Short chambered 1903A3

[oldtirediron]

I once worked on several 1903A3 rifles that were difficult to chamber a blank round! Also the bolts seem to be real sticky in those rifles! I found that all the rifles had had new barrels torqued on so tight that the barrel tension itself was warping the receiver--The qualification on a 1903 series rifle receiver should be that the rifle barrel be hand tight at the 11 o'clock position, every barrel had been installed without fitting or chamber reaming, after fitting the barrels, and finish reaming them all of the rifles worked fine and the sticky bolt problem, Really it was difficult to close the bolt on each rifle. I also had a late RIA 1903 rifle receiver with a hatcher hole, barrel was so over torqued that a crack was observed from the receiver face to the hatcher hole!

[John L. Lucci]

I once worked on several 1903A3 rifles that were difficult to chamber a blank round! Also the bolts seem to be real sticky in those rifles! I found that all the rifles had had new barrels torqued on so tight that the barrel tension itself was warping the receiver--The qualification on a 1903 series rifle receiver should be that the rifle barrel be hand tight at the 11 o'clock position, every barrel had been installed without fitting or chamber reaming, after fitting the barrels, and finish reaming them all of the rifles worked fine and the sticky bolt problem, Really it was difficult to close the bolt on each rifle. I also had a late RIA 1903 rifle receiver with a hatcher hole, barrel was so over torqued that a crack was observed from the receiver face to the hatcher hole!

In this case it was just a new barrel the receiver was fine.

[SgtSki]

My O3A3 would not close on '72 HXP from the DCM. It closes fine on 1960's vintage Lake City, 1943 EW, 1942 Denver & 1945 FA. Haven't tried any commercial ammo. But I took a HXP '72 that was fired from my M1917 Winchester with a JA 2 grove barrel, which loaded ok, did a full case resizing in a 30 06 die made up a dummy cartridge and it closed just fine. Is it the ammo the chamber or both? Is it safe to shoot just ammo that closes?

[John L. Lucci]

My O3A3 would not close on '72 HXP from the DCM. It closes fine on 1960's vintage Lake City, 1943 EW, 1942 Denver & 1945 FA. Haven't tried any commercial ammo. But I took a HXP '72 that was fired from my M1917 Winchester with a JA 2 grove barrel, which loaded ok, did a full case resizing in a 30 06 die made up a dummy cartridge and it closed just fine. Is it the ammo the chamber or both? Is it safe to shoot just ammo that closes?

Confirmed by the gunsmith that the chamber wasn't finished.