The bolt handle is another part you may want to modify if you plan to shoot the gun with a scope a lot, but as you can see from my pictures, this can be an optional modification, and you can do it with another bolt as well. If you don’t want to inlet your stock, buy another stock, put it on the gun, and inlet that. If you have an ’03 that you wish you could shoot in a casual service rifle competition with optics, this S&K mount kit may work for you and it may not, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. The receiver is generally the only original part on an ’03, and my Rock Island has little collector value other than that it is a genuine Rock Island ’03 that looks pretty good and works. It has no inspector marks, called cartouches, and even if it did, you can buy cartouche stamps on Ebay that when used creatively are virtually undetectable from original specimens. ![]() My stock on the Rock Island could even have been replaced three times and you would never know the difference. In general, ’03 stocks are a dime a dozen and go for $100-$150. The government cannot throw away or destroy battle rifles without an act of congress, so over the last half century or more they have re-barelled, re-stocked, and even completely refinished these rifles over and over again. In the rifle you see in the pictures, a Rock Island ’03 probably made right before World War I, the stock was already definitely not original, and they almost never are. What’s the catch? Well, one is that you do have to inlet your stock a little for the width of the barrel band that holds the front of the mount. For a casual service rifle match, even the oldest eyes will be able to shoot an authentic 1903 Springfield with optics, and without destroying the historical and monetary value of the gun. The S&K mount gives you a standard Weaver base, for use with any standard rings or rail bases. And the nice thing about it is that you can use really any scope setup you want with your rifle. It is made by S&K Scope Mounts and it is called the “Insta-Mount.” With the new replica M73B1 scope being sold by Gibbs Rifle company, it is hard to distinguish an S&K 1903A4 from a real 1903A4. That is why, until now, they have largely just sat in the safe.įortunately, after searching far and wide, I found a scope mount for the 1903 Springfield that doesn’t require drilling and tapping, and actually looks, feels, and is solid like a genuine drilled and tapped mount. Most of us out here with the guns are also history nuts and at least quasi-collector/accumulators, and we can’t just decide to drill and tap them for scope mounts so we can shoot them better. It is very rare if not impossible to find an ’03 that is all original, but they all have historical value and significance. The receivers are extremely hard on most of them and difficult to drill and tap, and drilling and tapping them is a big decision as well. Over a certain age, you really need optics to shoot well, but the 1903 Springfield isn’t the easiest gun on which to mount a scope. Over the past several years there has been an explosion in shooting competitions based on “as issued” military bolt rifles, or “service rifles.” Thousands of old ’03 Springfields and other bolt action battle rifles have left the confines of the gun safe after decades of non-use and have again become “working rifles.” The problem is, a lot of the shooters involved in these new service rifle competitions are great shooters, but have aging eyesight. The Weaver 330 later turned into the M73, and then the M73B1, and with its 2.2x not waterproof sniper scope, the 1903A4 is today the most classic of all US sniper rifles, but they are expensive, in the thousands of dollars for even a beat up one. It first appeared in 1943 and carried a Weaver 330 scope, mounted on a drilled and tapped Redfield base that was created specifically for the gun. Several versions of the 1903 Springfield were used as sniper rifles, the most common of which was the 1903A4. ![]() It served US forces in World War I, then soldiered on into World War II, through the Korean Conflict, and even appeared here and there in Vietnam. ![]() If you trace the evolution of the modern sniper rifle, it invariably leads you back to the Model 1903 Springfield.
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