Americas' Mauser the 1903 Springfield

[Music] hey guys welcome back so today we're out of arrangement pardon the road noise when we get some vegetation when we get spring actually springing we should have so much road noise at this range you've seen a shoot here before but today we want to talk about America's mousers and that's right the United States did at one time use Mauser rifles as a matter of fact during World War one a lot of countries countries that were fighting each other we're all using Mauser based rifles including the United States and that's what today's video was about is about America's Mauser the 1903 Springfield this rifle is a 1903 a four this is the sniper variant this is a Gibbs reproduction it's a very faithful reproduction right down to the barrel and how it's manufactured with the exception it has a date of 2011 that's because I believe has a criterion barrel on it but it's correct to have the front sight missing and still have the marks for the front sight on the barrel this is a very very accurate reproduction including the scope that's on it which is manufactured by Hilux so we're to start off shooting the sniper rifle there were going to dig into a little bit of the history of the 1903 Springfield and how it served US military forces right now I have the oh three a for the a for being the sniper variant loaded up with some American Eagle this is a hundred and fifty grain 30.6 and that's the caliber that the 1903 was chambered in except for the very early versions which wound up not being adopted and this is just some basic American Eagle we're at 100 yards away from a man-sized steel challenge target and I haven't shot this gun in years guys there's a video dedicated to this gun way back in the library you can go dig up and I don't think I've shot it since that video so I'm getting reacquainted this old girl let's take a pop shot at this man-sized target downrange and see if she's still zeroed oh yeah such a great rifle make sure I picked up around there and I have my magazine off let's go ahead turn the magazine on and there you go and we'll explain that feature a little bit later she's grouping nice and we'll just put one in the noggin and I believe that's my last shot so as you can see this old girl works really really well what a fun rifle to shoot yeah now let's break out the other 1903 variants and talk a little bit about the history of America's Mauser let's talk about the history of the United States using metallic cartridge rifles and repeating rifles so their first metallic cartridge rifle that the US Army really adopted was the trapdoor Springfield of 1873 after the trapdoor Springfield came along the US Army started looking for a different rifle started looking for a bolt-action rifle and the rifle he wound up adopting is a rifle you've seen here before on the channel which is the Craig Jorgensen rifle which shoots a 30 40 craig cartridge now this rifle is probably one of the shortest-lived military US military service rifles ever it's not that it's a bad rifle has a very smooth action has unique way of loading but it has a single locking lug and it wasn't really meant for super high pressure rounds and so they saw that as a shortcoming of a rifle that and the fact that you couldn't load it via stripper clip had to be loaded by single rounds to the side door here go watch my Craig organ sin video for more information about this rifle but the Craig Jorgensen was so popular amongst civilian shooters like myself this is just some Remington ammo by the way I'm just throwing the gun again you've seen us use this here on the channel before most of samo including this Remington comes from our friends over freedom you nisshin's they donate ammo to the channel you do have a discount code down below for 6 percent off if you want to use that so the Craig loads through this little door on the side magazine Springs right there and it's a very effective rifle it served well but again it was the United States his first attempt at adopting a bolt-action rifle it just wasn't very well received and that's when we get into the 1903 Springfield both fire off a few rounds out this old Craig which is actually quite a fun rifle to shoot I love this old girl very smooth action I love shooting this old rifle this Craig is amazing and there you go guys smooth action neat rifle but wasn't quite what the US military was looking for they wanted a more modern rifle and that's where the Mauser comes in so the story goes after the spanish-american war the US military brought back a number of Spanish mousers and took a look at the design and they came to the conclusion that the Mauser was probably the best bolt-action rifle on the market and that's when the US Army decided to explore a Mauser action Springfield Armory started working on design came up with what we now know as the 1903 Springfield was some slight design changes to the firing pin in other areas but in essence the 1903 Springfield is a Mauser action and so when we went into World War two I'm sorry World War one we were using mousers the Germans were using mousers lots of people were using mousers and Mauser was getting rich just like maxim did with the machine guns of World War one he sell did all belligerent nations everybody's using their weapons and yeah so America wound up using a Mauser against the country that was a developed had developed the Mauser in the first place weird how things play out in history so anyway this is an early type and this is an okay example of a original 1903 Springfield now you'll notice some design differences I'm not going to get into all the nuances of all the different variations of the gun but this one is a Rock