1903 Feeding Problem

[wv109323]

I have a newly acquired 1903 that has a feeding problem. I am loading a 180gn. RCBS cast bullet. The last round of the magazine does not want to feed into the chamber. The round pops completely out of the magazine before the rim is up under the extractor or the round is at an angle that it will not feed into the chamber when the bolt starts to move the last round. It appears the magazine floorplate will swivel side to side with only one round in it . Is this normal? What should I look for?

[elk hunter]

Is it the follower rather than the floorplate that is twisting? If so, I suspect you have the wrong follower in the magazine and it is not holding the round far enough to the right.

[Frank46]

I had one do almost the same thing, check to see if that there is no space between the magazine and the receiver. My stock was not inletted enough. Did a lot of scraping with a x-acto
knife set and a few popsicle sticks with sandpaper glued to them. Got the idea from C.E. Harris article about making cases feed. Worked a treat and feeding is flawless.. Also sometimes the two different followers are the problem. Depending wether or not you have either amilled follower or one of the stamped ones. Either could stand a bit of polishing to slick things up. Frank

[MtGun44]

They made a lot of guns in 1903. Try giving a hint what kind of gun we are talking about
here?

Bill

[6.5 mike]

My 1903 rem does the same thing with the machined follower, put the stamped one from a 03A3 in = end of problem.

[wv109323]

My bad . It is the follower not floorplate that seems to rock or swivel when there is one round in it. It is a machined follower.
The rifle is a 1903A3 that was made by Remington. The serial number is 3,2XX,XXX. The rifle has been sporterized at one time apparentely to be a match rifle. It has a Lyman 48 rear sight and a Lyman globe front sight that directely replaces the military Front sight. The handguards have been eliminated but there is one barrel band.. The pistolgrip stock has military coutouches but is not a standard military issue. A recoil pad replaced the the military butt plate.The barrel is dated 10-42.
The rifle looks like one built by Sedeley(sp?). As I understand it the 1903 was made available after WW2 and the CMP made available parts to where they could be made into match rifles for NRA Highpower. This apparently was one of those rifles but I have no idea who did the work. The workmanship is quite good.

[725]

Weak follower spring. Get a new one (stronger) and I bet your problem will be fixed.

[wv109323]

Just to let everyone know: I ordered a floorplate and spring from Numrich. It apppears that the parts solved the problem. The floorplate was the "cast" type and the original floorplate was the "machined" type.

[gnoahhh]

Has the back end of the follower been radiused so as to allow the bolt to ride over it? If so, perhaps they took too much off- enough to not properly support the case head. Happened to me a looooong time ago when I got carried away with a grinder. Lesson learned.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Frank 46 has the correct answer. I asked this question several months ago, and that was indeed the fix.

There should be about .020-.030 between the top of the mag box and the bottom of the receiver.

That's all there is to it, but even if your magazine is feeding correctly the mag well still needs to be in this position or eventually it will start spitting rounds out.

Randy