doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com The little things that make it interesting.

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Not my rifle but the way the trigger guard was lengthened is interesting. I have a sporter built on a Romanian M93 action that was a bring back from WW2. It is fitted with DST and the original military trigger guard was lengthened the same way with the separate interlocking piece to the rear to accomodate them. This one forming a shotgun guard w/tang piece down the grip.
Don't know if the pics show it or not.

Mike, nice to know you were at the Amber Auction also. I managed to purchase .45 X 27/8" Borchardt there. It has been a fine shooter over the years. It is however a bear to shoot with 1000yd
loads. I was able though to get on target at 1000 using a Midrange Sharps tang sight. Regards, FITZ.

Amazing how many folks I have run across that were there. I had tunnel vision at the time and was there for a couple of Niedner's guns, his underhammer rifle and a cased flintlock pistol. I also bid on and won some SS rifles for the folks who bought my plane ticket to Massachusetts. It was a great five days, at the time we all thought we paid a lot for what we got, in hindsight it was nothing like that at all.

PS: What was the lot number of your Sharps?

Another alteration to look for, the bolt lock to keep the bolt from accidentally rising when the safety is off. I’ve only seen this modification on rifle by Barney Worthen of San Francisco. Notice the spring loaded plunger in the front of the safety lug.

Thanks for the detail of the bolt detent, Michael, in fact thsnks for all your efforts, they are greatly appreciated! It is indeed the little things that make it interesting, i.e. the devil is in the details. Most anyone can make an acceptable rifle for use as a tool, but IMO it's the aesthetically fine and unique details that have been changed and developed and added by the maker that make his product stand out from the rest. The 'stand-out' doesn't necessarily have to be the maker's signature feature but IMO every fine rifle needs some sort of conversation piece/braggin' rights item not usually found on other rifles.

And inquiring minds like to see the little things!
Regards, Joe

That bolt detent is a neat piece of work. How effective is it?

Jerry Liles

Joe, What other details would you or others have an interest in, from any maker?

Jerry, When cocked and the safety off the bolt raises very easy and will cause a misfire, this works well to prevent that.

Mike, I'd love to see some pictures of inletting, all those tiny chisel marks and scrapings, especially Wundhammers "gouge marks".

Rob

Michael, the little bolt detent is a perfect example of the things I find most interesting. Installing a detent on a Mauser bolt is easy, the Oberndorf factory showed us how in at least 2 different ways, but the 1903 has always been a puzzlement to me. Some other areas of interest include a trigger-block safety and the details of its retention & positioning, and a closeup view of a Shelhamer grip strap. I'm not interested in using that feature myself but would like to be able to determine the authenticity of any purported Shelhamer stock that I may encounter. Bench-made peep sights of the Krag/Rice type or the one you showed recently on a 1903 would also be quite interesting to me, as would any tang safeties or other unusual alteratioms for scope use.
Again, thanks much for your efforts, they are appreciated! Regards, Joe

At the urging of a couple of friends, I'll reluctantly show some pics of 2 1903 TGs with floorplates hinged in 2 different ways. These are rough-polished only and will look much better when properly polished with stones, but you can get a rough idea of how they'll eventually appear.





The straddle is one I bought on eBay and I assume it's for an M70 Win. The length is almost enough for the 1903 but I had to add steel onto the front of the TG at the bottom around the latch to get a good shape and good contact with the straddle.

The non-straddle is an original that's had a hinge tongue added to the front and a captive button release added to the rear. The top surface of the button can be checkered, stippled, stamped, engraved or left smooth. The hinge pin hole in the floorplate tongue is slotted to allow fore-&-aft movement so that the original latch can be used, per the owner's request. I had heard about this particular treatment but had never used it before and it worked out fine. Eventually. I adjusted the latch action so that release takes a very strong effort, so strong that it's almost impossible that it'll ever be tripped accidentally.

I made the comment that, on a scale from 1 to 10, if hinging a Mauser floorplate was considered to be a 5 then hinging a 1903 floorplate had to be at least a 10. Here is one reason: the TG bow is much thinner on the 1903 and there isn't nearly as much room for the hinge pin and its placement. The Mauser bow is large enough so that a small error in drilling the hinge pin hole can almost always be corrected by drilling & reaming to a larger size, while the thin 1903 bow is very limiting in this area.



One of these assemblies will grace the 1903 I'm building for my friend's son, the other will go on Jerry's new rifle. I apologize for the unfinished appearance of these items but I've gotten old & fat & slow & lazy, oh so lazy, and the final stoned/polished surface finish will just have to wait a while.
Regards, Joe