My first accidental discharge and got it on video.

[Idaho45guy]

I took my father's 1903 Springfield WWII sniper rifle reproduction to the range in order to do a video for my channel. I wanted to do a video commemorating the USMC birthday, and Veteran's Day weekend. My father was a jarhead, I was a squid, and my grandfather was an Army tanker.

I thoroughly cleaned the rifle and worked the action. Occasionally, I noticed the striker bolt wasn't held back when I closed the bolt. Had I known anything about these rifles, that would have told me that I had a sear that was not right and the rifle could discharge unintentionally.

But I was ignorant and thought maybe this odd action required a live round in it to work properly. It was my father's rifle that he competed in matches with. Surely it was in safe working order.

Nope.

At least I felt it wasn't quite right and made sure it was pointed downrange and secured, and I was wearing ear protection before I put live ammo in it.

The actual discharge is at 4:43 if you want to skip all of the nonsense rambling...

[Winger Ed.]

My guess is that it had too much of a trigger job.
Or a good trigger job that has worn out and needs to be 'addressed'.
You might also try to really scrub the trigger contacting surfaces with a tooth brush & solvent.
If it just has a piece of crud in there-- that might do it.

In my O3, I didn't trust myself carving on the trigger guts, so I just put in a Timeny trigger group.

That switch on the left side beside the bolt is a magazine cut off.
It was made so you could cut off the magazine, then single feed the higher pressure rounds for launching a rifle grenade.

[ShooterAZ]

I'm glad that you had it pointed downrange and in a safe direction!

[Rich/WIS]

Parts for the 03 are pretty common, both the sears and striker rods. If not sure order both, might not be original to the rifle but it will be safe.

[WILCO]

No biggie.

You had the rifle in a safe direction, so that proves you're on top of your game.
It would be a problem under different circumstances.
I enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work.