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Hello, picked up this 1918 Springfield 1903. Barrel marked 1917. Has a Ra-p stamp and SA rebuild mark. Also has a hatcher hole and electro pencilee bolt(not same serial number as the receiver. thoughts? Was this used in ww1? Ww2? Any actual way to know?
What a nice old rifle, been through a couple of rebuilds. I should think it saw service in WW2 but perhaps not WW1... On the off chance it's all legit and hasn't been put together, it likely saw time in the other places between WW1 and WW2.
The B2 bolt, serial number on bolt, Hatcher hole, and the numbered front sight are all good USMC traits. Its hard to be definitive with these things, since all of those traits could have been applied by anyone at anytime, but chances are good it was a USMC rifle.
I wouldn't bet on it having it made it way to France in WWI. The whispers I hear about the 4th Marine Brigade rifles is that they were dense in the high 500k to low 600k range. That's just conjecture on my end, but that's what I've seen from big time collectors.
Banana Wars and Guadalcanal however are all very possible.
Bottom line, nice rifle!
Awesome thank you for the responses. Glad i scored this rifle! I bought it because it was a world war one era 1903. The usmc traits i realized once i got it home and deep cleaned everything.
Check under the hood for deep scratches just in front of rear sight. That would add strong confirmation to rebuilding by USMC. Vise marks discussed midway in to this article.
https://usmcweaponry.com/pre-war-wwii-usmc-m1903s/
The Marines started using the tool that caused those marks in the 1930s. Marines rebarrel jobs before then won't have the vise marks.
These kind of look like vise marks.
Also pipe wrenches I think? That was what they referred to in that article.Quote:
Originally Posted by champ0608
Could well be a US Navy issue in that serial range, you should run a SRS check
Not sure how to.
His serial number isn't a direct hit, but the majority of the 8380XX numbers on the list are USMC rifles. Here's the closest:
838019 020630USMC - NICARAGUA (BAD BBL)
838019 032530USMC - NICARAGUA (SURVEYED)
838054 011031USATC - CO I 15TH INF
838055 042231USMC - SAN DIEGO
From the lot code the bolt is 1940, according to vishooter
http://www.vishooter.net/slc8_2008.html
correction, the data on that site comes from John Beard.
Apparently if it's not a direct match then it means nothing, you can't infer that it probably was. There's just no match.Quote:
Originally Posted by champ0608
Actually, if you've studied the patterns and blocks in the lists, you can infer quite a lot from them. The list bears this out repeatedly. Of course, nothing is stated as fact. I can not say for fact this rifle was in USMC hands. But being in a serial number range dense with USMC issued rifles, and showing several USMC rebuild traits, its quite easy to say this rifle was probably a USMC rifle.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
And at the end of the day, none of that really matters much, except to those of us that were Marines and love Marine collectibles.
Regardless of which branch this rifle served in, it served its nation well, and remains a nice example.
...but it was probably a Marine.
That was what was meant. It wasn't me that came up with that either. I used to infer as well until told by people far more knowledgeable than I about the lists that if it's not a hit, it's not a hit. Now I just tell them that with no conjecture.Quote:
Originally Posted by champ0608