How to Buy a Springfield 1903 or 1903a3 the Best Mauser Clone Ever

hey welcome back everybody brought a Kimo here with real Hawaii thanks for tuning in to another episode tonight we're going to be talking about some American wood more specifically the 1903 Springfield which is this guy right here and the 1903 Springfield 83 they're pretty similar but with one major difference that we're going to go over and maybe at the ending of the video you'll know which one of these awesome military surplus rifles you'd like to pick up you okay guys before we get cranking I just want to point out some differences in the rifles before we get started so you can kind of see as I'm panning through what to look for these are both similar stocks this is not the pistol grip version you're going to notice uh you know finger grooves here on the side of stock as well as the upper handguard a little bit different because the sights are different as well as the upper barrel ban with this hole in here and you're going to notice the front sights are pinned up a little bit differently so as I'm panning through these you can kind of see which one you might like and of course nothing ever takes a place of hanging on one of these and smelling mmm they go to American wood Oh special shot shout-out goes to Bushmaster 55 for lending me his 1903 a3 screen field that one back there so let's get a look guys let's check them out let's rock the similarities both shoot 30.6 both have internal five round magazines both are stripper clip fed or can be that's an important one I'll tell you why later both have magazine cut-offs both have 24 inch barrows both are straight ripoffs of the modular action both bolts are [ __ ] to open both bolts have three lugs and the Safety's on both rifles are located and work the same on both let's get into this excuse me the differences the main one for me being the sights the sights are different you got milk versus stamp parts the finish as you can see is different on the receivers and pay attention to the finger grooves and trigger guards as I was mentioning earlier because they are very subtle but let me stop here so I can reposition the rifles I'll run my camera over and I'll give you some of my opinions on what I think are some interesting facts about both of these rifles okay here's some facts I did not know about the 1903 Springfield the big one I didn't know we stole a lot of this design from the Mauser brothers who are from Germany that's right the Germans in the spanish-american war we were using this rifle the Krag Jorgensen which is a Norwegian design it's basically a gate loaded system you throw a whole bunch of rounds in there you close it up and you hope to god that they're going in the right direction and you fire not the best technique to use in battle conditions and you know that the spanish for using a mauser variant the spanish mauser I think it was M 93 is what the thing is called and everything a seven millimeter on and we say hey you know what those guys are handing it to us let's copy that design we did it without asking the Germans we without asking the Mazda brothers so during World War one we were paying them royalties because they sued us for copying their design and we took the stripper clip design the internal magazine system and most importantly the bolt system which is a strong as hell still used in rifles today and we took it we use 30.6 the the regular Krag bolt could not handle thirty-aught-six so we copied the modular design and that's what's happening with that so those are two things that I found interesting the last one is a small thing but right here in the very front you see a little swivel there that's not a rifles thing it is a stacking swivel and that's how they made those cool little tripod and sometimes they stacked more rifles together that you see in the movies okay I'm going to talk about the clip system the magazine cut off and they get into the sights then we'll get into like the weight and accuracy and all that other stuff let's get going okay guys before going over the sights on both rifles what everyone have to do was talk about the back and here are the controls you know like the magazine cutoff switch the bolt the safety and then we'll go talk about the sights but just really quickly here let me start with the magazine cutoff switch this thing is really interesting so when it's in its off position like this watch what happens when I try to slide this back here okay so it stops right like this now if you try to load using a stripper clips here this is a stripper clips from creamer these are super good you're gonna notice that the bolt is blocking here so you cannot load this way and it also isn't going to show you live it later will not pick up rounds from the internal magazine so you can load one of the time this was done to save ammunition during combat times when you're just totally banging away so but notice what happens if you just kind of kick it to the on position the bolt will be able to slide all the way back and now you're going to be able to utilize you know loading from stripper clips like this so these are again are from Creedmoor they're spring-loaded these are the modern take on a old classic but the spring retention really helps they're a lot more robust the tabs don't break off and how you load it all you basically just take this and you're gonna stuff it right down in this area like that and you push them home may get born back with three just like this and you remove your clip this is a clip not a magazine that's what looks like basically what you're going to do now is because it's on the odd position you're going to be loaded in loading it just like that but watch what happens when you get it to the off position so I'm going to kick this round out okay now you're going to notice that it doesn't pick it up so that's meant to load one at a time fire load one a time fire again to save ammunition when things get thick you switch it to the on position now the kind of medium position - I guess I call it a neutral position right in the middle here this will make it so that you can take the bolt out in this way and since we got the bolt out let's talk about the bolt here so here is the Mauser bolt you got two locking lugs in the front that will fit into the receiver and twist and you have your your locking lug back here and this guy's going to lock right into this area here in fact let me just see what I can do about moving this rifle around so we can see at least a front end of the receiver okay this guy right here so as you're pushing at home you're going to twist it these things are going to lock in here and the safety lug back here is going to lock right back in here so have a look let's see I have to push this down you can go in slide you can see these things are going to go right up in there and there's that safety load that pushes it right down here it's resting right against this area here it makes a very very strong action um the Safety's