1903 Remington Restoration Complete Pic Heavy!

[smokeeaterpilot]

Hey Guys,

Just thought I'd share one of the few projects I set out to complete and actually follow through with....

Started out with a 1903 Remington, original finish and the barrel is a replacement but gauged at a TE 0.5 and MW 0, so essentially a brand new barrel. The barrel should be a January - March 1942. If I find one I'll swap out but I'm kinda burned out at this point. You'll see why.

Came in a Keystone Replacement C Stock. Had a few Remington parts but at least gave me a platform to work with. The right parts really helped.



























The parts that were swapped out before I took the pictures were the

Rear sight base, sight hoot, front sight blade, Cut-off, and bayonet lug. I had spares so I immediately replaced those.

Here is the finished product.

































There she is.

I was fortunate enough to find a Boxed RLB stock (which has some issues like a chip behind the tang, someone cut a chunk out of the TG area, and routed out around the rear action screw [fortunately, that's covered up and inside the stock and you can only see it when the rifle is disassembled])

The stock also came with a Remington Buttplate and the action I found later happened to have a Remington Trigger guard.

The Remington lower band is not the original finish but the best with what I could find they're hard enough.


The blued 1903 Remington bolt came from Greece and was pretty pricy but beggers can be choosers. I love the contrast between blued and parked parts.


At the end of the day it's a "put-together" which I know the experts can pick a part and probably is only worth 2/3 or 3/4 what an all original would be.

But you do the best you can with what you got!

What do you all think?

 

[OfficerObie59]

Beautiful cartouche on that stock.

 

[OfficerObie59]

Beautiful cartouche on that stock.

Yeah, the Remington M1903's ordered for lend-lease (not all of them ended up being used by the Brit's, but that's why they were ordered) have, for some reason, long been regarded as not as desirable as their Springfield counterparts. Foolish if you ask me. But finding parts can be a chore, if you're of that mind of correcting a gun and looking to put it in the original state--almost every major part of the Rem 03's was stamped.

Looks great. Nice job.


(Just in case you had any interest, a shameless plug my Mark 1 resto project: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...ark-I-Restoration-Project-(Warning-Pic-Heavy) )

 

[smokeeaterpilot]

Beautiful cartouche on that stock.

Yeah, the Remington M1903's ordered for lend-lease (not all of them ended up being used by the Brit's, but that's why they were ordered) have, for some reason, long been regarded as not as desirable as their Springfield counterparts. Foolish if you ask me. But finding parts can be a chore, if you're of that mind of correcting a gun and looking to put it in the original state--almost every major part of the Rem 03's was stamped.

Looks great. Nice job.


(Just in case you had any interest, a shameless plug my Mark 1 resto project: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...ark-I-Restoration-Project-(Warning-Pic-Heavy) )

Yeah I wouldn't mind a red star remington but they're too expensive for my taste.

Beautiful Mark I, an all correct Mark I (I have a correct sear, cutoff and spindle) is on my radar but I'm after a USMC 1903 rebuild first. It seems this 1903 collecting is never over!

Thanks guys!

Only thing I wish I did was take a picture of the hand guard before and after. The one I received was almost NOS and very "blonde" in color. A friend of mine (his wife actually) does beautiful stock work and blended it to match the RLB stock. I think she did an amazing job! You can barely tell they weren't together from the start.