Help with an 1903 Springfield

Check for indications that the receiver has been re-activated from a drill rifle. Currently there are a lot of re-activated 03A3s floating around, but there are a few 03s out there.

https://archive.org/details/Hatchers_Notebook

Here ya go, everything you ever might want to know about the '03 Springfield (and a bunch of other cool stuff).

.455_Hunter said:

The barrel is dated 10-30.

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Are there other marks on the barrel, just behind the front sight?

If the rifle is in good condition, that is a decent price for a 1903. As 4v50 Gary says, the focus of the U.S. military was on creating working rifles so they could and did use stocks of existing parts to assemble rifles, particularly in the height of the Depression. The Germans, Swedes, and Japanese, military rifles were the ones that had stamped part numbers to particular rifles almost everywhere. The U.S. or the Brits, did not use that as a standard practice especially down to numbering screws and the like, but did require subcontractors identity marks probably for QC reasons.

The drill rifle issue revolves around the way that these rifles were dewatted or demilled. FWIW, some drill rifles were never demilled and thus are not considered as much of a problem. These dewatted (still a firearm to the ATF) weapons were altered to make them impossible to shoot and load ammo into them so the bolt release was welded into the frame, the bolt face had a blob of weld to close the fp hole, a welded plug/rod was inserted into the barrel and welded into place, and the barrel was welded to the receiver ring externally. Example of one is here along with a restoration of such, http://www.ktgunsmith.com/03A3.htm Thus, the bolt could be moved back and forth and externally the rifle looked as a whole but functionally these were supposedly impossible to restore to firing ammo. But, like a lot of government projects, the quality of the demilling welds varied and because these rifles were cheap and numerous, it was possible to grind off the bolt release welds which then removed the demilled bolt, remove the tack weld on the barrel, and remove the barrel, and theoretically with a new bolt and barrel, make it possible to fire these weapons again. Val Forgett's companies bought a lot of these rifles and had a cottage industry selling the receivers and the rifles under the Gibbs Rifle brand and as gpb says above, most were 03A3's but a few were the older 1903's. I am sure that others folks did the same as individuals or small companies to these drill rifles. The CMP got back loads of these drill rifles and sold them cheap as non-firing specimens and some probably exited out the back door of various places that had the drill rifles or were sold by those organizations having them.

Regarding the Gibbs rifles, the company's line was that these rifles were individually inspected for heat damage affecting the locking lugs and receiver integrity and only those where basically the government contractor did shoddy shallow welds were used. A lot were rejected for restoration supposedly as the welds would have damaged the receiver too much to allow safe firing.

In the 1903a3 with modern metallurgy (steel) used in the 03a3, people have argued over whether this is so. The steel itself, absent weakening, is different and stronger than the older Springfield rifles but it would take an experienced welder and metallurgist to determine just how the welds would have affected a rifle during the demilling process. An older rifle using nickel steel or the even older rifles using std. heat treatment would not be safe if demilled by welding imho unless extreme and expensive measures were used that could render the rifle unserviceable anyway. Because that would be a case by case basis on each rifle, essentially that would be impossible to do post hoc without destructive testing. Supposedly one of the issues that people come across is that the 03a3 receivers stretch into unusable headspacing with relatively low round counts and perhaps THR poster Slamfire, Entropy, or 243wxb are aware of one grenading but I have not come across such a report. On a 1903, I would not use one for high power firing if the receiver had been welded in any form or fashion due to the way that these were heat treated in the first place and their materials.

.455_Hunter said:

SA?

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Springfield barrel should also have a flaming bomb.

.455_Hunter said:

Are 1903 susceptible to headspace issues with the multiswap non-serial bolts?

Would a set of go/no go gauges be prudent for any 1903 investigation?

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A go gauge is generally not helpful if the barrel is already on it. Go gauges are used to make sure that the rifle has the minimum headspace to operate when the barrel and bolt are assembled into a rifle. A snap cap or dummy round set to maximum OAL will suffice usually to tell if the barrel-bolt combo headspace is too short. Do not use live cartridges for this action unless perhaps you are on the range pointing the rifle in a safe direction, etc.

While too short headspace could be an issue, it usually is not in a used military rifle, bolt, and barrel. On commercial sporting rifles, you sometimes will run into a rifle that does not accept the maximum OAL for a cartridge sometimes due to differences in the chamber area. Using a dummy round and gently trying the bolt usually indicates this situation. If you want to do it in the store, a snap cap is the preferred way as retailers can tell that the round is not live. If the bolt, barrel, or both, have been substituted for a new ones, it is possible to have too short headspace.

Now, we enter the no-go gauge use. The no-go gauge sets the maximum allowable headspace for a new rifle barrel-bolt relationship and also allows a check of an older rifle to determine if the headspace has increased beyond a set maximum by the std. bodies that provide specifications for ammunition such as CIP or SAAMI. There is also a field gauge that indicates the maximum headspace on a used rifle which is set a certain distance beyond the no-go gauge. On old military rifles and some civilian antique rifles, field gauges are often used because chambers were generous, many old military cartridges and chambers were made before standardization bodies existed. Also, headspace means something very different on rimmed or straight cartridges, and so on.

On sporting rifles, or match type rifles, many folks change their barrels when they reach the no-go range because of brass life and sporters may not handle escaping gas from a cartridge separation particularly well. There is a relationship between excess headspace and accuracy but that relationship is too complicated to explain and individual rifles differ in effects. Generally excessive headspace is believed to make rifles less accurate more or less.

Depending on the design of the rifle, too long headspace has different consequences that are too much to summarize in a post. However, the basic risks are that of the brass in the cartridge being stretched so much that it releases hot gas into the receiver rather than the barrel, the primer being driven out of the pocket tying up the rifle, and perhaps introducing hot gas around the firing pin hole. Worse effects include bolt recess setback as the bolt becomes a sliding hammer on the receiver lug recesses due to play in the bolt, and ultimately bad things like grenading the receiver, shearing off bolt lugs, and so on depending on how bad the headspace issue is. It is one of those unpredictable things based on individual factors involving the cartridge brass, the strength of the receiver and bolt, gas handling, the pressure load of the ammo, the condition of the rifle, whether or not a magazine exists, and so on. The effects are unpredictable and thus constitute a danger to the shooter.

Mild cases where the rifle is between the no-go and field specs have been addressed by either only using new brass and/or ammo and knowing that any fired brass should be carefully inspected for stretching and incipient cartridge separation, using fireformed brass made in that rifle as if you made a wildcat, or using light handloads like safety would dictate for any dubious firearm. It can also be addressed in some rifles, particularly Mausers, by requalifying the barrel which involves lathe and rechambering. Timed and coned barrels like the U.S. used, it can be very complicated and hence expensive to rectify this way in order to keep the historic barrel with the receiver.

Summary, a no-go gauge can be helpful as can a field gauge if you do not mind the tradeoff. Go gauges are most helpful if you are testing a new rifle or you have had bolt/barrel work where the bolt/barrel relationship has changed via a new barrel, bolt, or both. If you assemble AR's a go gauge can be helpful as tolerance stacking can result in too short headspace. If you buy the bolt and barrel from the same place, you can specify at some retailers that you get a bolt and barrel that qualify in headspace. Be aware that headspace means something different between a bottle neck cartridge, a straight cartridge that headspaces on the mouth, or a rimmed cartridge.