Any gunsmiths here? Problem with 1903

[69daytona]

I bought a USMC stamped barrel Remington 1903, looks like a brand new barrel but looks like it was never reamed or finish reamed for the 30-06.
the chamber let's a round go down about 1/2 way into chamber.
was wondering if I just need to have it finish reamed so I can use it?
can post some pics if it will help.

[country gent]

Do a chamber cast and see what you have. Barrel may actually be chambered for 308 instead of 30-06. A lot were rebarreled to 308 for various reasons.

[69daytona]

Tried the 308 and same results.

[country gent]

Okay may have been fitted with a short chamber and never reamed then. A lot of barrel makers and the military made barrels with Plus contours and short chambers so they could be fitted. Military garand and M14 rifles were gaged and timed threads so they could easily be changed out. M16s have the barrel extension and bolt for quick change out replacement. The bolt guns had to be fitted. I would still recommend the chamber cast to see what you have in there. Body taper and shoulder angle will tell 308 or 30-06

[ulav8r]

Also slug the bore, just in case.

[Harter66]

I read here about Arisaka that had the bbl set back to 300 Savage . The neck would stop the 06' about and inch short and the same with the 308 because of case taper .

Do you have a 22-250 ? Anneal the neck and shoulder run it in a 7x57 . 5gr of Unique , fill to half the neck with Grits and a wax plug to the mouth . Fire form . If it's longer you get a more or less straight case , 308 should leave about half the neck . Assorted pistol dies will allow you to shrink a a x57 enough to fire form the chamber neck an throat areas to confirm it isn't an odd wild cat or a 7.65 Argi or something in a an bbl that was short chambered or not chambered at all .

[rondog]

M1903's in .308? Do tell.....

[gnoahhh]

Stamped USMC? Perchance is it a Sedgley barrel? If so, and it remains short chambered, then it was stuck on by Bubba somewhere along the line. The first thing you want to do is determine if the barrel was bent. A high percentage of Sedgley barrels were bent to make them unusable before being sold for scrap. Who knows why anymore. After entering the milsurp market, entrepreneurs straightened them for sale to gun nuts with varying degrees of success. Beware.

The USMC entered a contract with Sedgley for '03 barrels during the war. Since the USMC switched to M1 Garands universally by the time said barrels started to arrive, the vast majority of them were never installed on guns, and then the war ended leaving a metric sh*t ton of loose Sedgley barrels extant.

To answer your question, yes a simple ream job should get you in business, but only if you have a straight barrel. If Bubba was that sloppy so as not to finish reaming the chamber, be critical of other aspects of the barrel installation also- sights, indexing, etc.

[2152hq]

A Remington mfg 1903 is a WW2 made rifle. AFAIK they mfg'd their own bbls for those (RA). The Sedgley contract replacement bbls were just that, replacements for rebuilds of earlier made 03's made by Springfield and RockIsland Arsenals that the USMC (and US Army) had been using in service. The WW2 Segdley contract for the bbls was to be able to get these older rifles back into serviceable condition for WW2 reserve. Though the MArines were still using some of them at the beginning of the War.

Anyway, thousands of these Sedgley replacement bbls were available as surplus after WW2. Storys of bent and otherwise out of spec bbls out there. I don't know,,the ones I've seen were fine.

If the bbl has a Sedgley proof mark on it (Circle w/'S' inside it) somewhere along with the USMC marking, I'd have to believe it was proof fired, so it accepted a cartridge.

Might want to check the chamber for a separated case,,perhaps part of a case neck portion stuck in there, the rear half separated upon firing and was ejected. That'd allow the next round to enter about half way.
They can be hard to spot sometimes as the thin neck portion expands against the chamber neck and you don't easily see it.

If that's the problem,
Then you have to ask why a separation,,and I would question headspace especially on a replaced bbl.
Could just be a reloaders bad habits though,

A few things to check for...

[Larry Gibson]

Might check the chamber real good.....if the '06 and .308W case only goes in half way it may have a separated case stuck in the chamber. Seen that numerous times.

A cerosafe casting would pull the case out if that's what it is. If not it would give sufficient dimensions to determine what the chamber is for. Most all replacement barrels were short chambered by only about .010". Thus if it was a military replacement barrel the '06 case should have gone most of the way in so the bolt just wouldn't close.

Larry Gibson