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You have a fine shooter there with some civilian history pegged onto it. It would look great at the range. I do not think it is a recovered drill rifle.
PD
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PD, I'd still like to have it insured. Do you think you could have a guess at the maximum somebody might expect to pay for one of these?
Thanks again for all the info.
Best regards,
David.
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Also, you mentioned that the bolt was from the 1930's but do you know what version and manufacturer of 1903 it would have originally been a part of? As mentioned, it's stamped with a letter "R" and "32" (1932?)
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dgp..An interesting side note. during WW2 the ordnance dept assigned blocks of serial numbers to the contractors Remington and Smith Corona. The serial number range 4,000,001 to 4.015,000 was intended to be used for the production of M1903A4 sniper's rifles. Due to an oversight production of standard M1903A3's ran into the serial number range assigned to the A4. When it was discovered about 3000 A4 receivers had been made with duplicate serial numbers which were then remarked with a leading "Z".
so your rifle is one of the oddballs that "shouldn't have been".
Regards,
Jim
ANJRPC
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Hi Jim,
That is very interesting, I wonder if that means it has an A4 twin out there somewhere with a Z after the same serial number?
Is there anyway to tell if the barrel has A4 characteristics?
Thanks for the info,
David.
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As a suggestion, don't use a white background for making flash pictures. The camera exposes the largest area correctly, which is the white sheet, and underexposes the rifle.
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Nice shooter, collector value is nil. At a gunshow you would ask $700.00 and bargin down from there.
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I'd send it to Chuckindenver for a repark job. He did one on a Remington '03 I had that a previous owner had blued. Looked great when he finished it.
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The N.S. bolts were Springfield and were never used (new or rebuilt) in the A3's. As far as the R and 32, I've seen them with numbers under the handle, but can only speculate on the R, it's definitely not Remington. Barrels were all selected from the same production run, nothing differentiated them until they were selected to go on an A4, they were air guaged, when they met acceptable results they got a punch under the end and went to the finishing process. I believe the punch mark was to let the front sight guy know not to put one on it (it was in the middle of the machines surface for the front sight).
I don't think your rifle was a drill rifle but it has been pimped, in addition to the other things pointed out, the front sight is aftermarket. Lyman I suspect, should say in very small letters on the side.
Check the bolt, take it out and check the bolt body for serial numbers, roll the extractor around and check from the bottom. If it has a 7 digit (not sure if they ever used 4) number neatly electropenciled and being polished it could have been out of a NM rifle. I will send you a PM.
