1903 Remington Questions!

[Rick the Librarian]

Which ones? Actually, the "best" were the 60-70 original ones I had a chance to see (and photograph) about five years ago. I took over 400 photographs! Like an alcoholic being given the keys to the liquor store!!

I have 3,003,256 (pictured above), 3,024,801, 3,051,437 and 3,283,084.

[jerrbear]

Would love to see some Rem 03 porn! I am sure I am not alone.

[Rick the Librarian]

Without doubt the greatest exposure to Remington M1903 porn was my trip to examine a large number of original Remington M1903s about five years ago. There were a number of crates and we opened two of them, one with eight rifles the other with 12. These crates had been sealed since the British packed them up about 1954-55. I take NO responsibility for anyone's drool short-circuiting their computer keyboard!!

[Rick the Librarian]

Two more:

[TDP0311]

That is so damn cool... The Red Star 1903s are as incredible a find as any.

Rick, are any of your Remington 1903s USMC ones?

[jerrbear]

OMG! You are killing me. You simply have too many. On your latest serial rifles, do they have milled or stamped butt plates?

[Rick the Librarian]

These are NOT mine!! (Dang the luck!!) I simply examined them. I do have two Red Star rifles, but the ones pictured above belong to another lucky guy!

[jerrbear]

Rick, What would be the correct butt plate for my rifle SN3290985, Milled or Stamped?

[John Beard]

Rick, What would be the correct butt plate for my rifle SN3290985, Milled or Stamped?

Stamped. But a milled Remington buttplate cannot be considered incorrect.

Hope this helps.

J.B.

[Rick the Librarian]

As long as John Beard dropped by, I should mention that he wrote an excellent story on these Red Star rifles for an issue of "Man at Arms" a few years back. Of course he had a superlative photographer!!

[John Beard]

Of course he had a superlative photographer!!

AMEN to that!

J.B.

[Kragrifle]

The FJA cartouche on this rifle is different in some I have seen. Is this a good cartouche, or a fake? Are there different styles of cartouches on Remington 1903's as originally produced?

[Rick the Librarian]

There are "boxed" and "unboxed". We would have to see pictures of the inspection stamp to tell whether it is legitimate or not.

[jerrbear]

Rick, What inspection stamps are you looking for. No pics but there are the 4 symbols with numbers in front of the TG that you see on a Remington stock.

[Rick the Librarian]

I was referring to the FJA stamp that Kragrifle mentioned in the post before.

The markings you mention are subinspection stamps from the manufacture process. Early on, they were just that - symbols - later in Remington M1903 production (and throughout M1903A3 production), they were numbers inside geometric symbols, like squares, circles, etc. I can post sample pictures, if needed.