1903 new lease on life

[tahunua001]

hello all.
not long ago I found out that a good friend of mine has a Bubba Special 1903 and wanted it too look more original. well today he turned it over to me to try and give a little life back and I am up for the challenge. using a borrowed camera I was able to get some grainy and out of focus before and after shots for you.

you can't tell from the picture but this reciever has been drilled and tapped multiple times and the mount on it appears to be intended for a different rifle as it is much larger than the mount on my springfield.


note the cracked stock, near the rough and unfinished chop job. barrel was stripped and re blued at some point but now shows a lot of wear and light rust in spots.


front sight

upon removal of the front sight I was able to determine that the barrel is a 4-42 springfield barrel. the serial dates to 1919 so it was rebarreled at some point. the front sight was JB welded on and hopefully will reblue quite nicely after it is cleaned up a bit.

I hope to have it cleaned up and ready to go back to it's owner within 48 hours so hopefully it will not cause me too much grief.

thanks for reading and please feel free to offer some constructive criticism.

 

[tahunua001]

alright a brief description of the fitting process:
the butt plate was seriously rusted from being covered by a wrap around limbsaver pad

150 grit sandpaper to remove a large portion of the surface rust, moved up to 400 grit for finish and 0000 steel wool prior to cold bluing returned the butt pad to a semi cared for yet still used appearance.

upon removal of the scope base there was a bit of rust and what appeared to be more JB weld. as well as numerous drill+ locations both open and filled with solder.

0000 steel wool and cold bluing solution solved much of the rust and made much of the writing legible.

readable markings are US springfield armory, (model 1903 has numerous holes drilled through it so unless you know what you're looking for it's illegible) MARK I and serial number.

 

[tahunua001]

removal of the scope base also allowed an A3 style handguard ring to fit to the receiver and allowed for mounting of an A3 stock that I had laying around.



finally the barrel face that was covered by the front sight base after 400 grit sandpaper and 0000 buffing + cold bluing.


so far this rifle has come together quite nicely with the exception of the bolt inletting. it came out quite sloppily(by my standards) to try and accommodate the home gunsmith bent bolt while fighting an already existing inlet job on the stock. far from my finest work but other than that I am just waiting on the new scope mount, sear pin and sling swivel and it will be back in the trenches. it won't be a perfect A4-gery but it's still a valiant effort if I do say so myself.

 

[highpower]

Nice save! I always feel sorry for these poor rifles that have hand of Bubba laid on them. I have just mostly finished a rescue on a 1918 '03 that had been gooned by an idiot with a hacksaw and a hammer.

 

[tahunua001]

luckily with this rifle there was no hacksaw, just a drill and a torch. by the time the new scope base is attached it will have most of the blemishes either fixed or covered up.

 

[col.lemat]

Nice to see one come back from the grave. Good work.

 

[dprice3844444]

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-284520.html read the thread and check serial number.

 

[Zeke Markham]

I believe the Mk 1s were manufactured after the change in heat treat and one digit of the serial number is covered up, as is the last letter of "Springfield."

 

[tahunua001]

haha thanks Dprice but the serial dates to 1919, well after the heat treatment process was revamped. the stock is for a 1903A3 so the handguard covers a small portion of the receiver. the serial in the pick has the last digit covered up.

if this was a 109XXX springfield I would be working much harder to keep everything original and historically accurate.