NIGHTLORD40K
Member
So, I picked up this very clean, late 1918-production M1903 Springfield over a decade ago at a local pawn shop. It's a pretty bog-standard double heat-treated, arsenal rebuild with a '28 SA barrel, Remington nickel steel bolt, and mostly Remington small parts.
The metal was nicely Parkerized, with no rust to be found, but some heathen had cut the end of the stock off and lost the upper handguard and barrel bands-
They'd also slathered a rather reddish polyurethane on the remaining wood. Gross mistreatment of good walnut!
Thus the gun sat for a few years until I found the wood repair bits I needed at Dupage Trading. They even had a NOS upper guard still wrapped in wax paper!
I ordered extra pieces in case I screwed up the first attempt.
I found a lower band at my LGS a year or two later, and just recently obtained an upper band/bayonet mount from Amherst Depot. So, ten years worth of procrastination later, I was ready to start sanding and cutting-
The hardest part was getting the cut just right so that the lower band covered the join, then I used Elmers MAX wood glue to secure it.
Here it is during the first trial fitting. Not too shabby-
So far, so good......and this is what it looks like after 4 coats of tung oil and another of dark walnut-tinted Danish oil-
Final assembly required quite a bit of adjustment to get everything to line up right, and the various wood bits are all somewhat different shades, but overall Im pretty happy with the results-
10 years on, cant wait to shoot it!
The metal was nicely Parkerized, with no rust to be found, but some heathen had cut the end of the stock off and lost the upper handguard and barrel bands-
They'd also slathered a rather reddish polyurethane on the remaining wood. Gross mistreatment of good walnut!
Thus the gun sat for a few years until I found the wood repair bits I needed at Dupage Trading. They even had a NOS upper guard still wrapped in wax paper!
I ordered extra pieces in case I screwed up the first attempt.
I found a lower band at my LGS a year or two later, and just recently obtained an upper band/bayonet mount from Amherst Depot. So, ten years worth of procrastination later, I was ready to start sanding and cutting-
The hardest part was getting the cut just right so that the lower band covered the join, then I used Elmers MAX wood glue to secure it.
Here it is during the first trial fitting. Not too shabby-
So far, so good......and this is what it looks like after 4 coats of tung oil and another of dark walnut-tinted Danish oil-
Final assembly required quite a bit of adjustment to get everything to line up right, and the various wood bits are all somewhat different shades, but overall Im pretty happy with the results-
10 years on, cant wait to shoot it!
