Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Model 1903 the Britt's got their mitt's on

I've had this one a little while, it appears to be from a group sent to England. I thinks it's an interesting example of a gun that was well used, possibly from a group at a range. It's had some repair work done. The numbers on the receiver halves are off by 4, so there must have been at least 5 guns sent to the same place. It's been together for a long time, the finish wear matches.

This version seems to have been correctly named, I think more than 50% of the English Patterns I've seen are British proofed.






A better look at the 'NOT ENGLISH MAKE' stamp which is normal for this time frame.

The rear sight elevation screw has a poor replacement, The Savage No 5 rear sight was an option for the 1903's and with it a Rocky Mountain front sight was supplied, the No 5 does not adjust as low as the standard rear sight and the Rocky Mountain is 0.053" taller than the standard front sight.


The barrel has been been sleeved and is marked 'PARKERIFLED' above 'AGP'.


The company whos name is on the top of the receiver was in business from the 1870's into the 1960's, here's a picture from about 1904, they were know for their shotguns -


The tang sight is a B.S.A. No 8 and is attached with a single added hole in the center of it's base that uses one of the factory holes on the tang. The screw in one of the standard mounting holes is just a plug screw, but it is held by only one thread, or less, the other plug screw was missing. The original holes are too near the edge of the tang to be used. It's very solid just with the one screw due to the wide wraparound base which was fitted into the wood a little.


The elevation adjustment is interesting, it has left hand threads and has a right hand threaded screw running through it, as it is turned the inner screw moves up through it doubling the effect, this allows the use of two relatively short screws for a lot of adjustment, like a compact turnbuckle. Stevens had a tang sight using this principle that they patented in 1920.

The Stevens patent - patent/US1338183A
All I could find relating to this from BSA is one for the double screw using left & right hand threads - GB191030337A

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I had both serial numbers looked up -

Notice that the lower serial number was received a week later and they are only 4 numbers apart.

The magazine had some repair, the bottom is a poor replacement, as it the follower - it's just made from flat sheetmetal and is soldered to the spring, it actually feeds quite well. It does not hold the bolt open when empty like the original follower.


The magazine has a scratch mark on the right side, this is sometimes seen on these and is due to the pivot pin for the action lock not being flush on the inside, that is the case here, the one on this gun has been replaced and was not fitted fully flush inside.


Although it fed well it would not eject even one round, about halfway out they slide off the extractor, which is a replacement. That is not because of the extractor, the two small prongs that keep the case from moving to the left are broken off, which allows the case to slip off the extractor when it's out far enough to allow side movement.

The replacement extractor doesn't have the 'hooked' end like an original, but I think that has more to do with aligning the rim when chambering than with extraction. I think it counteracts any sideward push from the fixed prongs on the left of the bolt, the ones that are missing on this bolt.

I have other bolts, but I don't think any have a British proof stamp, so I will repair this one. I might find when I get prongs welded back on that it won't feed reliably, then I will also have to change the extractor.

Very cool, as always.

Not job!

Now I have something to re-read all day today.

Great find and information! I have to admit.. don't think I knew anything about English pattern 1903's.

Gene's keen insight is spellbinding, isn't it?! Very nice presentation.

Gene,
Great post here and yes gnoahhh, his keen eye and insight is exactly that and appreciated by many!

Thanks for sharing,

HS 58

Well, I finally found the patent for the B.S.A. No 8 sight. The catalog states it's patent No 2694307, which is 2 digits too short for the patents I was finding from that time and running it brings up patents from several different countries but none from the UK and none even remotely related. I ran that number everyway I could think of, adding leading 0's and trailing wildcard characters = nothing.

It has been a few years since I looked for British patents and finding it was relatively easy once I remembered that the UK patents start over at 1 each year and the year is added as part of the full patent number to make it unique.... so the patent is No. 26943 from the year 07 (1907). Evidently at the millennium they realized they needed a 4 digit date, so the 07 became 1907... but, they also moved that to the front making the patent number in the data base now 190726943. Usually patent's on items from that time frame just give the date, so you seldom have to search by number.
GB190726943A click on the drawings to expand to the full view, the patent covers several different design variations.

...sometimes those Britt's are hard to figure out....

I have 4 English Pattern 1903's, 3 have foreign proof stamps. These were also referred to as the English Model instead of Pattern in a couple listings.

To echo the others, great post Gene, interesting information and photo's. The earliest English Model I have on the SN list is in the 353xx range which puts it about 1906 I think. The highest serial number is @100,000.

I have one of these beauties courtesy of ROMAC a few years ago. Does anyone else have one? Please post if you do.

