1903a3 recovery & 1903 as well.

1
So believe it or not, I dont just build Ak's. This here is righting an old wrong.

1903a3 National Ordnance receiver turd / hand grenade. Granted, I know this one is good, headspaced correctly, & has been shot a fair bit since the mid to late 80's. But it needs to be put back right for sentimental reasons.

Now 03a3 receivers are a bit of a bitch to find & ain't cheap when they do pop up. Especially a Smith Corona receiver. Which is exactly what I needed. Go figure. Enter the deactivated drill rifle. Was pointed to a company that sells drill rifles that isn't the CMP. Damn thing still cost more than most of the guns I own. But it is what it is.

The deactivation process for those who dont know is as thus.
1: jam a steel rod in the barrel.
2: torch a hole in the barrel.
3: cut the firing pin tip.
4: weld the firing pin hole in the bolt.
5: weld the magazine cut off in the off position so the bolt cant be removed.
6: weld the barrel to the bottom of the receiver.

Simple enough to reverse some of that stupidity.

First. Gingerly grind / file down the barrel to receiver weld. The barrel is toast. Grind away on that & then slowly hand file that back to the receiver. Leave just a smidgen of the weld. It'll break easily. For whatever reason, they used stainless steel for the welds. It doesn't really combine with the carbon steel of the rifle well.

Have the proper tools for this!!! Dont destroy the receiver with a dang pipe wrench!!! Mount it up in a barrel vise & mauser action wrench. Little bit of force & off it comes.

More to come folks.
Last edited by mattgunguy on Wed Jul 07, 2021 2:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1903a3 recovery

3
I've got a insanely large collection of hand files. I probably buy every old hand file I see at a flea market. But I digress & back to the topic at hand.

The deactivation guy got a little weld happy on this receiver. Was not fortunate enough to get one with a light weld on the magazine cut off.

Steps involved (the dremel is your friend here).
1: clamp the receiver in a vise. But be sure to not crush anything. Move as needed. I clamped the barrel in the vise & threaded the receiver back on hand tight.
2: start to grind out the magazine cut off welds. I wasnt sure where the weld ended & the cut off began.
3: be careful. Make sure that that it's the weld & cut off you're going at. The cut off is toast. The receiver ain't.
4: break of what's left of the cut off & hopefully be able to get the bolt out. This one had a small amount of weld filler get into a race for a locking lug of the bolt. Took a little persuasion of the dead blow hammer variety.

Next up is clean up.
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Re: 1903a3 recovery

5
lurker wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 2:18 pm hey, you missed a speck! (kidding, kidding, don't hurt me.)
Hmmmmm. Did I now....

Did I mention that I've a crap to of hand files. Lots & lots of little hand filing. I also took my dremel & ground out a most or all of the stainless steel weld & built that back up with carbon steel weld. So I may be able to get this thing reparked at some point. Could have done better, but I dont want anyone to confuse it with a original rifle. So I left it a little rough.

Now I've got to brake down the National Ordnance turd & see how this thing is gonna headspace. Which I got some nice new headspace gauges for just that. But I've not got that far. Maybe tomorrow morning after work.
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Re: 1903a3 recovery

8
I do what I can. I dont like seeing history go into the scrap bin. And I might have three more of these coming in the next week or so to work on. Those won't go as fast, barrels are proving to be troublesome.

But this one is essentially done. Gotta swap out rear sights still & one is being difficult.

Getting the National Ordnance receiver off was something of a pain in the kester. It was really cranked down on the barrel. Good thing though, ment that the barrel hadn't been messed.

Steps to get done:
1: get the turd receiver off. Set aside for potential project that's forming in the ole melon of mine.
2: clean up the barrel threads, & apply some assembly line for good measure.
3: clean up the receiver threads. Brake cleaner is great, but I used windex this time.
4: hand thread the receiver to the barrel. Be absolutely sure that your not cross threading. There was a small burr I'd not noticed that tried to cross thread the receiver. Hand tightening thing prevented messing the receiver up. Easy easy fix. Before things have been dorked up.
5: there's a witness mark on both the barrel & receiver. These are supposed to line up after torquing the barrel on. This limes the sights up. These Mark's are set at the original factory. When hand tight, there should 10° to 16° between the lines before torquing the barrel down.
6: clamp everything back up in the barrel vise & action wrench. Go to town. Line the witness marks up. No more. No less.
7: check your headspace. I prefer a 3 gauge set, but I've only got a Go & No-Go set. Good enough. Be sure to remove the extractor from the bolt. That was the biggest crap shoot of this project. But it headspaced perfectly.
8: reassemble & enjoy.
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Re: 1903a3 recovery & 1903 as well.

16
figure I'd add this one here rather than a new thread.

