Bit of a moral dilemma.

I've got a Rem 03a3, that is in a sporter stock, Timney trigger and aftermarket safety. Not D&T'd and no bent built. . It was my late brothers rifle, he bought it to replace the sporter 1903 that was our grandpa/dads gun that the jackass sold. So either way, I've been passed down a 1903.

I'll likely almost never shoot it as an open sight 30-06. It would be a shame for the gun to sit silently in a safe.

I bought a Springfield 03 (925k s/n) that has already been scoped.

I really want a 35 and 400 Whelen. I'm thinking the 03a3 would make a great 400. But am I committing a major gun sin if I rebarrel it?

No do with it what you want.

Realize that you will instantly convert a potentially $1000 rifle into an instant $500 one if you destroy a nice original 03A3 barreled action. They are easily restored to original configuration and are liked by collectors. And since no parts are numbered, it is easy to restore them. Now, if it has already been polished and blued, or any alteration to the receiver, then sure, it is sporter fodder. I know others who do not like military rifles will butcher these with abandon.
Of course, yes, it is yours.

There was a time when you could take a "cheap" M1903 or M1903A3 action and convert it into a 35 Whelen. In fact, you basically had to, because no rifle manufacturer was making a 35 Whelen.





But, now, I am going to recommend you find one of these,




Or one of these. Find the 24" barrel version, this one kicks too much. Based on my chronograph testing, I did not lose too much velocity with the thing, but it is a bit light.





Something else I am going to mention, finding a gunsmith who will convert your M1903A3 to a decent 35 Whelen takes work. Then, getting a rifle out of the guy in less than a couple of years, well, you have to have patience, and at the end of the journey, you will have paid much more for your custom rifle than you would have for the factory. And, to make things worse, the re sale value will be less than a factory rifle, and you lost any future value for your M1903A3.

What I recommend, is that you get a Boyd's stock, find an upper handguard, and buy the upper band, lower band, and restore your M1903A3 to a military configuration, while parts are still available. This will increase its value over any bubba job.

Now this is a comment about gun writers. The gunwriters who were advocating "sporterizing" post WW2 and beyond, were shills, shilling for their gunsmith friends. Even at the time, nice gunsmith work, such as this:



was more expensive than a commercial pre 64 M70 in 30-06, or a Rem M721 in 30-06. There were plenty of gunsmiths, writing for major publications, advocating "sporterizing", a practice that improved their income, sold parts made by them, and helped destroy many a fine military rifle. Foolish, impressionable readers thought they would be improving their rifle, by following the in print advice of these shills, by cutting the fore end off their rifle, and tossing away all the "un necessary" parts. They were wrong.

I cannot tell you the number of times at the range, I had idiots tell me that I should immediately cut the fore end, sand the stock, cut the barrel, do some other moronic "sporterizing" activity to this nice M1903, and those same morons always ended up acting hurt or offended, when I disputed their sage advice. I am glad I have the type of personality which does not follow the herd, as these pieces of history would have been destroyed had I been a herd animal.








What this really shows is how susceptible communities are to marketing, and how people obey and follow "authority".

I just tore one down and found the receiver had the cutout on the left rail. Don't know how I'm going to cover that with a custom stock

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I just tore one down and found the receiver had the cutout on the left rail. Don't know how I'm going to cover that with a custom stock

If it is a Mark 1 receiver





then that cut out is there for a reason. That is the ejection port for the Pedersen device. There is no functional reason to hide or cover it up. In fact, the Mark 1's are relatively scarce. Not I suppose, that makes any difference to the value of a sporter rifle.

If you are really making a sporter out of an original Mk1, please do not post it here as that will cause me to immediately go into shock. Anger shock.
I know, it's yours, and the customer is always right.
I find that to be the opposite of reality.
Remain calm.

I know what it is and don't intend to make a custom of it

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
If you are really making a sporter out of an original Mk1, please do not post it here as that will cause me to immediately go into shock. Anger shock.
I know, it's yours, and the customer is always right.
I find that to be the opposite of reality.
Remain calm.

