I'd like to get some opinions on the Springfield 1903A3s (with C stock) that Sarco Inc is selling. I realize these might be considered "replicas" and not an actual 1903 from a purist perspective nor a collector rifle. With that being said, and as a shooter, are these worth the $695 plus shipping and FFL fee? Thanks for the advice.

I don't know the specs on them but I am recovering some CMP drill rifles to use as my main shooters. Parts wise I'll be into each of them for about $475 with new criterion barrels.  I'm reusing the USGI stocks on them and doing all the refinishing and rebarreling myself. If you farmed that out you would add at least $200 in labor.

The only downside, knowing sarco, is that those rifles will have new production repo parts on them.

Very interested in the collectives comments on this

 
For a shooter grade or representative for your collection it's not a bad price. It's no field or service grade rifle from the CMP, but it will still be worth more than what I'm building even with a mix of GI and repo parts.


 

Shooter grade GI guns can be had for around that price FWIW. They will not be pristine examples though.

Replica at an oiriginal example price point

Original receivers only? Or are other parts original?

Some "original" parts are getting hard to find and costly. I screwed up threads on a front barrel band a couplebof years ago... Impossible to replace. I was able to find the thread pitch and fix but I was sweating for a bit.

My point? These are definitely partly (mostly?) repro parts. If you want one, go for it. Fun rifle. For me, I bought a drill receiver and one of their $150 kits. Criterion barrel and I should have a nice rifle. Of course, like always, that project waits for the biggest cost: TIME!!!!

A couple years back I picked up a smith corona 03-A3. It had a chopped stock but they did not touch the metal. I had a spare s-c stock kicking around and spent about 100 bucks for a few correct s-c parts to replace the Remington's . The original rifle price was under $300 so my s-c cost me less than 500 bucks to
Put together. The key is careful diligent searching and patience. Sooner or later you will
Find a cheap Diamond in the rough. Took me about 6 months to find all the right s-c parts

I was told that Sarco was using receivers from old drill rifles. Is this a concern?

I'm incapable of building my own rifle. Just don't have the patience and I'm all thumbs when it comes to detailed work.

According to the listing, it says that the receivers are the only original parts except where smaller parts may have needed to be replaced or something to that affect.

Someone else told me they were using old drill rifle receivers. Not sure if that it a concern or not.

 
I'm building several rifles off of recovered drill rifles. It's a non issue so long as it was a DEACTIVATED rifle such as those sold by the CMP. If it's a DEMILLED rifle it's only worth it's small parts.  The rifles which were deactivated have a weld on the magazine cutoff and on the bottom of the reciever/barrel where they meet. You can tell it's a reactivated drill rifle if you see discoloration, or a silver spot where the parkerizing won't take, on the side of the reciever by the mag cutoff and on the bottom of the reciever.




 

The only issue may arise if they tried to reactivate the bolt body. They weld the bolt faces shut. If yu mill the weld off and redrill the firing pin hole it will erode out and be unsafe to shoot in short order.

Thanks for that explanation K1rodeoboater.