J.B.,

I appreciate your ideas to fix the safety on my 1903. I went through the steps you outlined, one step at a time. On the 7th step, the safety moved freely and very easily after I removed it from the sleeve, cocking piece and mainspring. That's the way it worked before I decided to take it apart and clean it. I put it all back together and reinstalled the sleeve/firing pin in the bolt, hoping things would improve once it was all together again. Unfortunately, things didn't change. If I pull on the cocking piece, I can move the safety to the mid-point position, but that's as far as it goes. When I move the safety back to the "ready" position, the spring relaxes. It won't let me push it to the "safe" position. (I hope I'm using all the correct terminology of the parts.)

If I'm making a mistake in the assembly of the bolt sleeve/firing pin assembly, I'm not sure where I'm making the mistake; all of the parts seem to go back together as they should. If I were to take it to the range, would normal operation of the gun fix this problem? Or, do I need to purchase a new bolt assembly? Or, do you have any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks again for your invaluable help.

BigSky