pre-03A3 Rem.

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Khornet

New member
Today I saw what is purported to be a WWII Rem. 03 rifle. It had the 1905 sight ahead of the breech, 1903 markings, but a Hi Standard 1943 barrel. The stock looks like the 'scant' stock which is not straight but doesn't quite have a pistol grip either. The trigger guard/floorplate/magazine is the 03A3 stamping type.

I know '03 rifles were made into WWII before the 03A3 was developed, but I've never seen the older type with a stamped trigger guard. Is this a mixed rifle?
 
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Hkmp5sd

New member
The 03 rifles served until the end of WWII in some places.

After the war in Europe started in 1939, the US started trying to build up the military as fast as they could. The Garand had been adopted in 1936, but there were not enough of them.

The military pulled the old 03 out of the arsenal and started supplying troops with those also. Again, there were not enough.

It was decided to start building 03's again, only problem was that Springfield Armory was making Garands and the Rock Island Arsenal no longer manufactured 03's.

Remington took the tooling from Rock Island Arsenal and started manufacturing 03's again in November, 1941. These are basically exact clones of the original 03's.

The demand was for even more 03's, so Remington decided to simplify the process by using stamped parts and eliminating some non-essential features.

They started these changes in December, 1941 and did not complete phasing in all of these changes until March, 1942.

So from December '41 to March '42, they were making a whole bunch of "different" 03's.

Once they had completed the change over, they designated this new model the M1903 (Modified).

They made even more changes in the manufacturing process after this, which resulted in the creation of the M1903A3 coming out in May, 1942.
 
L

Lionheart

New member
My 1903 arrived from CMP
with a Remington stamp on the stock, along with a rebuild stamp from Ogden Arsenal bearing the initials of Elmer Keith inside a box. There is also the stamp of another insepctor, also with the initials E.K. (Info is from M1903.com)
The serial number on the receiver makes it a 1931 Springfield.
The barrel though is a Springfield 1944 replacement.
A mixed rifle? Yep, a real mutt, but I'm proud to own it.
:D
 
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