Hi Everyone, I'm a new member of this forum! In my search for the perfect rifleman's rifle, I think I found mine. I came across a sporterized M1903, serial number 12946XX. The rifle dates to 1928, has a star-gauged barrel marked SA 5-28, has an early Lyman 48 rear sight, and the bolt is nickel steel in the white with the serial number electro-penciled into the top of the bolt body. The rifle came bedded into a sporter stock with a cork-like material, and there was no butt-plate. The stock that the rifle came in was not like the NRA sporters, it has a plastic cap under the pistol grip and at the front, about 1/2 the way down the barrel where the stock ends, is a thin metal barrel band that is tight around the barrel, screwed into a metal block inside of the stock in which a sling swivel is screwed. The receiver of the rifle is drilled and tapped on the left side for a Griffen and Howe mount, and the sporterized stock has been originally inletted for that mount.
To restore the rifle to a somewhat original military configuration, and I say somewhat because I put an A3 hand guard on it, and use the Lyman rear sight as the only rear sight, I purchased a new Minelli walnut M1903 A3 C stock from Stocky's, along with all of the metal replacement parts from Numrich, and went to work on the stock with some "boiled" linseed oilicon that I heated up myself. I used my Swissicon Army knife to carve the inlet for the Lyman sight. It's a real hack job, but I like it. I noticed that the Minelli stock was kind of soft and light compared to CMPicon walnut stocks of the same type, but it works. And here she is, the finished product. I purchased the Williams peep-sight disk, 3/8's of an inch and a 0.05 aperature hole from Midway, and it came in only 2 days with standard shipping! The stock fit like a glove. The only stock metal that came with the sporterized version of the rifle was the rear sling swivel piece, with it's two screws, one of which I replaced. The bore has an M.E. of 1.0 and is otherwise bright with no pitting. So far I love the way this rifle now looks and feels and it should be a great shooter. Has anyone else recently restored a sporterized M1903 closer to original military configuration lately?


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