1920 National Match 1903 Springfield

[Promo]

Rick, since you also own a 1915NM rifle with S/N 605.xxx, can you let me know which code the bolt of this rifle has, and if it has the distinctive polishing on top and bottom of the rear locking lug?

Fred, thanks for the comment towards my rifle. But looking at those pictures yours is even nicer than my rifle!

[Rick the Librarian]

The Serial number is 605,178 and the barrel is SA 5-15. The bolt is marked with an I7 on the safety lug.

Attached are some pictures - probably my most valuable M1903:

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[Rick the Librarian]

A few more ...

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[Fred]

Rick, since you also own a 1915NM rifle with S/N 605.xxx, can you let me know which code the bolt of this rifle has, and if it has the distinctive polishing on top and bottom of the rear locking lug?

Fred, thanks for the comment towards my rifle. But looking at those pictures yours is even nicer than my rifle!

Thanks George. Maybe just a tad in the finish on the metal here and there, but not by much. I think that my rifle must have been stored in somebody's home for 96 years from the time that it was possibly brought home from the 1920 National Matches at Camp Perry where it must have been purchased by a member of the Military. It's possible that you and I are the next in line owners of our two rifles after the original owners who bought them.
How do you like the extremely fine travel of your bolt within the receiver as you lift the handle and ease the bolt back? No doubt like mine, your rifle is a work of precision engineering and art.
I'll bet that the rear sight is also tight in its base and that your windage knob turns easily and quite smoothly on your rifle too!
Don't you just love how the serrated butt plate holds the rifle in place against your shoulder? And I'll also bet that the finely adjusted Travel and Release of the trigger on your rifle is absolutely perfect, as it is on my rifle.
I think that there wouldn't be a Penny's Difference in collector value between our two rifles. I mean, it isn't like there's a lot of them out there to choose between if somebody was looking for one to buy! A person is very lucky to even come across one of these rifles. There isn't any information of this type of National Match 1903 in the Flayderman's Price Guide because as far as I know, nobody but John Beard has done any research on them or was even aware of their existence. Almost no one has even known about the existence of a National Match Springfield 1903 made before the 1921 Camp Perry Matches. When it was decided to allow civilian shooters to buy and own a National Match 1903 for the very first time in 1921, people mistakenly started thinking that the 1921 N.M. rifles were the very first such rifles made from the ground up as Match rifles. John Beards research has shown that just isn't true. Flayderman's Price Guide should eventually include this type of National Match 1903 as well as the 1919 Springfields and Rock Islands and earlier types that were all designed and built as National Match 1903's from the ground up and I think that the range of prices to be given for them will surprise some collectors.

[Fred]

Those pictures of your rifle are making my mouth water Rick.

[John Beard]

Many years ago, I purchased a rifle at a gun show, S/N 603xxx (I don't have the last digits in front of me), and I noted that it had some peculiar characteristics, including a polished National Match style bolt. I thought when I bought it that a shooter had taken it to Camp Perry and had the on-site armorers from Springfield upgrade it. When I got home, I looked up the serial number in the SRS books and discovered that the rifle was surrounded by National Match shooting team rifles. So I got in touch with Frank Mallory at SRS and asked how much information was available on these pre-WWI NM shooting team rifles. We exchanged a few messages, I sent him a check, and received a large package of document copies from the National Archives covering the period from 1908-1916.

The information was extremely revealing. The first M1903 National Match rifles were issued in 1908. The rifles were selected from service-grade rifles by targeting. The 1909 NM rifles were also selected from service-grade rifles by targeting, but then touched up to correct a flaw observed in the 1908 rifles. The 1910 NM rifles were made from the ground-up as NM rifles, which has continued ever since. But it wasn't until 1921 that individuals were allowed to purchase NM rifles as authorized by recently-passed Congressional legislation. 1921 NM rifle sales were heavily promoted in the media, which created the mistaken impression that they were the first "true" NM rifles. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because public sales of pre-1921 NM rifles were not allowed, earlier NM rifles are scarce. Circumstantial evidence, however, suggests that military officers were allowed to purchase 1919 and 1920 NM rifles. And coming out of WWI, the 1919 and 1920 NM rifles were popular and they're not so scarce. But the pre-WWI NM rifles are scarce as hen's teeth.

J.B.

[Fred]

Thank you for sharing that information with us John! I know that you've invested quite a bit of your time and money in your research!

[Dick Hosmer]

Picking up on something Fred said, has anyone heard ANY chatter about another update to Flayderman? Perhaps the chain, dormant since #9 many years ago, was finally broken at Norm's passing.

I doubt that any of us would be pleased at the new figures, since there seems to have been a real drop in the market. As an example, based on recent auctions, some of the rare (and I mean really rare) trapdoors have dropped off a cliff.

[Fred]

Kind of like when the Stock Market goes down. Maybe that's the time to buy more.

[Fred]

But the pre-WWI NM rifles are scarce as hen's teeth.

J.B.

Dang John, now I'm wanting to find one of THOSE.