pretty self-explanatory this guy back here when the bolt is cocked basically to the left is going to be ready to the right is going to be safe it totally disengages the trigger now when the rifle is in the on position here's something I thought was pretty cool when this works on both the 1903 and the 1903 a is you can actually decock it where you just kind of yank this thing back like this and pull on the last thing I wanted to cover back here is that this is a [ __ ] to open so you're going to notice when I pull the bolt arm up it goes back some more cocked close this is cocked to open nothing like hogs oh my god anyway that's that let's go talk about these sites because everybody's always asking questions about the 1903 and the 1903 a sights let's go look all right there's a look at the 1903 rear sight - leaf slash ladder sight beautifully done here's a page right out of the US Army Field so the page on the left is 1903 site the page on the right is the 1903 a3 site I thought I could figure it out no way there's five different ways you can use it so here you go number one on the top two three four and five I didn't have the you notch on the top but some do but look at that loud little tiny people number five there you try picking up that bladed front sight it is hard to do windage knob at the top elevation on the bottom basically just loosen it you slide it up and down the leaf that's how you adjust for elevation but man the because that front side is so bladed it can you can really drill it down accurately to where you want to go but it's hard to pick up even with this battle site here this new notch here with the sights folded down hard to pick up there front sight man really really really hard here's what the windage adjustment looks like a little bit of turn gives you a real good adjustment so be careful they recommend going past your target adjustment and going back to make sure that it adjust good here's a 1903 a3 windage adjustment and there is your 1903 a3 elevation from 200 yards to 800 I really had to hold low because the rifle is a minimum is sighted to 200 yards so here we go here is the overall weight of both the rifles mine weighed in at about eight point one five pounds Bushmaster 55s rifle came in at eight point six eight point seven pounds whatever my rifle the 1903 just happened to have a lighter trigger three point three five pounds hiss came in at four point one two pounds here's what I got at fifty yards again mines on the Left hazard on the right at fifty yards and here is what I got at a hundred yards again the 1903 on the left and the 1903 a3 at the right okay onto some closing thoughts and things that I missed in the actual video first of all guys just want to say that the targets are not representative of how accurate these rifles are apologies to the Civilian Marksmanship program guys that have tournaments based on this platform I get it I'm just not a good enough shooter or marksman to just pick up a rifle and start shooting away I mean iron sights for me really rough on me so shooting with magnified optics and 3006 for me is a pretty big round and I just don't have enough time and dedication to you know put on 30.6 it's really expensive if I'm going to shoot something in the 30 Cal area I'm going to shoot 308 with the magnified optic guys just know that it's capable of doing way better and the cmp guys are like man that guy sucks I am guys I get it second you guys saw me shooting off of a sled in the beginning montage I felt that idea I thought was my super easy right get the sled rifle put them together weigh them down secure it make sure it doesn't move around my groupings were all over the place so I chucked that idea I kept the front portion of the sled used a rear squeeze bag and that's the accuracy results you see there second the two rifles mine the 1903 is made by Rock Island armory the one Bushmaster 55 let me the 1903 a3 is out of the remington factory going on to the next point which one do I like better physically I think the 1903 is a better looking rifle you can tell it took more time to make the sights are very beautiful even though they're harder to use if you can learn how to use those you know you're going to have a beautiful very functional rifle the you can tell the parts are mailed a nut stamp like in 1903 a3 and the finger grooves and the stock just give it a really really nice look definitely more detailed now if you're going to ask me which one I would use if I was going to war as a young man I would pick the 1903 a3 because the rear sights are very easy to use it doesn't take a lot of you know figuring in your brain and you know in combat situations where limbs are flying all over the place people are getting stabbed by bayonets oh the bayonet on this thing is crazy crazy I'll see if I can slide in a picture here but in those situations under high stress I would pick the 1903 a3 um you know it occurred to me I was watching that in fancies video and I was watching him twirl it around because apparently he was in a drill team or honor guard um it brought me back to when I was little and I used to watch the Kings guard out here these guys are spinning these eight pound rifles around like they're toothpicks man it's pretty impressive and I know they're modified a little bit but you got to watch nutnfancy spin the rifle on his 1903 video it's pretty impressive but um yeah it came to my leg man these guys must get beat up and bruised all the time lastly I just want to bring up the low serial number issue with the Springfield's for the 1903 not the 1903 8 if you're going to get one make sure that your serial number is above 800 thousand if you're getting a Rock Island Armory 1903 the cmp gives an exact serial number of two hundred and eighty-five thousand five hundred and seven so again to be safe if you're going to get a 1903 Springfield from Springfield Factory I would get a serial number at least about 1 million and if you're going it if you're going to get the 1903 Springfield from The Rock Island armory Factory get one that's 300,000 and above anything lower than those numbers the receivers and bolts were single heat treated they are prone to cracking and potentially being dangerous and there's some arguments online and in fact you know person-to-person do it doesn't matter it does matter I say be safe and go above those serial numbers and you will find yourself extremely happy just like I was doing this review and guys it's over that's all I got for you it's been a super fun video to do for you guys if you guys haven't subscribed to my channel please do if you like the video give me the thumbs up and as always I will catch you guys later Oh

Channel: KIMO365

Views: 229,714

Keywords: 1903 Springfield, world War I, 3006, world war I, 1903a3, military surplus rifle, mauser, germany, stripper clip, creedmore, army, marines, drill team, rifle review, firearms, gun review, vietnam war

Id: RSLmUmNkA0s

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 16 2016