Island Arsenal manufactured rifle has a straight stock on it some of them will have a slight wrist stock style to them they went through a number of different iterations and I'm not going to get into the sub iterations or subsections of all the different design iterations we're just going to talk about that basically the three major differences the 1903 I'm 1903 a three and then the 1903 a four which we opened the video up with which is the sniper variation so the early rifles had the rear sight forward you could pop them up and you could get to be very optimistic about how far out you could shoot these things so shooting a thousand yards iron sights with the spine of a sight as this rifle has would again be very optimistic for standard use you just have the sight folded forward you have a v-notch here and in the front you have a very fine blade that blade makes for a really really nice site picture in good light conditions and low light good luck seeing these sites the US version has a downturn bolt you'll see some mousers that have straight bolts on them the u.s. opted for the downturn version we have a striker assembly here just like a standard Mauser you have your safety mechanism there and this is your striker which you can ease forward by pulling the trigger and then on this side of the rifle we have a magazine cut off this was a real popular thing around the turn of the century so basically the troops would use their weapons single fire until they were given the order to fire from the magazine this rifle has an internal five round magazine and feeds from a stripper clip so right now I have the magazine off it's clearly marked off that's what I did with my sniper rifle at the opening of the video I had the magazine off and like why is it pick it up and around like oh yeah because it says off so I flipped it on these rifles feed from a five-round stripper clip to load the rifle you would just simply pull the bolt to the rear I'm going to turn the magazine on pull the bolt to the rear and by doing that really all it does is allow the bolt to come a little further back take your five around stripper clip put it the stripper clip guide and then just simply push the rounds into the magazine and then you take your stripper clip and discard it now the weapons loaded push the bolt home picks up around and now I can flip this off if I want to and I can fire that first shot I don't think the sites are on this rifle and now it'll eject that spit case but notice it's not picking up another one I can throw a single round in close it and fire singer round now when I'm giving the order to fire from the magazine I can flip it to the on position it's clearly marked on and now the gun will fire from its magazine I see it just a little bit high so I'm gonna aim a low there we go it's nice when you're 100 yards you can see where the bullet set so you can adjust your Kentucky windage very smooth action and it's capable of handling much higher pressures than the Craig Jorgenson that it replaced it's a very simple rifle to maintain and overall the ergonomics are really good has really good target sights combat sights I mean this was normal for the era right around the turn of the century like I said in low light good luck but a lot of troops wanted a more precise sight picture and that is one of the next evolutionary steps of the 1903 major evolutionary steps the 1903 Springfield the a3 that moves the sight to the rear of the receiver and gives you an aperture sight versus an open blade v-notch sight that was common use so let's take a look at the 1903 a3 rifle I don't know if I mentioned this before but these rifles that I'm shooting this afternoon I picked up from the guys over at J & G sales you may not know this but J and G sale sells a lot of mil surprise handguns and so forth but they have a whole section I stumbled upon and just by happenstance I was just going through looking for mil SERPs as I normally do I discovered they had a whole bunch of 1903 Springfield's and all different flavors and they're just one offs but a whole bunch of different ones and so I picked up two of the rifles I picked up one of the 1903 a3 s with the rear sights we're gonna talk about here in a minute I picked up a standard that smith-corona 1903 and I just one of them as shooters and they're they're really decent rifles and as a matter of fact G&G sales after I picked these rifles up I've had these rifles for a while now I just haven't done a video with them matter of fact I think at least for one these rifles it's the first time I've ever shot it but I just talked to the guys over J and G sales and they're offering a discount code for a short time which I'll put down below so if you watch this video five years from now the codes probably not going to work but for a short time they're going to give you a discount on some of their surplus 1903 s they have in stock so I highly recommend going over to their website YouTube will not allow me to link to their website but it's just G&G sales comm J & G sales.com just google it you'll find their website check out some of the reviews rifles and that's where you can pick up really fun shooters like this so this rifle the other was a Smith Corona actually this is Smith Corona the other ones Rock Island Arsenal so this is a Smith Corona rifle a number of companies manufactured these rifles for the first world war effort Springfield Armory simply couldn't meet up with demand and that's not uncommon that's why we have so many different manufacturers of m1 Garands from the Second World War so a lot of companies tooled up to manufacture these rifles for the war effort and this one is a Smith Corona now the major