Can't tell in the OP's pic, but the second pic does indeed look like a straight pre-WWI single heat treat bolt handle. Probably just the camera angle, I hope.
I developed a love for Springfields while still a teenager, back in the Pleistocene Age. The oldtimers whose words I hung on disdained the 03A3 for its crudity compared to the pre-war Springfield/Rock Island variety. Everyone agreed that the best use for one of those $20-through-the-NRA 03A3's was to sporterize it to the extent that one could. I guess that has tempered my view of the beasties since then. I never owned one, except my Dad's which he had promptly sporterized when it came in the mail circa 1963.
Even though I'm in the paring down phase of life now, and my interests have shifted in other directions, my ears still perk up and I get twinkly-eyed when I hear mention of a M1903/M1903A1 or any of the other pre-war variants but not so much for an 03A3. Just me, don't be offended! Accuracy and functionality is all that really matters in any rifle, granted, but for me I have to add aesthetics and historical provenance to the mix. (After all, the Marines didn't use 03A3's at Belleau Wood, Wake Island, or Guadalcanal - they used '03's, and disdained acceptance of A3's when they appeared. But of course by then they were itching for M1's like everybody else.)
