1903 trigger guard on a 1903-A3 sporterized Springfield.

muddocktor

muddocktor

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A couple of monhs ago I made a thread in here about a sporterized 1903-A3 Springfield I bought at a very decent price. I'm really enjoying the new to me rifle and it is pretty darn accurate too, but I really didn't like the stamped trigger guard wth the fixed floorplate that the 03-A3 uses. And several people posted up about replacing it with a trigger guard out of a 1903. Fast forward to now and I bought a milled trigger guard on Gunbroker right before I had to leave for work. The auction is right here: <<<Link to my trigger guard>>>. As you can see, it comes with the milled trigger guard; milled floor plate; floorplate spring assembly; follower spring; milled follower; set of action screws (1 long 1 short).

My questions are these:
1. Will this take much modification to the stock to install it on my rifle? And will I run into any boogers putting this old style trigger guard on an 03-A3?

2. Is there anything else I might need in order to install this?
 
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A screw driver with a blade of sufficient size to fill the slot in the screws should be the only tool that you will need. Your decision to make this change makes perfect sense for a sporterized 03A3 and will, of course, allow you to unload the magazine by using the push button on the floor plate.

Plus it will just look so much better. Please post photos once you have completed the job!
 
Thanks you all. I figured that it would be interchangeable but since I will be 800 miles away from the house for the next 2 weeks I figured I would ask ahead of time in case there was something else I might need. I already have a good hollow ground screwdriver set for working on my guns, so that is already covered. And yes, I will post up some before and after pictures of it after getting the new trigger guard installed. And jdlii, being able to unload by dropping the floorplate is one of the main things I really like, besides milled parts looking better than stamped parts.
 
Well, an update here. I got home from work Thanksgiving morning and after my wife woke up, started checking out the guard I bought off GB. It looked real good when I took it out of the packaging, so I got the Springfield out and went to install it. And that is where I promptly ran into a problem. Once I removed the 03-A3 trigger guard, I went to install the new guard and the trigger wouldn't fit into the trigger slot in the new trigger guard. It seems the Timney trigger on my gun has a wider trigger than the stock trigger on a Springfield. So I spent most of the afternoon filing the slot wider on it. And wow, that's a lot of filing too! :eek: I went ahead and used the follower from the 03-A3 trigger guard as it has already been modified to be able the close the bolt on an empty magazine without depressing it. All I have to do is go to the range and make sure there are no problems feeding rounds into the chamber.

Anyways, I finally got the trigger slot opened up enough to install the new guard and boy, it looks so much better than the one (03-A3) that was on the gun. And while not perfect, the blueing on the new guard and floor plate looks quite good and really matches the rest of the rifle.

I will take a couple of pics of the gun with the new guard installed tomorrow and post them up.
 
Here are 3 pictures of this sweet shooting gun with the new guard installed. The milled parts look so much better than the stamped guard.

Here it is installed on my gun with the old removed trigger guard next to it.


And a couple of shots of both sides of my gun:

 
Thank you, Iggy. I am very satisfied with this one. And that milled guard makes it look even more like a commercially produced hunting weapon instead of a battle rifle it once was. I feel that I got a good deal on the rifle when I got it and I also got a great deal on this milled guard too ($80 to the door). I was just looking around last night for another blued milled guard since my brother has a sporterized 03-A3 my Dad had built back in the late 50's or early 60's, but he had kept the stamped guard on his rifle too. And the only complete milled guard/floorplate sets I could find were parkerized and at least $20 more than what I paid for mine.
 
That is one good looking rifle. It's hard to go wrong when you mount the action in a perfectly shaped piece of grade AAA Walnut. It's also very obvious that all the work you put into fitting the trigger guard was time very well spent.
 
I have a 1903 that was rebuilt at some point. It has a barrel from 1942 and a stamped trigger guard. It has not been sporterized. Need to shoot it. Muddocktor, can you let me know where I can find the parkerized milled trigger guard?

Your rifle looks great.
 
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Did the same thing with my 1903A3 after bubba had done his worst. New old stock remington 1943 bbl, the old one was badly shot out. I did all the polishing on barrel, action and related parts and the new milled 1903 complete trigger/magazine assembly. gunsmith fitted the new barrel, drilled and tapped for a steel lyman 57 rear sight and he installed a Redfield banded front sight. And topped it off with a beautiful blue job. The swapping out of the stamped 1903A3 trigger/magazine assembly was almost a regular thing one did years ago. Glad your turned out nicely. Frank
 
Shark Bait said:
I have a 1903 that was rebuilt at some point. It has a barrel from 1942 and a stamped trigger guard. It has not been sporterized. Need to shoot it. Muddocktor, can you let me know where I can find the parkerized milled trigger guard?

Your rifle looks great.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Shark Bait.

I looked at Sarco and they don't have a milled set all together. But you might be able to piece together one there. They have individual parts of it for sale, such as the milled guard and the floor plate catch spring and catch and the floor plate. The only thing I didn't see was the catch pin that holds the catch and spring to the guard. Also Gun Parts Corp shows all the parts you need to build up a 1903 trigger guard too, but seem to be a bit more expensive. They do have the pin for the catch though, which I didn't see at Sarco.
 
Very nice.........I recently acquired an 03a3 with the same "problem" Thanks for the info!
 
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