Not a mk1, Remington. It's the bottom 2 pics. Want to keep the open sights, just replace the bbl with a bigger pipe.

I'm envisioning both of those guns set up in early G&H or Sedgley type sporters. 400 on the Remington, 35 on the already scoped 03

Quick note, it was my brothers rifle. He passed away a little over a year ago. I'm not selling it, so the whole restore it and make it worth more doesn't come into play, as it'll never be sold. As a military repro, it will never get shot. As is, it'll likely almost never get shot. Convert it, and that gun will hunt

Its' been drilled for a receiver sight, so now, rebarrel it. I have the reamer.

quote:

Originally posted by MileHighShooter:
Quick note, it was my brothers rifle. He passed away a little over a year ago. I'm not selling it, so the whole restore it and make it worth more doesn't come into play, as it'll never be sold. As a military repro, it will never get shot. As is, it'll likely almost never get shot. Convert it, and that gun will hunt

You know pictures would have helped people in not wasting time. Since the receiver has been drilled for a Lyman 48S, it has zero collector value as a military rifle.

Look at that rare, nice, type C stock, cut down, sanded. I searched Ebay, a very nice, military configuration type C prewar sold for $510.00, WW2 Keystones are selling for just a little less.

Convert it to whatever caliber you want. Or do nothing. It is just another hack job and its value will not substantially increase what every you do.

Sentimental value is a guilt tax that the wise buyer walks away from.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Its' been drilled for a receiver sight, so now, rebarrel it. I have the reamer.

Sounds good. Once the 275 is done, I'll see which gun you want me to send over next. It'll be that 03 for the 400 or the Husky 640 for the 9.3

Yes you do have a perfect platform for a 400 Whelen. I built my 400 on a 1903 and I am absolutely thrilled with it.
I can't believe how many grumpy nay sayers hang out in here just waiting to yell at someone for doing what they wish with there own rifle.

Snell, your rifle and Bill's are what pushed me towards the 1903 vs a Mod 70 in the 400 thread. Dpcd having the reamer and barrels just puts the icing on the cake. When mines done I should make a drive down south of Denver so we can compare!

Snell, MileHigh, it would be fun to have a dpcd .400 shoot sometime. As you will no doubt recall, mine is on a Mark 1 with the cutout.

Yes, Bill's is a Mk1,; fortunately already drilled. I also have an A3 that Back40 gave me, for my .400. Already drilled as well. I've never been to NM but it might be fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Snell, MileHigh, it would be fun to have a dpcd .400 shoot sometime. As you will no doubt recall, mine is on a Mark 1 with the cutout.

You all are welcome to come shoot at my place, I have a pretty good range on my farm. I'm just east of Colorado Springs between Peyton and Calhan. I have hanging steel, paper targets and water jugs a plenty with benches at 50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 yards.
Bill I just noticed you are now hailing from Alamogordo? When did you pack it in in Orygun?

That's only an hour and a half give or take from me. I'm just minutes off hwy85 on the east side of Thornton

Dave, I left good old Oregon behind last fall. Miss the fishing but not the rain!

Here is a 1903 I did for a client a few years ago

https://imgur.com/4KqiY3c

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
Here is a 1903 I did for a client a few years ago

https://imgur.com/4KqiY3c

Classic hunting rifle. I like your work.

Good gawd, ... make those old 1903 Springers useful.

Start by chopping the barrel back to 18", ditch the firewood stock for a synthetic, attach a forward rail mount for a Scout Scope, add a rear aperture peep sight, ... and finally you might have something interesting that also shoots halfway decent.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
Here is a 1903 I did for a client a few years ago

https://imgur.com/4KqiY3c

Beautiful gun Jim!

According to the American Rifleman some years ago:
1903s made by Springfield Armory below 800,000 and Rock Island under 285,507 are called low numbered Springfields and had single heat treated receivers and should not be fired..

That was common knowledge back then, and seems to have been lost in time...??????

