Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Barrel Replacement - 1903 Springfield, 03A3 Remington and 1896 Krag

I'm planning on removing and replacing the barrels on a 1903 Springfield (Remington made) and an 03A3 Remington, and installing a surplus barrel on an 1896 Krag. I have never did this sort of work before and will be looking for a good gunsmith to get it done. Is there anything I need to be aware of or watch out for with this sort of work? Seems like every now and then you hear about a receiver getting bent, stretched or otherwise ruined during a re-barrel project. The barrels are military surplus and the receivers GI spec. All thoughts, observations and advice on this project are greatly appreciated.

I have one in the shop right now to do the barrel change. It is the '03. You need to find a surplus barrel with the rear sight already attached. It can be a real bear to fit the sight and pin it. I have a new on coming in for it>

Most important thing: a proper fitting receiver wrench. The Krag especially is prone to damage without one. Drive the pins out of the '03 sight bases from left to right, install in opposite direction. Krags headspace on the rim- arsenal barrels, bolts, receivers were made to pretty tight tolerances and it's not unusual to screw on a different barrel and have headspace be ok. With all the different contractors having made '03 bolts and barrels, being in spec from the git-go can be chancy. More than a few spare barrels were short-chambered to allow for reaming to perfect headspace after installation. Keep a reamer and headspace gauges handy.

Funny this came up. I'm installing a new Criterion barrel on a 1903A1 Springfield today too.

Sometimes '03 rear sight bases can be a bear, sometimes not. You don't know until you try it. Sometimes a little judicious heat on the base gets things moving. I took the time once to make a tight fitting drift with an ID that just cleared the barrel shank to drive the base off. DO NOT beat on the standing portion of the rear sight base to get it moving- you'll bend it for sure. Just make sure that the witness marks on the sight base, barrel, and receiver ring all line up, check headspace, and you're good to go.

P.S. Put a little anti-sieze compound on the barrel threads to help out the next poor soul who has to unspin it!

Thanks much. I hadn't thought about it, but does the rear sight base need to come off the 03 barrel before it is screwed in? I have a Sedgley barrel that's still in the factory wrap and cosmoline with the base installed. I almost hate to use the barrel because of its age and NOS condition. Thanks much again for your advice.

Just screw it in. No need to yank the base. Mind that whoever put the base on got the witness mark lined up with the one on the barrel, then align the witness mark on the base to the receiver.

Sedgley 1944 U.S.M.C. replacement barrel? Good reputation for accuracy if you get a straight one. It happens to be what I'm taking off mine today, even though it shoots beautifully. Some joker ran what looks to be a 3/8" chucking reamer about an 1/8" into the neck of the chamber, making for bizarre looking fired cases with a double neck. No idea who did it or why. Perhaps they ringed the chamber by mis-using fillers in cast bullet loads and this was the simplest way to correct it? Be aware too that for some unknown reason a lot of Sedgley 1944 USMC barrels were bent to de-mil them before sale to the public (at some point in the pipeline anyway), and many that have been sold on the open market since then were re-straightened. If that is what you have, scrutinize its straightness carefully.

I have heard about the bent Sedgley barrel issue. I read that the re straightened barrels may have an oval shaped bore at the location of the bend. Mine is packed in cosmoline and still mummified in what I assume is the factory cloth wrapping. I hope that is a good sign as I can't see someone going through all that effort to repackage a decommissioned barrel. But then again I'm new to Sedgley barrels and can't speak from experience.

Not to hijack my own thread, but I also have a fairly decent Avis barrel that was made in 1919. Are there any issues with these? I read somewhere that High Standard got their tooling for 03 barrels from Avis.

I don't know about the High Standard angle, but Avis barrels are very rare, command a premium, and have a rep for accuracy. If I had one and it had a nice bore, I would definitely want to put it on a period-correct rifle.

I finished my '03 re-barrel project. Rear sight collar was a bugger to get back on the Criterion barrel. But it's all lined up and pinned now. The new barrel only took 6 light pressure turns of the reamer til the bolt just closed on the go gauge, cleaning/re-oiling it every turn. (I know, I'm an anal amateur!)

Depending on how you position it, my muzzle guage mics my Avis at 1.5 and a little less. It's not a true 1.0 barrel. The bore looks like its been shot, but it's as good as any old rifle barrel I've ever looked at. It's parked a dull grey black and has both the front and rear sights. I thought it would be a good candidate for a MK.I or a reproduction National Match rifle. But that's a project for another day. Right now I have three others to get in
shape. Thanks for the info on the Avis.

You will have to give a blow by blow account of installing the rear sight base. I did that once and found out that not all pin holes were made the same. That is you can't count on any old rear sight base fitting any particular barrel.

Simple. I located the groove first, created it with a needle file, drove the base into position, ran an .085 drill bit through the holes in the collar to uniform everything, drove the pin home, filed flush. The collar was extremely tight, requiring a good bit of polishing to even achieve a fit thanks to wood blocks and a hammer, and much cussing.

I did a 03 rebarrel with 4 groove 03A3 barrel. turned down the shank to fit. there was a locating pin that positioned the rear sight sleeve at top dead center. there were corresponding grooves in the barrel and inside the sleeve and the locating pin kept the sight sleeve at TDC. funny thing, tho, when examining old sight sleeves, on some the groove was on the right and on some - on the left! go figga! Mel

Yeah, I noticed that too. I think there is a lot of variability in the location of the positioning pins on 03 barrels. Who knows, maybe their jig changed for every run of barrels they made - that's just a WAG on my part.

I first witnessed '03 barrels being swapped out by an old guy who worked for me 40 years ago in my first supervisory postion. He was a basement gunsmith on the side who specialized in U.S. milsurps. He learned that craft as an artificer in WWII. (An artificer was a gun-fixer who traveled with the infantry battalion he was assigned to, right up to the front. He had a Deuce-and-a-half with a big box on the back which was a small repair shop inside. He was the guy who kept the GI's shootin' irons running.)

While watching over his shoulder, I remember asking him about those two pins since he obviously wasn't putting the top pin back in my barrel. He said they didn't always line up and sometimes you had to create another groove under the alternate hole in the collar to do it. He said what was more important was to have the witness marks line up, and further more, he said, he never bothered with the top pin anyway and never had a complaint.

I sure miss old Barney. I learned more practical dope about Springfields and Garands from him than any other source, not to mention some of the wild war stories he told (usually centered around local beers and loose women). I inherited some of his tools and bullet moulds when he died. He had a complete armorer's chest for the '03- a big wooden box, from the Armory, containing all the tools/gauges/reamers/spare parts/etc. needed to keep the '03s running in the field. He said he got it in a army surplus store after the war, but I figure he swiped it from a state-side depot and shipped it home. I regret to this day not being able to get it when he died (his son spirited it away, and I heard later he'd sold it for booze money. Grrr.) I saw others at gun shows over the years and they were always priced in the thousands.

The one collar replacement I did I gave up on the top pin and lined it up with the witness mark on the receiver (the barrel was already mounted). My father, a master mechanic who passed away five years ago, welded a steel block onto a spare sight base to make an anvil for driving the collar in place and aligning it with the witness mark. It all worked out pretty good with a little judicious use of heat from a heat gun, anti-seize, and gentle tapping with a hammer. Unfortunately some SOB stole that rifle and some other firearms a few months ago. Don't get me going on thieves and their accomplices - by that I mean anyone, ANYONE, who suspects they are in possession of a stolen firearm. Crime teaches you a hard lesson.