Just found this forum and like another poster I just got a 1903a3 remington.
From looking at my unit it looks like the barrel has a darker parkerized patina and is dated 10-43 while the serial number is 41285XX. From looking at it it is in excellent shape mechanically but it appears to have been reparkerized. Since from looking at most forums some of the parts should have been blued while most of my gun is parkerized. the only non parked parts are the cut off (magazine thingy switch). Every other part of my gun has been parked and looks really nice.

There are no stock markings on the stock so I figure that it is a replacement.

The bad thing is that my eyesight is sub 20/20 so I'm going to fiddle with it a bit, so far I already bought a s&k scope mount since I really don't want to completely affect it. Also bought another handgaurd.

From looking at it more closely, I'm sort of now wondering if I should or shouldn't since I've found that all the barrel bands have the little r, all the sight parts (and the rear sight is heavily staked so that might get damaged) all are properly marked The front band with the bayonet lug is also marked along with the barrel although the R sort of disappeared but the A is still showing (light strike?) the maker symbol on the barrel also seems to have been a light strike or maybe it's hidden underneath the new park and the light strike isn't helping it appear.

Will probably still do it mainly because I'm a recreational shooter and I really don't buy wall hangers. But I don't enjoy missing with irons plus I like the feeling of accomplishment when I smack something out to 300-500 yards with my rifles and at that distance targets disappear with my eyeballs.

Was going to post my pictures here but I'm having a hard time finding my card reader! Will post later tomorrow in the AM when I get off of work.

Now my question/s, is on removing the rear sight and from reading the rear sight removal thread, it seems pretty straight forward but is it possible to just keep slowly hitting it with my brass punch to remove it without damaging it? Or should I drill it out if it is staked in there pretty good?

Before I bought the scope mount I thought all I had to do was tap it out... and if I wanted to go back tap it back in. Is there any other ideas on getting it off without affecting anything?

Bought a replacement rear sight base but i don't know who the maker is in case I bork it up

Also, what is the fair market value of this gun, bought it from cabelas and when I tried to get one that looked to be in good shape from phoenix back pages it was going for 400 or 450 but i lost out to another Arizonan. When I was at Cabelas (in Glendale) I just kept walking back to it and bought it for $599 which seemed a bit high to me but by the time I go through an ffl since I haven't done my c&r yet paid my dues to an organization like GCAicon (25.00) and paid for my C&R (40.00) plus any shipping fees; I'ld be pretty close to that plus that damn impulse buy thing got me!

Funny thing was that there had been a 1917 that was in pretty good shape for the same price and I saw it going from the back to the racks a week or 2 ago! What a shame for it to get beat up and it was in pretty darn good shape.

I've bought a few Russianicon wwII guns and now I'm going to add a few american guns to my collection. Too bad anything full auto is out of my realm for now
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