I've really got very little of an idea where to start building this thing. I figured anywhere is probably good. Start with the bolt. The bolt holds the firing pin so the thing can't fire without it, right?
I bought some Springfield 1903 bolts on Gunbroker a while back. They were cheap, like $20-ish for two of them. The box says, "2 bolt assembly for M 1903 A1 M 1903 A3 rifle," then, "Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. Boston Ordinance District." I have no way of knowing if they're old or just new and made to look old. The auction said new, so I'll just assume they work.
When I got them, I started to realize the magnitude of the project ahead of me. Two metal bits covered in cosmolene and wrapped in some fibrous green paper. I let them sit around for a while because I had no idea what to do with them.
Well, I opened one today. For starters, cosmolene is a royal pain in the butt. My first trip was to the bathroom sink. Lots of soap and warm water later, the outside of the thing was down to the metal, mostly. Later on, I looked up how to get rid of cosmolene and saw this link on how to best achieve this.
I'm also going to take a brief moment to talk about gunsmithing and some tools that I find invaluable for this stuff. I'm no pro gunsmith. I'm not even an amateur gunsmith. I'm a regular guy with little mechanical skill but no fear of messing around with things. I've always thought to myself that I can do anything with a firearm -- note that I'm not trying to do anything like convert a rifle to full auto or build a silencer -- then if I'm really worried, I can take it to a real gunsmith to have it inspected before I put live ammo in it. In 5 years of doing this, not once have I needed to get a firearm inspected and not once have I experienced a failure of my own causing that made anything happen other than nothing. I've broken things, sometimes you pull the trigger and nothing happens. But I've never pulled the trigger and something went boom in the wrong way. There was this one round of 9mm once, but I didn't load it and it's a story for another time.
Back to the tools: picks and brushes. I've got a large collection of picks in both metal and plastic. The brushes range from steel, brass and plastic ones that look like toothbrushes to bore brushes and the handles that come with them. On the disposable side, lots of Q-tips and sturdy rags. When I say, "sturdy," I mean it. Ripped up t-shirts haven't done me well. I invested in a bag from Home Depot (Lowes has them too, or probably lots of other places) of heavy duty rags. I couldn't rip one if I tried. I may not be able to rip one with a sharp knife. They're also thirsty. You'll want a gun mat too. I use a few, one looks sort of like a large mouse pad, one is ripstop-backed fleecy stuff, and others. It should sit flat, absorb errant oil and solvent, protect your parts from your table, protect your table from your parts and give you a second chance to find that little spring before it disappears on the floor. I heard a great expression the other day, that gun springs are concrete soluble. In my case, they're carpet soluble too.
Don't forget the solvent cleaner and oil. I've got all sorts of liquids, sprays, gels, creams, and so on. Almost every task so far has been accomplished with Hoppe's 9. It's a solvent, cleaner and lubricator. I do use some oil when I'm putting things back together, but a cheap silicone gun cloth usually does better. If it's not in the drive train, clean it until the Hoppe's wipes off clean, let it dry and you're done.
Back to my bolt, it took a solid 30 minutes of picking at it and pouring solvent on it to get it clean. I still didn't get the inside. Some of the lugs had a touch of rust on them and the body had some crusted-on something. The external surfaces had to be escalated to a steel brush, which seemed to do nothing negative to the finish of the metal.
I can't get the cosmolene out of the inside of the bolt. That'll have to happen later.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Springfield: 1: the beginning
I got a couple of barreled Springfield 1903 barreled receivers from the CMP a while back. When I ordered them, I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting. They were cheap. Something in me thought that everything would work out okay.
When I got them I realized just how little I was getting. When the CMP says, "barreled receiver," they mean just that: a receiver with a barrel attached. The good news was that attaching a barrel to a receiver seems to be a difficult and precise process. I'm very bad at precision when it comes to mechanical things. The bad news is that I thought they'd be sending me a lot more parts than that.
So they sat in my gun case for a long time. I moved. Twice. They came with me. I still have them. They've sort of removed themselves from the collection of worldly items that I possess, abstractly. Now I look at them like they're someone else's relic from another era. Thus, they've converted themselves from large metal chunks to nifty artifacts that inspire boyish curiosity.
I have to build a Springfield 1903.
This will take me some time. I'm in no rush. I have a stunningly small budget, both of time and money. This isn't the fastest, easiest, cheapest or most clever way to build a 1903. The only benefit I have of doing it this way is, when I'm done, I will know everything about how a 1903 works. I will know how every part fits together, what moves there when you push here, how that should sound when you do this, and how to get it to work. Gunsmithing is becoming somewhat of a lost art. I'm bringing it back.
When I got them I realized just how little I was getting. When the CMP says, "barreled receiver," they mean just that: a receiver with a barrel attached. The good news was that attaching a barrel to a receiver seems to be a difficult and precise process. I'm very bad at precision when it comes to mechanical things. The bad news is that I thought they'd be sending me a lot more parts than that.
So they sat in my gun case for a long time. I moved. Twice. They came with me. I still have them. They've sort of removed themselves from the collection of worldly items that I possess, abstractly. Now I look at them like they're someone else's relic from another era. Thus, they've converted themselves from large metal chunks to nifty artifacts that inspire boyish curiosity.
I have to build a Springfield 1903.
This will take me some time. I'm in no rush. I have a stunningly small budget, both of time and money. This isn't the fastest, easiest, cheapest or most clever way to build a 1903. The only benefit I have of doing it this way is, when I'm done, I will know everything about how a 1903 works. I will know how every part fits together, what moves there when you push here, how that should sound when you do this, and how to get it to work. Gunsmithing is becoming somewhat of a lost art. I'm bringing it back.
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