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Springfield armory 1903
butlerj
Member Posts: 66 ✭✭
My Great Grandfather recently passed away and I acquired a rifle from him. It was a U.S. Springfield Armory 1903. Serial # 334463.
It is missing the rear sights and am curious of which model of the 1903 it is. I have a catalog book from Numrich and can't seem to find anything that looks familiar.
It is missing the rear sights and am curious of which model of the 1903 it is. I have a catalog book from Numrich and can't seem to find anything that looks familiar.
Comments
This recent thread will be of interest to you:
http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=541316&SearchTerms=springfield
Neal
EDIT: This link shows where the rear sight was originally:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=249838229
You really need to read the first thread I posted.
This is a picture of the bolt where the rear sight should be. I don't have a scope to be placed on the rifle yet and would like to have a complete rifle.
Drilling and tapping the receiver would greatly diminish the value of the rifle. I would strongly advise against that. The rear sight appears to be an unusual model and finding the windage/elevation slide may be a challenge.
It is a low number receiver. This means it was tempered with a heat treatment that MIGHT have made the receiver brittle and subject to fracture. The low number receivers are generally considered unsafe to shoot. That is debatable and a search will certainly bring up much and heated discussion on the safety issue.
At minimum you have a very interesting rifle.
DO NOTHING!!!!!
You have a prize, write me. I sent you my email.
That rear sight should say "Hoffman Arms Co."
That peep sight is floating as it's mounted on the bolt shroud and not rigidly to the receiver or barrel. As such, you probably wont get best accuracy.The sight sounds like it might be a collectible.
The correct sight for your 1903 is a ladder sight mounted on the barrel over the chamber. If the barrel has been replaced you mightn't
be able to fit the original rear sight to it.
Williams made several models of receiver mounted peep sights for your rifle that would make for better accuracy.
Your receiver is very hard and would have to be locally softened in the area to be drilled and tapped.
There is a warning out on rifles in this s/n range as a small number have blown up due to what's known as Burnt Steel where some were left in the forging furnace too long, ruining the steel's microstructure.
Double heat treatment, that was used on the next series (800,000 to 1,275,767),was tried on a test batch of the first series and while it was found to improve physical properties it did NOT improve the burnt steel receivers which still blew up. There is no cure for those receivers so an Army Board recommended the whole lot be destroyed. It was ignored! The rifles went into storage and were later sold.
As yours didn't just come out of storage but has been used a good bit
I suspect it might have let go before this if it had burnt steel. I still would use only Moderate loads in it.
If the rifle is in good shape and original condition, might be worth a lot of money to a collector.
Below is a close up photo of one of the H-W sights, I got off the net.
It was stocked by John Dubiel.
I have talked with the owner and no holes will be drilled into the rifle for a scope.