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Posted on 05/03/2008 8:48:06 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
An ice storm would work too...
Well, at least there is a name for it, now! Hope they’ll figure out soon what they need to do to get it fixed!
This is a 1942-date Remington M1903 Springfield. In 1939 the government gave Remington the tooling from Rock Island Arsenal, where M1903 production had ended in 1919. Remington immediately started to simplify production, which can be seen in the straight stock lacking the finger groove of the original. It also already has the ugly stamped trigger guard and follower that would appear on the 03A3.
Oddly, all the other parts are milled, just as in the original 03. The external finish is good, and nowhere near as intentionally rough as the later 03A3. The barrel, marked "RA 3-2" and 307xxxx serial number show that this rifle was made in 1942, during the transition period before the 03A3 was standardized.
Remington continued simplifying, replacing more milled parts, like sling swivels and barrel bands, with stamped ones. They finally developed the peep sight to replace the delicate rear sight. At that time, the government adopted all the proposed changes, and Remington and Smith Corona began production of the M1903A3.
This particular rifle has seen a lot of use, as shown by the wear and tear on the stock, and the heavy wear on bearing spots on the action. It's nicely "broken in", and operates very smoothly.
I have no idea if it saw combat (some Marine units went through the whole war with the 03), but it still has the original dated barrel, in pristine condition. With the corrosive primers in use then, only fanatical cleaning could keep the original barrel in such good shape.
Still, there are a lot of dings and scratches on the wood. All the proper markings are there, although some are very faint, and don't show up well in the pictures.
I bought this rifle about 20 years ago, when I noticed that complete, correct 1903s in any condition were getting scarce. Ideally, for me a perfect M1903 would be a mint, unissued specimen from the late 1930s, when they were made in small numbers, with lots of love lavished on their construction. However, I haven't seen anything like that outside of museums in years, and doubt it would be affordable.
This one shows honest use, with an interesting, but forever unknown, story behind it. All the parts that should have the little "R" have them, the barrel is the right date for the serial number range, and has a pristine bore. I decided it was either "buy now, or never hold my piece".
This old soldier is 68 years old, and the design is over 100 years old. Still, I'd depend on it to still get the job done, even though I'd curse the sights with every shot. I wouldn't be out gunned with the 1903, just "under spoiled" by the lack of modern sophisticated features.
[shudder]
Wow! An oldie, but looks like a goodie!!
Morning Winmag - The venerable ‘06 Springfield, a classic. That one is excellent shape. Most of the ones you see now are either very nice or in some sort of sporting configuration. The bolt action military rifle will never be out of style. Which bayonet do you have with your Springfield.?
Personally, I think it’s a stroke from when I had the episode back in March where I woke up disoriented. My vision’s been blurry ever since. I don’t think it has anything to do with the cause for the BP so that remains up in the air.
The thing is, my vision in that right eye fluctuates badly. When my pressure goes up, I can’t hardly see anything through that right eye and when I had that massive headache a few weeks back, I lost the vision in the right side of that right eye completely for a little while.
See, the nerve that comes from this area of the brain (colliculus) actually goes to the right side of the right eye...so it stands to reason that’s the area that’s being impacted.
At this point this is all speculation on my part...I’ll know more after I speak with the neurologist. I have an appointment with her on the 20th. I will know if this is serious or not if she calls and bumps up that date.
Well, I’m not hoping for anything bad, but I hope you can get to see her earlier than the 20th, just so you can get some info to see what can be done.
So, this weekend I managed to clean out theshed (and discover the branch through the roof), set up the fire pit I got for Father’s Day and clean off the deck. Just got home a little while ago from a trip to the landfill and a stop to purchase a new mattress for Luke.
Then, Not Valerie says to me, she says “what if we moved our office up to Nana’s room?” That would give us the dining room back and we could use it for the piano and Jr’s drums.
We could actually be moving towards the downstairs being a non-nursing home, non office, non college dorm look...
We’ve been doing kitchen work. Got to finish up in there before we do much else to get the house saleable.
got Kilz?
Hah! Reclaiming territory!
Not yet...
We’ve been doing fence repair. The naybor’s Rhodesian Ridgeback tore thru the decorative lattice atop our fence, climbed into our backyard; hopped our gate and was free!!
We had a second piece of lattice and OB is adding 1x4’s horizontally to keep Phoenix’s jaws away from the lattice. I’m thinking the only way to keep Phoenix away from the lattice is broken glass glued on top of the 1x4’s but we’ll try OB’s way first :-)
I like Phoenix, I really do, but the dog should be on a farm, not cooped up in a small enclosure in the middle of the city with a owner who is never home. grrrrrrr
LSA
I have a 1942-dated Utica Cutlery M1905 "long" bayonet. I noted that bayonets were starting to dry up, too, and grabbed the first decent one that came by.
As far as the ladder-type rear sights went, every rifle designer in the world thought the tinier the notch, and tinier the front sight, the more accuracy you'd get.
That was fine for slow fire on a rifle range with good lighting, a contrasty target, and plenty of time. The sights had elevation markings out to 2000 yards, but that was for volley fire, where all you did was lay down fire and hoped that somebody walked into it.
These types of sights also had a close-range aperture, but everything was still too fine, and required trying to focus on target, front sight, and rear sight at the same time.
Someone finally realized that an aperture rear sight, and substantial front sight, gave much faster target acquisition at reasonable ranges. The brain needs to be only vaguely aware that it has the front sight placed in the middle of the fuzzy rear aperture. Then all that needs to be done is place the target on top of the front sight post.
This was realized with the M1917 Enfield, but was not adapted by the Brits until the later WW2 marks of the SMLE. The US put them on the Garand, M1 carbine, and the 1903A3 Springfield. Receiver or tang sights, common for a century on target guns, became "militarized", and improved combat rifles by taking some of the work away from the shooter's eyeball and brain.
Bad hobbit!
Thanks for sharing. Always nice to have visitors.
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