cal30_sniper
WKR
I thought it would be fun to kick off a thread chronicling an old rifle I'm trying to breathe some new life into. I've always taken a lot of pleasure shooting and hunting with older rifles, but this is probably my toughest (and hopefully most worthwhile) challenge yet.
The subject matter is a 1903-A3 Springfield that was sporterized by my great Uncle for my grandfather some time back in the late 60s/early 70s. My grandfather had a recurring hunting trip to the Wolf Creek Pass area of Colorado that went on for close to 20 years between him and a few other west Texas hunting buddies, and this was the regular rifle he carried for about the first decade of that journey. I got this rifle from my grandfather's estate after he passed about 5 years ago. I had tried to buy it from him several years before that when I got a lot of his other guns, but it was the one rifle he wouldn't part with. In his mind, as long as the 03-A3 was in the safe, he still had a chance to get back to CO. In my mind, if I can take this rifle hunting, he's still there with me in some way.
My great uncle was a heck of an amateur gunsmith, but this rifle is carrying some extra baggage that needs to get sorted. The work done is top-notch from what I can tell. The rifle was rechambered to 300 Win Mag using the original 2-groove .30-06 barrel, the barrel was reprofiled to a sporter contour, and the action was smoothed up a little and reblued. It rides in a really functional walnut sporter stock with a top notch bedding job, and was converted to a machined 1903 floorplate and trigger guard assembly in the process. Additional compliments include a vintage Timney Sportsman trigger and a Dayton low scope safety, as well as a period correct Bausch & Lomb scope and mounting system. The action is smooooth, and feeds those big fingerlings of 300WM like butter.
When I had discussed this rifle with my grandfather, he was adamant that there was one handload my great uncle had come up with that shot lights out, but that it shot bad with just about everything else. When I purchased his Sako 7 Rem Mag and a bunch of other gear from his later CO hunting days, we turned up a few of those old 300 loads which he kept, but sometime in the ensuing several years they went missing and my brother and I weren't able to turn them up in his estate, so I'll be starting from scratch in that dept. He never gave us any details on what that load was, and my great uncle has been gone for a very long time.
I finally got the old girl out to the range this weekend for a baseline. I had picked up some Hornady whitetail 150gr loads to try out in it and see if the legends were true, and at least initial results said they are. While still sighted in for a pretty good 200-300yd hunting zero, the rifle was shooting 7MOA, even after checking the torque on the action screws.
So, with the old stories checked out, at least with a datapoint of one, I headed home to begin the saga of trying to get this thing sorted. I've got a January cow elk hunt here in NM that I'd like to get this thing up and running for, and I plan to chronicle progress here.
Step 1 will be a general cleanup. The bore is DIRTY, and likely contains some pitting (i.e. why I don't understand people who are adamant about not cleaning rifles, my grandfather did not clean guns and this was often the result). I did some heavy cleaning last night, and there are definitely pits in a few areas of the bore, but I've had worse shoot well, so we'll see.
Step 2 will probably be ditching the old Bausch & Lomb Balvar 8 mount and scope for a Redfield or Leupold base and rings with a better scope. I'll keep the original stuff for nostalgia's sake, but I want to find something more hunt ready, and I'm not sure some of the accuracy evils don't lie in the mounting setup.
Step 3 will be load development in an attempt to save this barrel. If I can find something that will shoot 2MOA or better, I'll be happy. The first load I'm going to try will be a few ladders of 178gr ELD-Xs I have laying around in some Lapua brass with either IMR-7828, IMR-4831, or H4831. I also have a few sample packs of various Hammer Hunter bullets on the way, as I've found them to shoot superbly accurate in my other rifles.
Step 4 (pending results of Step 3) may end up being a rebore to 338-300 Win Mag. I have the dies for this caliber, and that should clean up the pitted bore nicely without losing the nostalgia of the original barrel that so much work was put into. I'd be limited to just a few .338 bullets with the 3.38" mag length this rifle has, but it's an option. It does look like the mag box can be extended rearward .1-.2" with some mods to the bolt stop, so that's an option potentially as well.
