Early Rock Island Find

[rayg]

Just looked up in the book and it states that rifles that were cleaned and repaired at "Springfield" armory since Oct 1907, had the split sight bases replaced with the solid one. And that would also account for your SA rear sight. The split one would warp and would be difficult to replace. So not so bad, your rifle just went to Springfield for either cleaning or repair. The book doesn't state when RI went to the solid sleeve but it's possible that if Springfield had them, maybe RI also initially installed them in the later 1908 serial number rifles like yours. So I would say it's still a period 07 rifle. Ray