Remington 1903A3 Rear Sight Assembly

[dfletcher]

I bought a 1942 made Remington 1903A3 yesterday. Muddy but otherwise very good stock with visible stamps. Previous owner removed the rear sight slide and replaced it with the horizontal leg of an old Redfield peep sight - turned it into a vertical ladder type. Even had a Merit adjustable peep.

Stock is cleaning up fine. I removed the Redfield sight & saved the original base. I've ordered the complete rear sight slide with peep and the adjusting knob with spring and nut. What else do I need to complete? I think a leaf spring is needed right side?

The rifle came with a front sight hood. I'm not too keen on keeping it, unless that was a standard part of arsenal rebuild. There's an "OG" stamp on left side buttstock, which I presume is Ogden, UT.





Original fully assembled are going for about $75.00. Above parts are about $45.00.

[ojisan]

Hood info:

http://forums.thecmp.org/archive/index.php/t-150428.html

[dfletcher]

^
Interesting, thank you.

Given the effort someone made re the rear sight, the stock glass beded at the front lug & a Timney trigger installed - someone went to lengths to "improve" the rifle's practical accuracy.

A shot of the front sight cover - my bet is it's not a recent remake. No idea if it's the tall USMC type referenced or a plain old sight protector. Not all that hard to remove.



Does improve the sight picture for me. Long time user of the peep rear, globe front sight set up.

[highpower]

Looks like a standard front sight protector to me. The USMC ones have a distinctly different shape to the upper portion. You say it’s a 1942 production 03-A3 which would make it somewhat unusual as, if I remember correctly, Remington didn’t produce any actual 03-A3’s until December ‘42.

I know Smith-Corona was making them that early as I have a very early S-C that has a 12-42 barrel.

[dfletcher]

Good to know re the sight cover.

Re DOM -

https://www.remingtonsociety.org/images/Remington_SN_Table-03_and_A3-2005.pdf

http://muzzlefirst.com/m1903springfieldserials.html

Mine is 3796536

Remington puts it June 1943. Unless I'm misreading Muzzlefirst puts it in 1942. No idea who is right.

I found a complete rear sight - SARCO has used genuine for $40.00 and new repro for $29.00. Bought the genuine.

[highpower]

Remington is right. Don't know where the other site came up with that.

Original barrels are usually date 0-3 months prior to the receiver date.

These are mine:
Remington 1903, serial number 3240205 made Oct 1942 barrel date 9-42
Remington 1903-A3 serial number 3875897 made July 1943 barrel date 5-43
Smith-Corona 1903-A3 serial number 3628487 made February 1943 barrel date 12-42

Remington's with 12-42 barrel dates have serial numbers that hover in the 33xx,xxx range.

The first block of serial numbers assigned to Smith-Corona was 3600000-3707999 and there are S-C rifles produced early in this number block with barrels dated as early as September 1942 Although production didn't really get off the ground until late December 1942