1903 with possibilities

[HILLBILLY-06]

You don't write like no hillbilly. Except that you spelt cartouche wrong.

Sounds like a good find. Yeah, I hope you know what you're doing with the low numbered ones. Are you close to Anniston?

Many thanks on the hillbilly comment, and yeah i had trouble with that cartouche word, and didn't look it up. You all know a lot about these guns, and all I know is what I have seen in the past. It don't bother me at all about not shooting it, but the thing is, "The whole truth of the thing" Well, this guy accidentally, unknowingly, had recently sold me a lemon so to speak. Now before anyone gets started on that too bad, LOL let me please say this.... I have gotten plenty of really great guns from this guy in the past, so this one time I speak of, here in detail, was pure accident. The lemon rifle was smothered in cosmoline, and I had made a real assumption that becuase it was that way, it had been in storage a long time. I thought perhaps it had not been so abused, or misused, or dragged around all over, so I had chosen it solely based on how it appeared, knowing before hand, as I did so, he would stand behind it anyway.
Well, that night, kids are in the bed and the T.V. is on, so I grabbed the old shower curtain, spread it out on the dinner table, and quickly began to feast my eyes on taking that old war horse apart to get all that gunky goo out of it. Now mind you, up until this point, all is good in my world. I had three hooks on my war wall (some of you may have seen it) where I had stuff hanging there for my display. Well I had finally filled all three hooks on this venture, and was preparing for more posts and pics, the story telling gallore.... you know, the basic I had too much coffee all day long, waiting for this moment to happen. Then, as gently and careful as I could, I slowly began to wipe down and remove the grease, then sloted srews all removed... I lifted forward and up on the front hangaurd, and all is still good. Then as my rag passed over the barrel, it gripped differently. Still covered in goo, I began to remove the trigger group, so I could get a closer look at the barrel. I SEE some of you lauphing already, I know... keep going, so I turned the action over real easy, and my heart skipped a beat. I felt my breath pause, and I suddenly became sick at my stomache. "Dang'ed if I didn't do it again", I said.
So what I am about to tell you, is that it took several minutes before I could even blink, or take another breath, I saw, for the very first time in my life, something that I knew didn't belong on the bottom of that barrel, and then something that didn't belong on the side of it either. OH MAN I was in shock, I thought I did a good job picking out one that was all greasy... but NO, I done did it again. Much to my supprise, under the wood, where the store keepers wont let you look, was a "Nice, scarred up grinder marks all over it and a Shiney, Upside Down, Dovetail Sight Notch" AND Two holes drilled in the side of the barrel? UNDER the wood, where you cant see it in the store... @%@$#%@$#%#%@$#!!!!!!!!!
Well, I had it that far apart, So I kept looking.... Not only was that barrel off of god knows what, but when i wipped and scraped all the cosmoline out of the trigger group, I found the floor plate was pinned and welded shut, AND to top that off, I got the Bolt out, removed the cosmoline from the chamber face, and saw a dang groove cut into the chamber face from the bolt. OH MAN, i suddenly felt aweful, it took me all night, till way past midnight to settle down, Because I forgot for a molment that he stands behind his stuff. Well, I finally remembered that, but it was 1:00am Sunday morning, SO I started pacing the floors, drinking coffee till it ran out my ears, I knew I had to wait until Monday morning, just to tell someone. Even then, I wasnt sure how they would react, they might might get mad, they might blame me, I didn't know what they would say.
So I started trying to practice, how I was going to approach this, and not make things go wrong, or bad for me. I wanted to figure out, how to say all the right stuff, so I just wouldn't get off on the wrong foot, or make them mad at me. OH all kinds of things were running through my head... I felt bad, i felt really bad. But I kept remembering, he stands behind his stuff, he said..."If you have a problem let me know" I just felt so aweful bad, I was nervous when I called Monday morning, I didn't know where to start or what to say.... "But I must have said it right" and I must have done O.K.........Sorry, pause for the cause, back in a minute....O.K got my coffee, had my smoke, dog walked.... I should have warned you, this is a long story, but I think in my honest opinion, it has a good ending....bare with me....
The guy took my call, listned to what I had to say, and told me to bring it down, "He was going to make it right" No problem, nobody got bent out of shape, nobody got all angry and mad, he made this a simple transaction, and handled everything quite well. I was very calm, the whole time I was there, he was eager to work this out, and after explaining what I found wrong, here is what he did.... "He went and grabbed up one that was out of my price range so to speak" One that I had not looked at before, because he already knew before what my budget was going to be. At first, I didn't like it on the first glance, because it had squiggly writing all over it on the wood, all over the buttstock, "and I don't mean with a pencil either" This was some kind of gauddy ugly looking paint, that stood out like a sore thumb. You could see it from all the way accross the room once he picked it up. So my first impression was, "well I hope that crap comes off" then he showed it to me up close. It wasn't just some dumb kid with a freaky crayon addiction, and terrible artistic tallent. "This Rifle Was Autographed" and not just by one person either. Yeah, it's still another low number receiver, I hear you lauphing again.... Bare with me.... it gets better....
The first thing he offered to do with this rifle, was take it apart on the counter, right in front of me, to be sure nothing was obviously amiss. Then he began to tell me about the signatures on the rifle, and how he came about them. O.K. "I'll take it" said I.... but wait.... there's more... The whole gunsmith thing, well yeah, this ones going to get thouroghly checked out.... and I wont be able to take it home yet. Plus if the gunsmith says anything is wrong with it, I believe he said not to worry, we will work this out and still make it right. Now mind you, I got a receipt for one, but I still have to do a little more waiting. I hope the gunsmith says it's O.K. I hear the questions already, and I think I saved the best for last.... I had mentioned earlier that this rifle is signed by three guys.... Yes it is, and no I don't have a picture to prove it, I don't have a letter of Authenticity either, but I guess that dosn't matter as much as a guy would think. I am not trying to sell the rifle, I am trying very hard now just to wait out the process of going to pick it up.
Those three guy's you see, have known each other for a very long time. They took a bit of a trip together, and went someplace many years ago, of great significance and of great historical value to us all. These three men, on this trip they took, volunteerd to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, flying ove 100 miles per hour a couple hundred feet or so off the ground. They jumped out of that plane, and many more like them, jumped out of many more planes. These three guys, made history what it is today, through many hardships, and with great sacrifice. They Endured many things back then, things some of us often take for granted. But these three men will never be forgotten, nor those brave men who stood and stayed beside them. They are three of the remaining survivors of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. They came to a Gunshow, here in my neck of the woods, on March 17th and 18th 2012, at the BJCC in Birmingham Alabama. They signed lots of autographs that day, and as I said I don't have a photo of the signing, nor a letter of authenticity, and I really dont care. Like I said, I'm not trying to sell it. It was offered to me, And I accepted it. That's the story that I had to tell, about my experience with a low number 1903 rifle. Yeah, I know it would be just too cool to have a signed M1 Garand, but it is what it is, and I hope soon to have it here. I have not told this story in whole to anyone else. I tried talking about it in another forum, I wont mention which one, and that conversation got all out of hand, so I hope I do a better job this time, and I hope you all like my 1903 story. It's just something I wanted to share, with others, who may also read this, and have a story to tell.................. HILLBILLY-06.