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The actual number of receivers that failed is miniscule compared to the numbers produced. The fact that the Marine Corps used their low number Springfields until they were replaced with Garands in WWII should tell us that there was a low risk of one failing.
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Examining failure rates against total population leads to misleading probabilities and is something commonly done by fans of low number receivers.
Fan boys create probabilities of failure based on Hatcher’s Notebook which is not an all inclusive list of all 03 failures. Hatcher’s list starts 1917 and ends 1929. There are known failures after, and I have no doubt, known failures before.
Percentages are based on the total number of rifles built, not the rifles in use. There were about one million of these rifles built, but post WW1, there were never one million at service at any time. By the time you get to 1922 Congress authorized only 136,000 Officer’s and enlisted in the Regular Army. I could guess how many rifles were in service with an Army that small, and it sure would not be one million. Lets say, as a ridiculous example, that their were four rifles in use and the remaining one million in storage. Let also say that one of the four blew up. The fan boy’s analysis would give you the risk as one in a million. But for those rifles in use, it would be 25%.
Times have changed and the risks we are willing to accept have changed. In the period these rifles were made society accepted death and dismemberment as normal workplace hazards. Today we don’t.
As an example of period attitudes, I got some data from a Titantic program. In 1912 the death rate at Harlaam and Wolff was 1 worker death per 10,000 tonnes of ship. Basically one dead worker per small ship. Eight died building the Titanic, their ages 15-43. Of the four mentioned in the program, 3 died due to falls and one was crushed during launch. The average cash benefit given to the families was 100 pounds sterling.
I heard at the time the Golden Gate Bridge was built the accepted death rate on construction projects was one death per $1,000,000 of construction.
Industry, Military, Government are very callous towards the lives of their employees, and back then were able to get away with it. Their decisions reflect that, they traded workers lives for profit. I don’t agree, nor do I accept profit as valid justification for adding risk on their workforce.
Still, a properly made low number receiver is going to be about as strong as any of those early actions, (not much) which does not mean it will be safe to be behind in an accident. It is sort of driving without your safety belt on. As long as you don’t have an accident everything will be fine.