difference you're going to see between the oh three that I just started off with mounted start off with I just shot previously is that you no longer have the rear sight forward of the receiver now we have a peep sight back here in the rear with easy adjustments for elevation it just slides with finger pressure alright now we have the ability also to make adjustments to the windage with the windage knob so this rifle has definitely improved the sight picture on this rifle is infinitely better than the sight picture on the original 1903 and it also gives you a longer sight radius by good six inches or maybe even 7 inches so you have a definitely an improved sight radius sight radius translates into potentially better accuracy depending on the capabilities of the shooter a lot of folks think a longer barrel means better accuracy and that's not the case generally that's not the case when you have a longer barrel with iron sights you have this longer sight radius and that's what gives you your increased accuracy so by moving the sight back here we got you know certain the the army dude or whoever's using the rifle they can make adjustments to get the rifle zeroed for themselves very easily and then when they wanted to go out to different ranges they just simply apply finger pressure and adjust for range on that rear peep aperture have a nice heavy steel sheetmetal protective wing protecting that rear sight which otherwise would be quite fragile we still don't have a hood on the front sight here but we still have that really fine blade which coupled with the aperture rear sight makes for a very very suitable rifle one other thing that's common amongst all the variations of the 1903 is how it field strips let me show you how that works so right now the bolt locks to the rear when you go to feed alright now I have the magazine currently in the off position and then you have the on position well there's a half mass detent there's a little detent that holds this little lever if you put it the half mass right there the bolt just pulls right out of the gun that's how easy it is to service the 1903 Springfield so wipe everything down put it back together either put the magazine on or off and the bolt no longer pulls free of the receiver just like its predecessor it uses a five-round stripper clip loads very easily and I have the magazine in the on position now the sight pictures I said on this guys is a lot better I enjoy shooting the oh three a three is much more than I enjoy shooting the O threes simply because my old man eyes which is why I'm not wearing eye protection guys never do that it really makes it easy for me to see the target in to shoot now these old girls have a pretty good recoil you'll notice this rifle jumps pretty good the 30.6 is a very potent cartridge the 308 Winchester is basically a slightly shortened version of the 30.6 so in a straight at a straight bolt-action that's really relatively light it's got a little bit of recoil I'm not supporting it I'm just letting it set in my shoulder I'm leaving letting the bag hold the rifle for me and you can see how that thing recoils but the action on this thing is buttery smooth it's just a beautiful rifle to shoot you don't need a recoil pad it's not hurting when it recoils it's actually just a nice little push in the shoulder and there you guys go so extremer extremely reliable very well made rifles and a heck of a lot of fun to shoot now you'll notice this one also has a straight stock on it and some of them will have cartouche --is so this is an original stock you can see that the armory cartouche is and you can see the cartouche the P right behind the trigger guard so this rifles really and a lot better shape than the 1903 I showed you at the opening of the video has a nice good stock on it has the cartouche is on it and the finish is very nice on it all original so this is a decent example of a 1903 the only real problems you might have I mean in terms of cosmetic appearances this rifles definitely been used you can see some dings on the rear sight protective ears but that gives the rifle character I love shooting these old warhorses they're just entirely too much fun and shooting these things at distance with they're very fine front sight and the aperture nice hitting man-sized targets at five six hundred yards iron sights on you know a sunny afternoon is exceptionally easy they're very accurate and the sights are well attuned to being able to take those long shots out to five six hundred yards on a man-sized target without much effort so obviously loading the rifle via a stripper clip would be the fastest way to do it in a combat situation to get it out and ready but let me show you that once I finish off these five rounds I can easily transition over to single feed all right so now I fired all five rounds I don't have to change the magazine setting I can leave it the on position and push around down into the magazine to use it that way dang it they can push around down into it like that if I want to and feed or I can just simply turn the magazine off using the lever and that makes it so I don't have to push it down into the magazine it'll easily line up with the chamber so now if I just throw a round in there I have the magazine turned off all I got to do is just get it into the chamber area and the gun will easily feed it just again just throw it just get where you guys can see it just throw it in there just get it anywhere in there and the gun will feed and if I want to go back to magazine fed flip the switch to on pull the bolt to the rear put the stripper clip in there simply push down ah there you go just banging away at that steel target this thing even with its