When the USA started drafting men for WWI by the hundreds of thousands the training system was just overwhelmed. There was both a shortage of cadre and experience officers with firearms training. The most common reported cause of action failures during these times for the 1917’s was bore obstructions. From what I have been able to learn all the 1917 action failures were attributed to bore obstructions.
Even though Hatcher wrote a book many years later with low-numbered 1903 information A.L. Woodworth was the person who did the actual hands-on investigation at Springfield Armory of the failed 1903’s. He wrote a report for “Army Ordnance” “The Bursting of Rifles in Service”. Which was reprinted, later, in The American Rifleman of December, 1929. Woodworth likewise concluded that the majority of LN failures was because of bore obstruction. This theory was also suggested by Townsend Whelen who had worked at both Frankfort Arsenal and Springfield Armory.
Small Arms Design & Ballistics Vol. II by Townsend Whelen “All Army rifles which have been “accidentally” injured in service are shipped to Springfield Armory for examination. Mr. A.L. Woodworth, Engineer of Test at the Armory for the past thirty years states that in ninety nine percent of the cases the accident has been caused by an obstruction in the bore, or by firing a wrong cartridge, that is an improper or wrongly sized cartridge, or one handloaded to excessive pressure. It is interesting to note that in the majority of these accidents an effort is made to conceal the real cause of the accident, but the evidence is always perfectly plain.”