I stumbled across a NOS 1903 Springfield barrel & a fairly nice stock recently at a really good price (paid the going rate for the barrel & got the stock for free basically). So one of my other two rebuilds got a jump in the time line. Evil scheme is still in the works though. Just need a few few more parts & some tools I don't yet own (along with the money to pay for it, job situation been a bit fluid of late).

Barrel is a factory fresh High Standard replacement barrel made October 1944. The HS barrels have a reputation for being very accurate. The only semi obnoxious thing though, all USGI replacement barrels were short chambered & I didn't own a finish reamer. Those damn things ain't cheap. Flea bay to the rescue. Found a new reamer & an extra set of headspace guages shipped from Serbia for $125. Hopefully I didn't screw myself, I've never used this brand before. But I've generally been impressed with Serbian quality when it comes to firearms & firearms related products. And I can't afford American made ones right now. 5 week quoted shipping time was more like 5 days. Orders last Thursday, arrived the following Tuesday. Hurrah for the Serbian postal service, the usps should take lessons. I can't get a letter across town in 5 days, let alone a quarter of the way around the planet.

Of my available receivers on hand, I decided to use the early Remington receiver & the better of the two stocks I've got right now. The Remington receiver is closest to restored from its drill rifle days. Just needed a few swipes of the file here & there. So that'll leave the high number Springfield Armory receiver for the evil scheme & the National Ordnance is still a paperweight.

The barrel went on with a little fuss, but timed just about perfect. I don't really like the looks of the simplified WW2 rear sight bases without the milled flats. So I installed an earlier one. Was much simpler than I anticipated. There is a small pin between the barrel and rear sight base that helps to keep it from spinning, which I didn't have. Made one from the shank of a 1/32" drill bit. This pin runs length wise with the barrel. Then there is a cross pin on the bottom of the sight base. Haven't done that one yet.

Stuck with a 03a3 magazine housing for now. Its bugging me. Doesn't belong on a rifle where everything else is milled steel.

Everything is test assembled. Still got to do the chamber still. Figure I'll try to document that for those who've never really seem the process. Not that there is much to it, just tedious. I like the stock, its got some interesting fugure at the butt. Reminds me of some Finnish stocks I've seen.
Screw communism

Re: 1903a3 recovery & 1903 as well.

23
lurker wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 5:24 pm guns made at the end of wars tend be be set aside and forgotten, especially if obsolete by the next war.

I will both agree & disagree with that statement. Up until the end of WW2 most of the so called 1st world or western governments were fairly frugal with military expenditures. Stuff didn't get tossed out of the armories until it was just flat out junk. There were still many millions of blackpowder weapons used in WW1 for example. But rear echelon troops. Guards were still sometimes issued trapdoor Springfields on the west coast after Peral Harbor. US Marines invaded Guadalcanal with 1903 Springfields. Large parts of the French army were still equipped with 1886 Lebel rifles in 1938. Now after the war & especially in the west, its always gotta be the the latest & greatest for the most part (I don't count the Soviet Union in this as I'm not sure they ever scap small arms). Look at US small arms. The M1 Garand was standard issue for roughly 20 years. Then we got saddled with the M14 (politics killed the Fn-Fal here). Standard issue for about 8 years. Followed up with the M16 in the 60s, M16a1 for the 70s, M16a2 for the 80s &part of the 90s, M4 & its obscene about of variants since. So thats 10-15 years for a standard issue small arm. 60 years of product development for a rifle for the US military. Billions of dollars to re-arm to the latest & greatest, And then just give the old stuff away.

I'm rambling again. Government waste disgusts me & I don't give a damn which party is in power, they both love spending the peoples money.
Screw communism

Re: 1903a3 recovery & 1903 as well.

25
The tools involved.

I've got a test bolt, the regular bolt with the extractor removed. Use both a GO & NO GO headspace gauges. I know people who just use a GO gauge. I say time & again, USE BOTH!! They're not that damn expensive.

Mount the reamer in the handle & coat with a cutting fluid / oil. I'm a fan of Tap Magic. Put it in the chamber & make a few turns. Don't use much in the way of downward pressure while doing this. Remove the cutter, clean the chamber and then check with the GO gauge. Repeat as needed until the bolt will just close on the GO gauge & then confirm that it will not close on the NO GO gauge.

Reassemble and test fire.

Now I did screw up some. I had been continuously test fitting everything together with the junk bolt i got with it. The good bolt that I've got is for an A4 rifle. Which needs a modified stock to clear the turn down at the root of the bolt handle. So now I get to break out the wood working tools.

I also highly recommend keeping headspace gauges, reams, & associated tools in one spot. I had to get a new T-handle extension for the reamer. Can't find the old one. As well as a good set of gunsmith screw drivers.
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