The 1903
Scott Mclean
This story is about an object and how it became part of me.
It might not be understood by those whose family was not immersed in hunting and shooting. The object of my affection is a 1903 Springfield 03-A4 made by Remington during WW2.
My Mom bought it for Dad for 15 or 20 dollars. No one saw the value in these back then. This model was meant as a sniper rifle and was very accurate.
Since there was no real value attached back then, Dad cut down the stock and put on buckhorn sights. This was called sporterizing back then and was common with surplus rifles.
I started shooting this rifle when I was 8 and it was the firearm used when he bet his hunting buddies that the kid could shoot a branch off a log or something similar. He had some suckered for a while because they could not conceive a young kid firing a 30-06 accurately, especially since the rifle was almost as tall as I was. Eventually they figured out not to take the bets.
I got my first elk with this rifle when I was 11 and it was becoming part of me. Editors note: You should ask him about the edibility of that elk
I was not formally given the rifle until I was 14 by family tradition. When I was 13 my Uncle Gale asked to borrow it because his wife was using his. I did not like the idea but Mom talked Dad into letting her younger brother use it. He dropped it in water on the hunt and just put it in a closet at home. By the time he finally got it back to us, the metal was coated with rust on the outside and in the bore. The wood stock had also swelled and had a small split.
I was livid.
I had always liked my Uncle but told my folks “That s.o.b. will never touch that rifle again!” I spent hours steel wooling rust off and re-bluing and oiling the metal. I repaired the stock and had the rifle in good shape but would not talk to my Uncle for some time.
Dad gave the rifle to me on my 14th birthday and told me the gun was where it belonged. We went to an estate sale of a long time local shooter. I bought a stock for 50 cents just for the target swivel set it had. These swivels were about 35 dollars at the time. The stock was a wide forend target stock for a model 70. That quality of target stock would cost close to a thousand dollars today.
I started looking it over and had an idea. I inletted and rebedded it to fit my rifle. It made an already heavy rifle heavier but even more accurate. Dad liked to ask me where the wheels for that cannon were.
The rifle has a distinctive boom when fired and my relatives said they could tell when I fired it. As I said, it became part of me. On my older son’s 14th birthday, I gave it to him. My Mom was surprised that I gave it away but it was time for it to bond with someone new.
I’m confident that it is part of him just as it was with me. He has already surprised a few people with high dollar magnums when he outshoots them at long distance with the old beast!
My apologies to those of you that were not raised in the same culture I was. Those old hunters among you will definitely get it.
Bye again.