Nice one Gene , and thanx from many for the British Patent information findout. If you weld those tiny rim grabbers / shell puller- outers onto the bolt face , post the welding method you use , because I need to weld a piece a bit larger onto the back end of a bolt for an 1892 Malin..32 cal.
Have a nice summer.

Since there seems to be more interest in it being an English Pattern than in it actually having gone to England, here's another of mine with the 'English' stock and some more info on them.

This one is also a Gold Medal Grade with a little better wood than standard. It has the later type buttplate.






These were not just a standard size stock with a rubber buttplate added -




With the introduction of the Model 1914 the Model 1903 was restyled to match the new Model 1914 style, first listed in catalog No 55, a steel shotgun buttplate became standard and the now English 'Grade' was still listed for both the 1903 & 1914 in that catalog, but got dropped in the next, No 57.


The new features of the Model 1903 for 1914 are pointed out in this catalog but were not in the earlier one -


The only special grade guns I have seen in the 1914 style are a few Gold Medal Grade, nothing else. I would think the very thick rubber buttplates would have beed changed to thinner ones before 1914, but all examples of the English Pattern I have seen have thick ones but are from at least a couple years before 1914. The 1914 style stocks are almost always cracked at the lower tang, if you find one that isn't, be careful, it's probably not original..... I have a Model 1914 that I know the stock is a replacement, even thought it's still cracked!

Any idea who "SBT Co." is?

There was a shipping company that ran liners to Kingston, Jamaica at the time with SBT Co in their name.

Thanks for that information. That's probably the one, they must have sent a group of 1903's to England to T. Page Wood. The mismatched serial numbers on mine suggest at least those two went to the same place. I wish I had a copy of that ledger page to see how many were in the group.

Anne Oakley had #42901

Rick, I think I remember that one, it was the one that had been in a fire? I think there was some questions on that one due to the dates it was supposed to have been given to her compared to when it was made and when she was in England, or something like that. It was really rough looking if I remember right.

.... and now for something a little OT, it's OT for this forum but the information on patents and sights might be useful and it's relating to England -

Having though I had figured out British patents... again... I decided to look up the ones marked on another fairly recent acquisition, it's from the mid 1920's and I found the format for patent numbers from that time had changed, date is not included as part of the number, but they are in the database under the marked numbers.

The gun is a B.S.A. slide action with a number of added Parker-Hale & A. G. Parker marked accessories. It has a pistol grip stock, which I found is current the only example know according to the people at www.rifleman.org.uk. They have some information on the B.S.A. pumps here - rifleman.org.uk/BSA_pump-action There is one picture of this rifle near the bottom of the page.

Here it is compared with a standard version -



They do not have a buttplate.

When I first saw the stock on this one, I was concerned that it was not original because it does not have a pin though it, the other tube fed ones I have seen all do.

The action uses a rotating locking lug and is very smooth.

It appears all the accessories are from Parker-Hale. The rear sling swivel is marked 'P H', the front is unmarked, the front sight is a Parker-Hale, the accompanying small canister to hold the extra front sight inserts is the 'thing' attached to the bottom of the pistol grip, it contained a single broken insert and there was one in the front sight. These inserts are larger than a Lyman and smaller than a Redfield.


The rear sight is a Parker-Hale that was introduced about 1933.



There was another sight on it at one time mounted to the wood, you can just see the edge of holes under the rear of the current sight, but not real good in these pictures. There also is some compressed wood where the sight was. It may have been a B.S.A. No 8 like on the Savage, it also may have been a Parker-Hale, they made sights that looked like they may have been a direct replacement for the overly tall B.S.A.s, but those were introduced in 1933 and this gun might be earlier that that. I'll have to try the B.S.A. sight on it sometime.



The version for the Savage 99's seems to be the most common and they show up now & them, all of these are windage adjustable.

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All the patents marked are for the earlier box magazine version, the marking - 'P. P. 24649/24' is possibly for a 'patent pending'?


The numbers for Priorities and Application still have the last two digits for the year like the earlier patent numbers.


The patent for the tube fed was published in Dec 1925, but I don't know if it was ever stamped on any guns.


Here's the other 3 patents stamped on the gun -


If anyone ever gets one of these you have to know about the proper takedown procedure. You do NOT turn the takedown screw all the way out, if you do you will strip the threads. The picture show the best 2 screws in my examples, the top just has the first thread or two damaged, the second has them all damaged. I had to make a couple of these, they are a standard #12 thread so dies are easy to find.

The screw is turned out just far enough that it clears the left side hole and the reduced diameter section then lines up with the open slot in the right side, the barrel/receiver then slides straight forward. The holes are close to the tap drill size so the threads will not pass through.