doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Griffin & Howe Rifle Questions

PhysDoc called my attention to this item (http://www.gunauction.com/buy/12565717#) offered for sale, which would seem to contradict my analysis of the situation. The rifle in question, evidently a low numbered Springfield 1903, is equipped with a port side receiver sight, which seems to be an ordinary starboard side sight which has somehow been converted. It does not appear to be a Lyman, but could be, I suppose, a Pacific. Why someone would go to all the trouble to mount a sight this way is beyond me. Maybe it was done on a bet.

I am familiar with the sight bases which allow various kinds of target receiver sights to be mounted on the left side of a
Springfield receiver, but as mentioned above, they are not compatible with a top scope mount, so I did not consider them.

I think that is the same rifle I had seen that sight on before. I think the sight was designed to be used as pictured. Note the little knurled round segment just behind the sight? I believe that piece rotates on the magazine cut-off spindle and acts as your bolt release. If mounted on the other side of the rifle the base would interfere with the bolt handle, or the slide would cover the stripper clip slot. Although, as it is I would hate to get my finger between the bolt handle and the right side of the cross bar in the middle of a rapid fire string.

The most interesting thing to me about this rifle is the streamlined tang, and rounded front of the receiver ring. This work does not at all match the poor quality of the stock.

John

This just received from PhysDoc:

"I think, and I am pretty sure on this, that the sight on that 1903 is, according to Nick Stroebel's book, a Marble-Goss Super Springfiield No. 7 Sight

Designed specifically for the Springfield Model 1903 rifle, this sight was mounted in the magazine cutoff, without any modification to the gun being necessary. It featured a quick detachable elevation staff. 1/4 minute "hand-lapped thread" click adjustments and a reversible disc carriage for choice of an iron or telescopic height sight picture. Value: $150-$275"

I suspect this sight was designed with target shooters in mind, who wanted to use their NM Springfields as match rifles in appropriate matches, without altering them permanently by drilling and tapping for a Lyman 48.

The alterations to the action were characteristics of Wundhammer's Springfields. I wonder if there is a small checkered area on the underside of the bolt handle, another of his characteristics. Somebody may have found a diamond in the rough.