older sights just a real real pleasure to shoot either from the magazine or single loading the sights in the 1903 Springfield were very intricate and for a while there the US military is really into these complex sighting systems now if you take a look at the o3s you'll notice that you have the latter sight which you can run this v-notch all the way up so you can do volley fire out to a couple thousand yards and then if you fold it forward this is more of your combat sight if you look right here you're gonna see little tick marks and then zeros on either side that's so you can make windage adjustments using this large knob right here as I turn this knob if you watch right where my thumb is you'll see how the rear sights shifting left and right so you can make adjustments to windage you want to put it back to zero because it's actually pretty much spot-on but you'll notice when I was shooting the rifle earlier this one is the one that shot a little bit low there's a V notch in the ladder that you can use when it's folded forward but there's also a V notch here in this little triangle shape that I can use and when I use that particular rear V this rifle shoots pretty much spot-on let's go ahead and charge the rifle these stripper clips are knockoffs and they're not very good knock-offs and they kind of suck all right so let's go ahead and load our rifle up we have the magazine feet on we're still standing at a hundred yards and voila we have connection I'm not holding under anymore one thing is kind of funny the sling swivel on this one the the clasp has lost its springiness and it just kind of falls off the rear sling swivel and our last round we look at our sling I'm just gonna take that thing off what's funny why it's swing it's actually moving my sight what I overcame so it's really interesting to how intricate the 1903 sights really were but it offers a simply beautiful sight picture even with the old-style sights we walked back to the 300 yard line and you'll see here in a second we're about 200 yards from peaches and we're 300 yards from the steel challenge target down there that's a man-sized now I'm just going to use Kentucky windage I'm not going to dial in the elevation into my replica scope here but you'll notice one thing about the a for sniper rifle that's different from the other versions of the gun aside from not having a front or rear iron sight the scope sets directly over the action thereby blocking the ability to use a stripper clip to load the gun so you can't actually load the magazines on these rifles you just turn your magazine on put your bolt to the rear and you can actually single load these rifles without the need of using a stripper clip so we'll put a couple rounds in here really quick and use some Kentucky windage and see if we can hit mr. challenged target at 300 yards yep I don't know if you guys are gonna hear it on the microphone but that connected so basically the magazines giving me fits basically I'm holding right on this head I'm hitting them in the chest I don't know if you can hear that or not takes a little while for the sound to get back to us so we hear boom dong I love shooting range with these old warhorses again three four three so yeah very very effective rifle these these sniper rifles continued on in service for quite some time as a matter of fact I think the 1903 production can continue throughout World War two even though we had em on grands in the field we couldn't produce those in large enough volume so even Marines were still carrying 1903 Springfield's in the Pacific throughout the war so the rifles remained in service for quite some time and a lot of them after the war wound up being sporter eyes dim bastardized to the point where it makes me personally sick thereby driving up so many of them were sport arised and turned into deer rifles because they were sold for twenty dollars or less after the war they were just chopped up and sport Erised and basically butchered and that's why the collectors value has gone up so much because you're me I'm looking for a rifle that hasn't been sport arised all right got some American Eagle here load up five more rounds and close out this video beating up on mr. challenge target guys thank you for ten years of watching the channel it's greatly appreciated we hope we have another 10 years going forward you never know with YouTube policies which are constantly shifting not necessarily in a favorable direction for gun channels another way you can support us here at the military arms channels to swing by and check us out over at Copper custom it's copper custom comm which is our online store also guys be sure to swing by and check out full30 comm it's where freedom rings most the top gun content creators can be found over there and full30 is opening its doors up pending the new YouTube policy changes that may or may not cause a purge of gun channels let's hope it doesn't but if it does full30 is there please swing by and check it out alright guys we'll talk to you soon five four five standing in 100 such an easily shot rifle beautiful piece of American history thanks for watching guys

Channel: Military Arms Channel

Views: 156,227

Rating: 4.9439383 out of 5

Keywords: military, police, rifle, pistol, fishing, how to, hickok45, funker530, iraqveteran8888, jeep, dodge, training, action movie, hollywood, outdoor, movies, video game, recreation, entertainment, top 5, 3006, 30-06, 1903 springfield, mauser, german mauser, 1903a3, 1903a4, america mauser, wwi, wwii, marines, 30-06 mauser, spanish mauser, m1903, m1903a3, springfield armory

Id: BL5AX0yuaaw

Length: 25min 56sec (1556 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 12 2018