn't hurt. Well, he wasn't killed or seriously injured. But having experienced a complete head separation, I can tell you there is some pain when this happens. Seeing his picture brought back some memories. But in my case, the powder and brass particles were more concentrated in a peculiar V shaped pattern around and between my eyes. I later learned that was an intentional deflection of gasses designed by Paul Mauser when he came up with a different bolt shroud and improved gas handling characteristics in the 1898 action.
I have been hit in the face with boxing gloves many times, and hit in the face with brass particles and hot powder gasses at high pressures only once. I'll take the fist inside a boxing glove any day. I'm sure Brent will shoot again, but it will be hard not to blink the next time he squeezes a trigger. Take Brent's advice. Wear those shooting glasses. If he hadn't been wearing his, we might never know about this and his next dog could have been the seeing-eye type.
