Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Something a bit different, '03's

The thread on 03A3's got me fired up to post a couple pics of a couple fairly rare 1903 variants. So rather than further gum up the other thread I decided to start new ones.



M1903 NRA Sporter, vintage 1929, original Lyman 48 sight, star gauged barrel, polished bolt and boltways, etc.- in other words exactly as it was when the Armory sold it directly to a civilian NRA member. (Imagine that in this day and age!) Very nice condition showing some honest use but no abuse. Originally sold to an Alaskan gentleman who frequented Kodiak Island and shot a few big bears with it. (My God, how can you do that with an iron sighted .30-06? ) Passed through Michael Petrov's hands at one point, purchased from a gent who was conversant about its history. Some good ju-ju in this one.

Next, a M1903 Style-T Target Rifle. Rebarreled in 1937 by John Dubiel, a noted barrel maker/custom smith of the era. (Number on the barrel indicates it's one of the last one's he did, and he died in 1937.) 28" heavy barrel- 1.25" at the breech, tapers to .9" at the muzzle. Lyman 48/Lyman17 sights, with target scope blocks for use with Fecker/Unertl/Targetspot/etc. scope. Minty bore. Front band made from 1917 Enfield band, as proper for a T. Slick polished action, bare minimum headspace. Style-T's are quite rare, only 1-200 made 90 years ago. I'm not sure if this one started out as a legit T and was re-barreled, or a well heeled target shooter had it custom made. Either way they don't fall out of the sky very often. It would have been state of the art for firing for the Wimbledon Cup at Camp Perry pre-WWII.

A heavy beast that weighs almost 13 pounds.

Gary you have a fantastic collection! An old friend that I shot Hi Power with built a Style-T with IIRC a 26" barrel. He collected all the parts by sometimes buying complete rifles in the right serial range and said the butt plate was the hardest part to find. He liked to say, "If Springfield had made one more, this would be it." I made the mistake by calling it a Model T once and was severely reprimanded.

Very cool. That is a sweet combination. I bet that Dubiel with cast bullets would kick like a Daisy Red Ryder. I'm jealous!

Awesome Springfields. The Sporter is calling my name, very nice.

Grand rifles

Gorgeous 1903. What a real rifle should look like.
Bob

Thanks for posting! love seeing vintage arms.

I am just starting in my depravity. This Sedgley sporter came from a sourdough who lived alone until his 90s. He was mauled and used this rifle to kill the grizzly. He lived near Chistochina but was first a classically trained pianist who won a Smokey the bear award for putting out a forest fire with his pocket knife.

Thanks for posting those pics! Grandpa Marvin had a Dubeil barreled model 52 Win. with an interesting story. Naturally I do not know what happened to it.

Gotta love a nice Sedgely! That 20 year period before WWII really was The Golden Age of classic gunmaking.

Dubiel worked for Hoffman Arms (direct competitors with Griffin&Howe) in the 20's-early 30's. When Hoffman Arms folded he hung out his own shingle. Eric Johnson, who gained fame as the preeminent maker of custom .22 target barrels in the mid-20th century, worked with Dubiel in the early-mid '30's and went off on his own (and later to Remington?) after Dubiel died in 1937.

Gnoahh, you ever shoot that Style-T? How do you think it would do today on the LR at 1,000?

I just recently got it, haven't fired it yet. I have high hopes for it to sling cast bullets well, for group and score in CBA 100-200 yard matches. I'm assembling test ammo and await a day when weather and my schedule coincide for a range day. I may or may not ever put a jacketed bullet through it, but am tempted merely to establish a baseline for accuracy. We shall see.

Another fly in the ointment of testing for LR accuracy (and comparing against "modern" equipment) is the dearth of accessible long ranges here in Maryland. Add to that the sighting arrangement- a 12x Fecker, while pretty efficient, is no match for state of the art target scopes when distances extend out to hellandgone. While it would be interesting to wring it out with VLD's and a top-notch scope to see how it stacks up would be fun, I'll not be drilling and tapping the receiver and altering the bolt handle to accommodate said scope. Mechanically I feel the gun could hold up her end though.

I have the RF twin to that rifle, it is as accurate as the day it left the arsenal. Off the bench @ 50yds. it will put 50 rounds of CCI Std. Velocity in one ragged hole, it shoots every bit as good as my custom M/52 Sporter and my Anschutz M/54 Stutzen.

