I am putting a Remington 03A3 back into an original Keystone stock and have an issue with the muzzle. As I understand it, these rifles often perform best when there are a few pounds of upward pressure on the barrel at the end of the stock. As it all goes together right now, I have a significant gap between the end of the barrel and the stock. Can this be corrected or do I have a bum stock? My thoughts are to lower the front of the receiver in the stock as there is a fair amount of space between the top of mag well and the bottom of the receiver, but before I do anything I thought it best to ask because you know what they say about cutting a dog's tail long. Many thanks for any help on this one.
Try and shoot it first, the pressure on the barrel is pretty much an old wive's tail and was routinely done years ago. The gap between action and mag box, if excessive could cause feeding problems. Try it all first, you may be surprised.
Thanks much. The gap between the barrel and stock is about 1/16 of an inch. The barrel also sets a little to the left in the channel (with the muzzle facing away from you). The space between the bottom of the receiver and top of the magazine well looks about the same. Many thanks again.
I used to shoot vintage military benchrest matches with my 03-A3. It would string vertically as I received it with the forend in contact with the barrel. I bedded the action and floated the barrel and it would then shoot nice round MOA five shot groups if I could see the front sight. I never tried going back to adding upward pressure and don't really know if it was the receiver bedding or floating that did it. As jkob said, try it first.
Thanks again. I will heed your advice!
Just to be a contrarian- when I built my 1903A1 I used a NOS Keystone Type-C stock. First, I had to remove about a half pound of wood from it (literally) to achieve the svelte dimensions of a pre-war '03A1. Keystone made them pretty bulky for wartime 03A3 use. After getting it together (using a new CMP Criterion barrel on the late nickel steel action) it shot ok, but not great. I dismantled it, put a pad of thickened epoxy in the channel out at the tip, re-installed the barreled action, and hung a three pound weight off the stock tip while the epoxy cured giving slight upward force on the forearm tip when the weight was removed. I relieved the top radius of the upper band so as not to contact the barrel too.
Accuracy went from 10 shot 2 MOA with choice cast bullet ammo (I swore no jacketed stuff would ever taint this bore) down to 10 shot 1 1/4", with enough MOA groups to tempt me to call it a MOA gun. Issue sights. I expect things to improve when I finish taking it all the way to USMC sniper configuration with a Unertl scope installed.
Well that just made the decision process more difficult. Still I'm not complaining. The oversize Keystone stock actually fits good for me. The closest I've had to the pre-war stock wad a superb stock that was made by Michael Kokolus, who unfortunately has passed away. Also unfortunately, that rifle was stolen in a theft. Damn, I hate theaves and think that anyone who thinks that they may have a stolen firearm should make all efforts to return it to the rightfull owner - but don't get me going...