just picked up this beauty

[cplstevennorton]

Well and look at this. One thing I have been studying is the electropencil writing characteristics on Marine rifles. To me it looks like the same guy electropenciled both rifles. And I bet if I threw in a pic of the other rifle I found it would be very similar too.

[cplstevennorton]

Ok I went and picked up that rifle that I spoke about earlier. There are subtle differences, but not much. It's still very much the same style. The main difference this one doesn't have the Philly Star. And I was thinking it had a drawing number handguard, but it doesn't. It has the WWII replacement style with the straight cut, but I know the Marines received that style handguard as that is the style they used on the snipers. It also has a lyman front sight instead of the globe. But anyways little differences, but I think you will see why I said it was like Deja Vu though.

[cplstevennorton]

[cplstevennorton]

[Rick the Librarian]

Beautiful rifles, Steven ...makes me pine for the one that I sold!

[Chuckindenver]

nice bunch of rifles and nice find on the OPs,, my only comments....the front sight on Steves rifle was made for the 1903A3, and didnt come out until the 1950s, the Lyman sight on the OPS rifle is a replacement, it should have a longer slide, and deaper base, like the one pictured on Steve,s rifle.

---------- Post added at 07:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:05 AM ----------

i have 885686 USMC rifle with an 11-41 barrel..

[cplstevennorton]

My gut feeling on these. I think these were never made for any official matches and probably not even for the teams, but maybe they just built them from parts laying around from the old team rifle days for recreational target shooting or something like that.

They really look like they were assembled from any and all parts they could scrounge up and make work. And I do imagine these were built after the Korean war timeframe.

They say that the 1903 Snipers started to be sold as surplus starting in 1954 to Officers. Maybe with liquidating all the snipers, they got rid of all the parts and pieces they had saved to keep those rifles going and built these match rifles with those spare parts? That would honestly be my best guess.

I guess it's hard saying, but that would make the most sense to me. But it's just very neat that there is so many similarities.

[Marines55]

I would agree they were fab'd up from whatever parts were left in the armory at the time given the variations that are shown here. However, I shot matches while I was in the Marine Corps and I know that we would always mark our rifles with tape which had our name on it along with our service number on the butt. This rifle has tape residue in that very same position.

That being said, I find it very hard to believe that the Marine a corps would just assemble rifles for no reason at all. In the old days when the USMC had matches they often awarded the winner with a prize rifle. Perhaps that is what purpose these rifles served. I will say that I am in the process of cleaning this rifle up and the bore was full of Cosmo and had no evidence of being fired. I put a few rounds through it and it shot very well.

[Marines55]

OK so i really hate to ask this but I'm out of my element on this one. I plan on giving this rifle to one of my boys when they are of age and i don't ever plan on selling it. I picked this up for $700 from a very good friend and I'm sure he made money on it, but i would like to know how much this rifle is worth. If its worth far ore than i paid, i need to go back to my friend and give him some more cash to make up for it as neither one of us knew what this rifle is when we struck the deal. I am a big believer in what goes around comes around and i want to make things fair. thanks for any and all help!!

[Rick the Librarian]

I would say considerably more, but admit I don't have a handle on USMC M1903 prices.