Follow along if you want to track this project!
The subject matter is a 1903-A3 Springfield that was sporterized by my great Uncle for my grandfather some time back in the late 60s/early 70s. My grandfather had a recurring hunting trip to the Wolf Creek Pass area of Colorado that went on for close to 20 years between him and a few other west Texas hunting buddies, and this was the regular rifle he carried for about the first decade of that journey. I got this rifle from my grandfather's estate after he passed about 5 years ago. I had tried to buy it from him several years before that when I got a lot of his other guns, but it was the one rifle he wouldn't part with. In his mind, as long as the 03-A3 was in the safe, he still had a chance to get back to CO. In my mind, if I can take this rifle hunting, he's still there with me in some way.
My great uncle was a heck of an amateur gunsmith, but this rifle is carrying some extra baggage that needs to get sorted. The work done is top-notch from what I can tell. The rifle was rechambered to 300 Win Mag using the original 2-groove .30-06 barrel, the barrel was reprofiled to a sporter contour, and the action was smoothed up a little and reblued. It rides in a really functional walnut sporter stock with a top notch bedding job, and was converted to a machined 1903 floorplate and trigger guard assembly in the process. Additional compliments include a vintage Timney Sportsman trigger and a Dayton low scope safety, as well as a period correct Bausch & Lomb scope and mounting system. The action is smooooth, and feeds those big fingerlings of 300WM like butter.
When I had discussed this rifle with my grandfather, he was adamant that there was one handload my great uncle had come up with that shot lights out, but that it shot bad with just about everything else. When I purchased his Sako 7 Rem Mag and a bunch of other gear from his later CO hunting days, we turned up a few of those old 300 loads which he kept, but sometime in the ensuing several years they went missing and my brother and I weren't able to turn them up in his estate, so I'll be starting from scratch in that dept. He never gave us any details on what that load was, and my great uncle has been gone for a very long time.
I finally got the old girl out to the range this weekend for a baseline. I had picked up some Hornady whitetail 150gr loads to try out in it and see if the legends were true, and at least initial results said they are. While still sighted in for a pretty good 200-300yd hunting zero, the rifle was shooting 7MOA, even after checking the torque on the action screws.
So, with the old stories checked out, at least with a datapoint of one, I headed home to begin the saga of trying to get this thing sorted. I've got a January cow elk hunt here in NM that I'd like to get this thing up and running for, and I plan to chronicle progress here.
Step 1 will be a general cleanup. The bore is DIRTY, and likely contains some pitting (i.e. why I don't understand people who are adamant about not cleaning rifles, my grandfather did not clean guns and this was often the result). I did some heavy cleaning last night, and there are definitely pits in a few areas of the bore, but I've had worse shoot well, so we'll see.
Step 2 will probably be ditching the old Bausch & Lomb Balvar 8 mount and scope for a Redfield or Leupold base and rings with a better scope. I'll keep the original stuff for nostalgia's sake, but I want to find something more hunt ready, and I'm not sure some of the accuracy evils don't lie in the mounting setup.
Step 3 will be load development in an attempt to save this barrel. If I can find something that will shoot 2MOA or better, I'll be happy. The first load I'm going to try will be a few ladders of 178gr ELD-Xs I have laying around in some Lapua brass with either IMR-7828, IMR-4831, or H4831. I also have a few sample packs of various Hammer Hunter bullets on the way, as I've found them to shoot superbly accurate in my other rifles.
Step 4 (pending results of Step 3) may end up being a rebore to 338-300 Win Mag. I have the dies for this caliber, and that should clean up the pitted bore nicely without losing the nostalgia of the original barrel that so much work was put into. I'd be limited to just a few .338 bullets with the 3.38" mag length this rifle has, but it's an option. It does look like the mag box can be extended rearward .1-.2" with some mods to the bolt stop, so that's an option potentially as well.
Follow along if you want to track this project!
