M1903 Springfield

Origins

The Krag-Jørgensen that America carried up San Juan Hill in 1898 was outclassed by the Spanish Mauser 93, whose stripper-clip loading and stronger action let its riflemen fire faster and farther, and the Ordnance Department set out to build a Mauser of its own. Springfield Armory's answer, adopted on 19 June 1903, copied the Mauser bolt, extractor and magazine so faithfully that after Mauser sued, the government paid about $200,000 in royalties before the First World War ended the payments. The original .30-03 cartridge with its heavy round-nosed bullet was replaced in 1906 by the .30-06 with a 150-grain spitzer, the rifles were rebarreled, and the combination that resulted served America for half a century.

Design & Construction

The M1903 is a five-shot bolt action with a two-lug Mauser bolt, a 24-inch barrel, a full-length walnut stock and a magazine cutoff that let the rifle be fired as a single-loader with the magazine in reserve. Its ladder rear sight, graduated to 2,700 yards, was precise and fragile. It weighed 8.7 pounds and mounted the M1905 sixteen-inch bayonet. Early receivers were single-heat-treated and some proved brittle; from 1918 a double heat treatment, and later nickel steel, fixed the problem, and collectors still divide the rifles at serial number 800,000 (Springfield) and 285,507 (Rock Island). The wartime M1903A3 replaced the ladder sight with a receiver peep sight and used stamped parts; the M1903A4 was an A3 without iron sights, fitted with a 2.5x Weaver scope for snipers.

Combat Use

The Springfield went to war in 1917 in the hands of the Regulars and the US Marine Corps, whose long-range musketry at Belleau Wood gave it a reputation the Marines never let go; the Army's drafted divisions carried mostly the World War I expedient M1917 Enfield. Between the wars it was the rifle of the whole American service and of the Camp Perry matches, and the Marines took it to Guadalcanal in 1942 before their M1 Garands arrived. As the M1903A4 it was the Army's sniper rifle of the World War II and Korean War, carried by the US Army Rangers and the airborne, and it launched rifle grenades for units that had no other means. A few sniper rifles reached Vietnam.

Legacy

The Springfield is the bridge between the Mauser and the Garand — John Garand designed his rifle around the '03's cartridge and bayonet — and its reputation for accuracy made it the foundation of American competitive rifle shooting for decades. Surplus rifles sold through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship became the basis of countless sporting rifles, and original examples, especially high-number Springfields, A4 snipers and Marine-marked rifles, are among the most studied of American military arms.