1903 Springfield

N

Nanook of the north

New member
I've had a 1903 laying around for a while it has been sporterized and it has a synthetic ram line stock on it currently. I'm not sure exactly what year it was made in but its from the WWI era and has weaver military scope mounts on it. Theres no rust at all on it and it has a "high standard" brand barrel on it. My question is there's no blueing left accept for a little on the bolt and the barrel has flakey varnish on it, I was wondering what I should do to bring it back to life persay maby refinish it?
 
Well, you can strip the metal down and then cold blue it yourself. If you degrease everything you can get acceptable results. I find washing the metal with hot soapy water then rinsing with HOT water makes the cold blue take better.

It won't be a "protective" finish like phosphate but it will look nice.

Jimro
 
Cold bluing is for touch-up of small areas. Doing the whole gun would look terrible !! Send it out to a gunsmith to do a proper hot blue or Parkerizing [phosphate] .
 
Nanook of the north:

I have a 1903 A3 Spring Field that has been sporterized and converted to 308 Norma magnum. It doesn't give me one inch groups but it does prodice them in 1 1/4 inch. Your rifle is a strong rifle and rebluing it would be worthwhile. Beware of rifles with serial numbers under 800,000, they are brittle. Brittle receivers were the products of one arsenal only and I can't recall witch one but a google search will reveal it.
Semper Fi.

Gunnery sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
 
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I recently blued my Enfield with some hoppes cold blue that I found in the shed. The kit was new un-opened but looked like from the 1970's due to the lack of a bar code and the funkidelic fonts.

Anyways, I had struggled with the Idea of doing the whole barrel as I had heard that it would look horrible doing a large area. The blue was completly worn off of the barrel as the stock had been cut down by some american GI's in Viet Nam. This rifle was used by a family member and brought home. As it has no historical value, just family value. So, I decided to go for it.

I followed the instructions in the box and the results far exceded my expectations. I also blued a knife blade that I used everyday so as to test the durability and its holding well.
 
One more thing.I really like the Springfield!I personally would like to have one in military trim.Before you invest time and money in yours,I suggest you verify ,by mfg and serial number,that it is not one of the Springfield 1903's that may be unsafe to use with standard ammunition due to some heat treat and steel issues they had with some Springfields.
 
Everything you ever needed to know about '03 Springfield "brittle" receivers.
http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/

I have a Springfield with one of the "brittle" receivers. After some research, I decided it was safe to fire so long as pressures did not exceed that of mil-spec ammo but that is something a person has to decide for themselves.

A couple of comments from the site mentioned above:
The lack of receiver failures after 1929 may have occurred because the rifles with the most brittle metal had been eliminated in the 1917-1929 period. Another important factor is the exhaustion or retirement of soft brass cartridge cases manufactured during the crisis of World War I and still being used up to 1929. . . .

The problem of Springfield receiver failures was a rare event throughout the service years of the Springfield rifle despite statements to the contrary. It was also concentrated in certain years of manufacture suggesting that an important component of the failure was human error in heat treatment. . . . The receiver failures were also compounded by a design flaw in the support of the cartridge case head in the Springfield rifle, and this problem was exacerbated by uneven manufacturing of brass cartridge cases during 1917-18.
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