doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com 03 Springfield SN question

I am at work, and will take pictures when I get home and post them this evening. It maybe kind of hard to get the digital camera to focus on the marks on the muzzle. Where would be the best places to measure the barrel diameters to compare it to NRA sporters?

It's a neat gun and we all think it's an NRA Sporter. Too bad so many of them got civilian sporterized, but that's what we collect after all. Some of my favorite rifles are NRA Sporters that were used to create "other sporters". Only the star remains, but, in the future, the star will mean something. I have posted before about my 92 year old gun buddy who stocked an NRA Sporter in birdseye maple in the forties, kicking himself every day for losing the original stock and hardware. When he leaves us in the next ten or fifteen years, I will treasure that "ruined" NRA Sporter that my long time friend built. I still have the 1937 issue of the American Rifleman where he advertised "Wanted, NRA Sporter barrelled action, cheap, contact XXX Chevy Chase, MD." The person who contacted him with the NRA Sporter for sale was a gentleman who I had shot with in the fifties as a pre teenager at our gun club, which was founded by my friend's father in the very early thirties. Don't give up on the NRA Sporters just because they are not in original condition.

Well, here are some pictures, I've obviously got to work at my skills with a digital camera. For reference, I placed a 1903 action with a serial number of 1349588 next to it. The possible NRA sporter is the one with the Lyman 48. You can see the subtle differences in barrel contour. Given the fact that I can barely take a picture of the electro-penciled numbers on the bolt. I did not attempt to take a picture of the muzzle, there is something at 6 o'clock, but it could be a ding. On the bottom of the barrel, approximately 4 inches from the receiver there is an "I" and below that "326". [/img] [img][/img]

Congratulations! You bought a nice NRA sporter with what looks like a nice stock to boot. Heck of a deal, enjoy. If you still have it apart please show some pictures of the inletting.

Yep, Looks like the real deal. I bought a Sporter out of a pawn shop that was in a thumbhole stock nowhere as nice as yours. Unfortunately the barrel had been bobbed about 3/8" and the front sight set back. As already mentioned stocks and fittings are pretty hard to come by. I happened onto a M22 stock and mounted the Sporter action in it.Dressed up the crown put a Lyman globe front sight on it and made it into a "old school" high power rifle. It will clean the SR21 target pretty handily and I have shot 10 shot groups just over 1" with it. The load is essentially a hopped up cast bullet load with jacketed match bullets. My 9 and 10 year old grandsons can shoot it confortably without excessive recoil.

All auction houses use shipping as another way to make a few $$, I beleive. Greg Martin certainly does. If the "buy" is good enough, just remember to factor in the added costs. You have to add the buyer's premium, their flat rate per item packing fee, then their sky high shipping costs with FedEx 2nd day air, which is what they use. There may still be a few good buys at on-line auction houses, but they are fewer and farther between now, the added costs are only part of the reason, but a big one.

You were in a good place at a good time, it would appear.

Ken,
Would you please share your target load recipe with us? Thanks,

Richard

Richard,
Sent you a PM

If it does't work send me your e-mail address.

knelson@phoenixcomm.us

Thanks for the information and opinions on this rifle. When I was a kid growing up, I'd read my Dad's copies of the American Rifleman and Gun Report. I'd read about star-gauged 1903 and how accurate and rare they were, and how many were faked. I am looking forward to taking it to the range and shooting it. So is my Dad . Any recommendations for a good factory load?

As far as the stock is concerned, it is a high end Bishop stock, nice figure, the inletting is enhanced with glass bedding. The checkering is nice. The rows are good, no run overs. On the pistol grip, there is a small parallelogram where they've used a higher density checkering tool. [/img]

PhysDoc, notwithstanding the reblue, if the bore is excellent that rifle @ $219 plus the various auctioneer charges may just end up being the very biggest steal of 2009. IMO it is worth several times that price. This summer I hit on a double heat treated Sporter at a Pennsylvania show, the action and original stock still about mint, but with a 1903A3 barrel. I cheerfully coughed up 1g for it and thought it a bargain.