1903 Remington Questions!

[jerrbear]

Just bought this yesterday and have a few questions for the experts here. Is there a difference between a 1903 Remington and a "modified"? Answer I have seen is not really clear. This gun has some mixture of parts but I will let you folks point those out , good or bad. End of stock has a flaming bomb on it and looks to have 4 inspection marks in front of the trigger guard. Notice the NS bolt in it. Please explain this. Most parts have a R on them. Could not send any more pics as my file upload is full. Let me know what you think as I am new to this 03. Barrel is dated 11-42.

[chuckindenver]

rifle pictured is a parts gun, stock is suspect.. all Remington 1903s are 1903 Modified..

[John Beard]

All Remington M1903 rifles are properly considered as "Modified". No "modified" distinction exists between early and late rifles.

I note the following in the photos:

(1) The bolt assembly has been replaced.
(2) The rear sight assembly has been replaced.
(3) The magazine cutoff has been replaced.
(4) The trigger guard and floorplate appear to be replacements.
(5) The lower band is probably a replacement.

Everything else I can see appears correct.

Hope this helps.

J.B.

[jerrbear]

A little late getting back to you, but thanks for the insight. No pic but the stock has a P in a circle with an X above it. Never seen that before. Any thoughts on that?

[Rick the Librarian]

The P in a circle shows that it successfully passed a firing proof test before acceptance. Depending on the arsenal, the P could be "bare", or in a square.

[jerrbear]

Thanks Rick, that part I understand. I was trying to figure out what the large X above the P stood for. Inspector mark normally is not that large as far as I have seen.

[twh]

The X appears on a lot of Greek returned rifles and I understand it was an inspection mark.

[John Beard]

No idea what an enlarged "X" would signify unless perhaps it might be a rack marking.

J.B.

[jerrbear]

Thanks for the replies guys. Trying to learn about this variation!

[Rick the Librarian]

IIRC it seems that there was an "X" that appeared on some or the Greek returns but I don't think it was near the circled P. I assume the X stood for the Greek letter "chi".

[Emri]

IIRC it seems that there was an "X" that appeared on some or the Greek returns but I don't think it was near the circled P. I assume the X stood for the Greek letter "chi".

The large X I've seen on Greek rifles was on the bottom of the forestock in front of the trigger guard.

[zeewad]

The "Modified" you heard about might be referring to the top of the receiver bridge. Remington had started machining for the 03A3 rear sight dovetail before it was ready to use. As a result, they ground off the dovetail on the top of the bridge, front and back, where the dovetail had originally been machined. Then they just used the 03 sights to keep production going. I have one of those.

[dave]

Did the early Rem 03's ever have the lighting cuts on rear sight base? Never saw one.

[Rick the Librarian]

Yes, they did, I've seen them as high as the 3,040,000 range. Example below:

[jerrbear]

You have such a collection. Could you show us your Remington 1903's for comparison