Yuku free message boards

Ed:

You are absolutely, positively certain that the marking is RAA, and not RA?? There are only two documented manufacturers of military barrels for the 03A3: Remington Arms, marked RA, and High Standard, who made barrels for Smith Corona, which are marked SC (there are reports of spare barrels made for the 03A3 by High Standard and marked HS, but I have never seen one personaaly, and this is not relevant to your question...) Can you post a picture? If you don't have a digital camera, you could carefully lay it on a scanner and get a reasonably good shot of it.

It would not be totally unusual for a SC to have a Remington barrel; nearly all of the "spare parts contract" barrels were Remington; they can still be found today in the original wrap, although the selling prices are considerably higher than the $0.98 that the DCM was getting for them as recently as 15 years ago!

Resp'y,
Bob S.

Mike:

HS marked barrels for the 03 are relatively common, and are known as good shooters. HS had a significant spare barrel contract for M1903 during WW II. HS marked *03A3* barrels are very uncommon, if they exist at all.

The 03 barrel is not the same configuration as the 03A3 barrel. True, they are functionally interchangeable, but the swap would not be made in a US gov't activity. I have put lots of 03A3 barrels on 03's, and even a few 03 barrels on 03A3's. The "BIG" spare parts contract for barrels went to Remmington, which is why the new-in-the-wrap Remmington barrels can still be found without much searching.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

Mike:

The barrels are not marked for the model they are intended for: if you find one in the original packaging with the label undisturbed, the packing slip will say "Barrel Ass'y, M1903" or "Barrel Ass'y, M1903A3". The barrels are marked similarly, with the maker, ordnance bomb and manufacture date behind the front sight. They will have a proof mark and probably a steel lot code and possibly several sub-inspection stamps.

The physical difference between 03 and 03A3 barrels is the method of attachment of the front sight, and the profile of the first six inches of the barrel in front of the receiver. The 03 barrel is smaller in diameter there, in order to fit the rear sight sleeve. The 03A3 barrel is quite a bit larger in diameter in front of the receiver because there is no rear sight to fit. BTW, the 03 "barrel ass'y" includes the rear sight sleeve semi-permanently installed, and the front sight fixed base installed. This is the way the spare barrels were packeaged and stocked: you could not order and draw a bare barrel, you got an "assembly". The 03A3 barrel assembly included the front sight base. You could not order and draw a bare 03A3 barrel, either. Functionally, the barrels would fit either receiver, but then the arrangements for the rear sights would not be correct.

You can fit an 03 barrel to an 03A3 if you remove the rear sight sleeve. That area where the sleeve should be would be obvious if the 03A3 handguard was removed, but it would be hidden if the handguard is in place. The 03A3 front sight base can be fitted to the 03 barrel by modifying the spline. Conversely, you can put an 03A3 barrel on an 03, but it takes some lathe work to get the 03 rear sight sleeve to fit. In days of yore, when I was making Poor Man's Match Rifles, most folks got the 03A3 barrel because they were $0.98 from the DCM, and since the rear sight would be a Lyman 48, nothing was done to modify the barrel profile. I did modify several 03A3 barrels to take the 03 rear sight though, if the owner wanted. (N.B. This was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, when these rifles were $25.00 and no one even thought of "collecting").

I can wmf the drawing of the mods to the 03A3 barrel for the 03 rear sight and send it to you as a Word file, if you like. Then you can see on one sheet the difference between the two barrels.

Resp'y,
Bob S.