I have passed up a couple of low number 03s offered by walk around gunshow attendees. Got blank looks when "grandpa's rifle" wasn't worth what they thought. Did spring for a nicely done Bueler sporter done on a 900,000+ double heat treat Springfield with a four groove 1943 Remington barrel, taco world class 3-9 in Bueler mounts. Got it for $200. Young fellow was gonna run right out and buy a Savage tactical something or other and get the $75 rebate.

I am sporterizing two LOW number Springfields right now.

I had the receivers annealed, so I could clean/ploish out the pits and reshape the left side where the bolt stop is. Once done they will be reheat treated.

Am rebuilding both of them into 22 Hornets.

So I cut the old bolt head off, and machined a new Pre 64 M70 type bolt head, machined new extractors, welded up the old cocking cam area and recut it to the M70 cockign cam. A used post 64 M70 saftey will be put on one of them along with new machined M70 type cocking peice/firing pin units. Also will be installing Pre 64 M70 Hornet magazine boxes in the guards.

One will have a Lyman 48C peep, and a Sedgley styled front ramp, while the other will have scope mounts on it.

Both will wear new Shilen barrels when done.

JW

Wow Jim, very ambitious. Can't wait to see pics.

Jim

I’d love to see the reshaping of the stop area. A friend of mine have one done be Ed LaPour along with a new rear bridge. Amazing the difference the whole rifle has with those changes.

Don

Since this is a Springfield thread and being a fan of the Springfield having just completed a 400 and another low # action to work over I have a question. Can a low # action be annealed and rehardened to be safe with 7x57 pressures of modern loads. If so who to anneal and re-harden. Hopefully this hasn't been hashed on another thread; if so, my apologies.

Hi MileHighShooter.

Did you see my PM?

Dave

I remember the I belive 19?? Guild gun being a 1903 Springfield, shortened and redone in 22 L.R. the metal by Jack Belk and the wood by a very well known custom gun maker who has sinced passed. I handled the gun and it was a minitureized beauty. The winner of that gun sold it sometime later and I couldn't that many numbers on a check...

I just tell them that the extra ejection port makes my MARK I more reliable !

My understanding is NO on the re-heat treat. The original problem on some was that the original case hardening went too deep, ie complete penetration. Doing this you ended up with a chunk of high carbon steel, which, when reheated and quenched, ended up very hard and brittle. My first rifle, which I still have and use, is a low number Rock Island. I think if it were going to fail it would have done so a long time ago. Out of the hundreds of thousands made the failure rate wasn't that great.
C.G.B.

I have always felt the springfield 1903 and its ilk were classics with a lot of history...Id like to have one that was customized properly, they are slick actions and a thing of beauty IMO..Owned some early on that I purchased and sporterized for the sum of $7.50 and later $14.00 from the NRA, as did many Americans, also 1911s milsurp guns..That was when America was America and liberal Democrats were considered white trash and regular Democrats were at least acceptable folks!! well that part never changed!!

I'll go along with that Ray.My family has always been staunch Democrats;until Nixon when they were not the same party.My Grandmother never missed voting in any election because she remembered when women got to vote,+ she ALWAYS voted the Democratic ticket...Until Bill Clinton;she refused to vote for that man. O h well back to the subject;I have a 03A3 built into a 257 A.I.Very sweet.Thinking about selling it as I'm not hunting much anymore.

I have read that low number 03s cannot be re-heat treated; the original treatment was done by eye and the steel was converted into basically brittle iron.
I have a RIA one that is cracked in two places, all the way through. I took it into my office at Rock Island once and showed my boss; he said "I think it's too late to file a warranty claim".
But, the USMC used them without regard to them and if you see one with a gas escape hole on the left, that was one of the USMC ones, usually with WW2 barrels on them.
Of course, for mall stuff like a 22 Hornet, no problems.

Tom, DeHaas doesn't say anything about re-heat treating low-numbered Springfield actions either. It sounds like Mr. Wisner has found a shop that offers this service though. I would like to hear more.

I remember reading in Bob Brownell's Gunsmith kinks book about a smith that used pin point ox/act. heat at the points to be D+T.