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Gas Escape Hole Added to Receiver and Enlarged on Bolt This displaced enough metal to cause a better grip on the shooter’s shoulder, and provides a quick way to identify a possible USMC rebuilt rifle. To achieve the same effect as a checkered butt plate, Marine depot personnel at some point began hand stippling smooth butt plates in a variety of different ways. While the Marine Corps did do further limited inquiries into conducting their own checkering operations, it seems like a combination of the expense, effort required and likelihood of inconsistent results drove them towards a simpler option.

M1903 SERIAL NUMBERS FULL

This, coupled with the fact that the existing smooth butt plates had likely been further polished or recontoured while in service or during overhauls, resulted in an “uneven surface and non-uniform thickness and contour of the old smooth butt plate rear face which would not permit full or uniform checking…” and that “no attempt has been made to check the same.” This leaded to a tolerance variation in thickness not permitted on butt plates destined for factory checkering. Springfield responded by describing the milling process, and also explaining that the wartime smooth butt plates were finished by hand grinding and polishing. They also asked whether Springfield was remodeling the smooth butt plates into the checkered pattern. The Quartermaster’s Department in turn wrote a letter to the Commanding Officer of the Springfield Armory requesting information about whether the “knurling” of the butt plates were part of a forging operation, or if they were milled after the forging process. Hand stippled buttplate which is typical on late 1930s early 1940s USMC rebuilt rifles. This process was soon eliminated in the interest of expediency, and from mid-1917 through part of 1920 the standard provided butt was smooth.īecause of the huge numbers of weapons produced in response to wartime need, many rifles continued on in service during the inter-war with the smooth butt plate, even after checkering was resumed in 1920. In 1934 the Marine Commandant received complaints that the smooth butt plates were unsatisfactory for rapid fire use, and directed the Marine Quartermaster to make an inquiry about replacing the butt plates with milled examples. This was something that not only took up a skilled worker but also consumed valuable time. The checkering was accomplished by a two-step procedure on a milling machine, one lengthwise and the crosswise. This shortage of rifles in April 1917 required weapons to be produced as fast as possible, which was aided by cutting out certain steps like checkering the butts. Production was relatively slow during this period, with less than 600,000 rifles on hand at the start of World War I. While the earliest M1903s were produced with smooth butt plates, the military soon settled on a finely checkered design which was in use from about 1910.

Vice marks on the barrel from installing barrels in a way apparently peculiar to the Marine Corps and.

An enlarged gas escape hole drilled into the bolt.

Auxiliary gas escape hole, also known as a “Hatcher Hole”, drilled on the left side of the receiver (these are not solely found on USMC rifles, but the Marines were more consistent in adding them).

A smooth butt plate that has been crudely hand stippled.

This rifle features a number of those classic signs with include: While not every rifle will bear every indicator (and parts can always be switched out or fabricated), when taken as a whole they can give a pretty strong idea that the rifle served with the USMC.

Fortunately, many Model 1903 rifles used by the Marine Corps bear tell-tale marks of their time in service with that branch. military, it is typically impossible to get much detail about who specifically the rifle served with or where it could have been used. This rifle is unusual in that it can be traced to an individual fighting man, telling the researcher which military branch the rifle was assigned to for at least part of its time in service.ĭue to the vast number of rifles that went into service with the various components of the U.S. It has the classic traits a collector can use to identify a Model 1903 as having lineage to the USMC. The rifle itself is what collectors typically consider to be a standard USMC Model 1903 rebuild. Rifle 325,901 is unique in the way that it can be documented not only to a specific branch of service, but also directly to an individual who carried it for a time.

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30, Model 1903, serial number 325,901 actually can, albeit with a little assistance from archival records.

In this instance, United States Rifle, Caliber. When a historic weapon is displayed, especially one with hard earned wear, dings and dents, the old line “if only it could talk” will surely be uttered at some point.

M1903 serial numbers