1903A3 Shooting Left... Way Left.

[tjtheduke]

Good morning, I have been reading the forum for years and finally had a reason to join and post. I have a Remington 03A3 that shoots 9" to the left at 50yds with the rear sight centered (with full deflection I can get it to about 4"). It actually groups pretty well, just not in the right location.

The barrel appears to be the original, dated a couple months before the receiver, and the index mark is aligned, but I suppose it's possible that it has been re-barreled at some point - I wouldn't know how to tell beyond that date range. The front sight is undamaged and the rear is slightly offset on the receiver but not enough to be the culprit. Rifling is still in good shape, with some minor pitting in the grooves.

I took it to a gunsmith in FL who recommended I sell it and let someone else deal with the problem. After that indication of his character I took my rifle and left.

I think a good experiment would be to swap the barrel, but I want to make sure I've covered all my less-expensive bases first. I was hoping to keep this rifle as original as possible, but if it can't shoot it's no good to me either. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Information

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[rcathey]

Hmm..interesting.
Is the front sight clocked correctly? I see the witness mark is correct but that doesn’t *necessarily* mean the front sight is right.

[Patrick Chadwick]

I see the witness mark is correct but that doesn’t *necessarily* mean the front sight is right.

I don't see anything. Am I missing something?

[rcathey]

I don't see anything. Am I missing something?

I should say, “I read that....”

[Detroit-1]

Make sure the stock is not pushing on the side of the barrel. Check both action screws are tight.

[Patrick Chadwick]

9" at 50 yards is phenomenal! That is hard to explain with just one error. Maybe you are extremely unlucky and more than one of the following applies.

1) "It actually groups pretty well, just not in the right location" is not sufficiently precise.
At 50 yards, and using a rest or hand support, the group should be less than 2" diameter. More like 1".
If much larger, then the muzzle crown may have serious cord wear.
This pushes the group to one side and opens it up. So how large is the group?

2) 9" at 50 yards translates very roughly to 1/10" over the sight radius of a '03. This would be so crass that, if the foresight is so far askew, you should be able to see it by simply holding the rifle in a rest, adjusting so that the backsight frame is horizontal, and then looking to see if the foresight blade is vertical. If you can see that it is out of true, then that is the first thing to correct.

3) As correctly posted by Detroit, if the barrel is binding in the barrel channel, then this will also put the shots off line, but once again, the deviation is so huge that this is unlikely to be the only cause.

4) The barrel is just plain bent. I have experienced that once, with a flintlock replica, but never anything noticeable with an original rifle of any vintage. If it is bent as much as 1/10, then you should be able to see that by looking down the barrel from the breech end. If you cannot see all the grooves at the muzzle end, then one or more grooves are being hidden behind the bend.

As mentioned, it is possible that Murphy's Law struck very heavily here, and you have several faults all acting together! It is hard to explain the deviation with a single fault, other than 4).

[Patrick Chadwick]

Good to know it's not my computer!

[pickax]

Another way is to rest the rifle securely on bags or rest with the bolt pulled. Align the sights on a good definition, fairly close target.
compare sight picture to through the bore picture.
This should give an idea of sight indexing and also tell if bore is straight.
Good luck!

[CINDERS]

"the rear is slightly offset on the receiver but not enough to be the culprit"

You say that rear sight is marginally mis aligned in the scheme of things we are dealing with the accuracy of the sights which have to be bang on within reason and it only takes a poofteenth to make the thing out of whack.
If it was the stock or loose screws then the results of dispersion would be erratic as it would not be repeatable because the weapon would not consistently return to the zero point I know this because the draws on my T were stuffed and it had a 20MOA group at a 100M shooting on a 300M full bore target plus the front trigger guard collar was to long causing the action to rock which I suspect stuffed the draws.
I would see what goes on with the rear sight and as PC suggests have a look at the crown for dents or chord wear also shine a light not directly down the bore and look into it to see if it has any shadows along its length I think that's what they looked for when straightening 303 barrels by eye the shadow being a slight woof (Ausie for bend) in the barrel.

[Ridolpho]

My own 03A3, which appeared to be unused when I got it, required a substantial windage correction to zero it. Would not the proper fix be to drift the rear sight body one way or the other on the dovetail mount? You would think that a radically un-zeroed rifle has either not been issued (post manufacture or post refurb) or has been fooled with by a previous owner.

Ridolpho