Yeah, my M2 will slop five Eley Tenex into a half inch at 50 yards, sometimes a lot better which is comforting but not often enough to call it a 1/2 MOA gun. My M52 consistently out performs it by a healthy margin. Ammo makes a difference, as with all .22's, but in my rifles the really high end stuff consistently out performs the "run of the mill" stuff- as it should. (Why else would I pay the ridiculous prices for Tenex, Midas, UltraMatch, etc. )

The above NRA Sporter consistently groups five of the loads that my 1953 Standard Grade M70 adores into 1½" @ 100. I doubt I'll do any more load development for that rifle, that performance suits me just fine and it's not like I shoot it a heckuva lot anyway. (47gr. Varget/165 Sierra HPBT/Lapua or LC-78 Match brass/RWS primer.)

Style-T's and International rifles were the darlings of the top LR shooters back in the 20's-30's. (Internationals were essentially identical to the T's but with Swiss butt plates, and often with custom barrels made by Winchester, Remington, and Harry Pope installed at the Armory.) Mind you too, there is a definite dearth of scopes seen on those rifles posed with shooters in period photographs. They did their work with Lyman 48 receiver sights.

thanks for sharing pics of those fine looking 03s! I'm not an 03' expert, but I do have a legit national match that I inherited from my dad. Can you describe the original "Ts"? I'm assuming they are different than the NM models. I've done a bit of reading on 03's but again not an expert. My NM has a headless cocking piece, SN is etched on the bolt, and a redfield receiver sight, type C stock. Educate me a little guys. My first bolt rifle was a sporterized 03 with Bishop stock. It was a neat rifle. Wish I would have kept it. thanks

dan

A NM wouldn't have a Redfield sight. Strictly speaking they were issued for competition at Camp Perry and other inter-service venues with the standard '03 ladder sight (which had some minor mods done to them). They could however be special ordered drilled and tapped for the Lyman 48 (I guess a Redfield would fit those screw holes?). Headless cocking pieces weren't SOP for issued NM rifles either, although many were so converted. Reversed safeties, star gauged barrels, checkered buttplates, polished bolts numbered to the rifle were the main features that differentiated them from Service rifles. Stocks were the same as fitted to Service rifles (Type C stocks after 1929 or so). Better care in fitting the wood was taken on designated NM rifles. After building, the Armory subjected them to accuracy tests more stringent than that for Service rifles, which they had to pass. I'm a little hazy on whether or not non-Service rifle sights were allowed to compete on the firing line at Camp Perry "back in the day". Remember, those matches were by regulation conducted with the then current "U.S.Service Rifle". The Wimbledon and Palma matches had looser rules regarding rifle configuration. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please.

T's were a different animal altogether. Longer heavier barrels with no ladder sights, only Lyman 48's. Stocks were M1922 stocks, fitted with cross bolts, and obviously inletted for the heavier barrels. Headless cocking knobs. Barrel bands hand-formed from M1917 Enfield bands. Bolts and bolt raceways polished.

Armory-built target rifles very very often have their serial numbers etched onto their bolts with electro pencils- but it wasn't carved in stone. Righteous examples exist without those numbers.

thanks for the info mr. gnoahhh: Your info got me thinking more about mine, so I dug it out: I'd forgot the star-gauged barrel which it has: checkered buttplate, polished bolt, front sight has hood, SN is 1,272,602, and yes, a redfield receiver sight. Back before guns like this became desirable, my dad believe it or not, actually hunted many years with this rifle He was given it by an old friend who competed at Perry and got my dad into smallbore shooting, which got my dad into buying a new 52C target rifle that I too have which is immaculate condition. I was actually with my dad when he shot a buck with this rifle. I've shot this rifle a bit with handloads and if I remember correctly, it and I were able to shoot about 2" groups at 100 yds with it. Now I should shoot it again just to see what we can do !! Several years ago I called Michael Petrov, the Alaskan collector of vintage rifles, and described this rifle to him in quite some detail. After our confab, his opinion was that it was indeed a NM. Whether it is or not, it is a very neat old 03' that we'll always keep in the family. If we were able, I'd post pictures for you, but we've not been able to accomplish that.