I agree about the good design of the Springfield Model 1903. When I was a freshman in engineering school, I happened to see what looked like a rifle barrel with front sight sticking out of a trash barrel down near the basement metallurgy lab. I grabbed onto the barrel and pulled, and up came a 1903A3 Springfield action. As it turned out, the ROTC had butchered the rifle to make a drill rifle, plugging the chamber and muzzle and putting a tack weld across the face of the bolt to prevent the firing pin ever striking a cartridge primer.
In short order, I discovered the only thing salvageable on that action was the receiver. I took it into the metallurgy lab and we did a hardness test on it, since the ROTC people had also put a tack weld on the safety for some reason. The hardness test came up OK. The receiver was from a 1903A3 Springfield rifle built by Remington.
Having the receiver and a useless barrel, I decided to build a rifle around it. A buddy and I were already building sporting or hunting rifles on the Model 98 Mauser actions. Back in 1968, Mauser 98's, even from WWII, were all over the place and we did not think of them as collectable. We were tossing the stocks and barrels and large trigger guard magazines. I was getting barrel blanks from Douglas, and turning and threading them to fit the Mauser receivers (12 thds to the inch instead of a metric pitch, handily). Ignorance is bliss, as I was simply chucking the barrels in a WWII era L & S engine lathe in a four jaw chuck, indicating the barrel so it had 0.000" total indicated runout, and proceeding to turn and thread the barrel shanks based on whatever cartridge the rifle was to be chambered for. I did five Mauser actions that way, not knowing that real gunsmiths use a "cathead" on the outboard end of the spindle and "double indicate" a barrel before turning and threading the shank. Another friend had chambering reamers (which he borrowed from his regular job) along with headspace gauges. The Mauser actions I built up all shot quite well, nice tight groups.
The Springfield action was a bit different, and I had to grind a special form tool to cut the thread on the barrel shank. I got a 30 caliber Douglas barrel blank. My friend gave me some sage advice, and I was easily talked out of simply chambering the barrel for 30-06. Instead, being young fellows with little experience and growing up in Brooklyn, NY, we decided to build a more powerful rifle. The result was the barrel was chambered for the 308 Norma Magnum cartridge. Even in 1968, 308 Norma Magnum ammunition was hard to find and pricey. I built the rifle on the Springfield 03-A3 Action, and we got a semi inletted stock blank from Fajen. I got nearly there with the inletting, then my buddy had the patience to finish the inletting. Back in those days, glass bedding a rifle action and barrel was considered the hot setup, and that is what we did. My buddy's parents were immigrants from Ukraine, and his father had a set of steel pans with a crude gas burner made from pipe that he had previously cooked cherries and sugar into syrup for homemade Vishniak. My buddy had a friend who worked for Abercrombie and Fitch, back in the days when A & F were the real deal. A & F had a custom gun shop in their NYC store, with a gunsmith shop down in the basement, including a machine shop. The friend working for A & F used to borrow chambering reamers and headspace gauges for us, and he got my buddy a sack of some kind of hot bluing salts. Back then, lye (sodium hydroxide) in crystalline form was sold in groceries for clearing drains. My buddy appropriated his old man's Vishniak pans and burners and set up for hot bluing our actions and barrels.
He polished the actions and barrels on a setup made from an old washing machine motor belted up to a Millers Falls polishing and grinding arbor.
We got the Springfield action together, and the fellow working for A & F always seemed to come through with Griffin and Howe sling swivels and other nice fittings that were laying around the shop. He got me a Redfield micrometer adjustable rear peep sight. As I said, I was a Brooklyn boy, and other than reading NRA magazines, I knew squat about hunting and use of high power rifles. I had learned to handle a .22 and went through the NRA course of small bore awards as part of the old Department of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM) program which built smallbore ranges in armories and encouraged young people to join and learn to handle target rifles. As a fellow who knew a little bit of machine shop work and was studying mechanical engineering, I was cocky, as was my buddy. We both had attended Brooklyn Technical HS, and we were both in engineering school, and with a little knowledge between us, we were building rifles on old military actions.
At the time Numrich Arms, in West Hurley, NY, had bushel baskets and buckets of military rifle parts for small money. We'd bring our actions to Numrich Arms on a Saturday, driving up from Brooklyn. We'd try fitting used military parts to the actions until we found what we needed and what fit reasonably.
My Springfield based hunting rifle came together. It remained to test fire it. This was done at the grounds of a fraternal and benevolent society's vacation camp in the Catskills. My buddy's parents belonged to one of those societies that immigrants tended to join, founded by members of their own people who'd come ahead of them. These societies usually had some kind of summer colony or camp where immigrants with next to no money could come up and stay in cottages and enjoy a vacation in the country. In dead of winter, the place was deserted. We lashed the rifles into old tires to hold them approximately level, tied a string to the trigger and got far away behind large trees. We'd pull the string and then go check the cartridge for swelling. All the actions fired properly. Next step was bench-rest shooting to see what kind of group they shot. My Springfield, once the barrel warmed, shot a nice tight group with factory loaded Norma Magnum rounds.
After graduating college, I decided the peep sight was not to practical, so had a regular gunsmith in the Upper Peninsula mount a Redfield 2 x7 variable scope, nitrogen filled. After going deer hunting with the Norma Magnum, I decided it was too much rifle. I tried loading lighter loads, but the ballistics were horrible. I put the Norma Magnum rifle aside and got a Model 94 Winchester, all steel, in caliber 30 WCF (30-30) for brush hunting, and in Wyoming, got a Model 70 Winchester in caliber .270- a great shooting rifle which I took a few antelope with at long range. The old Springfield/Norma Magnum rifle sits in my closet. I think it must be 40 years since I last fired it.
What makes it interesting is the fact it was originally built by Remington. By its serial number, I found out it was actually built during WWII. This intrigued me, since by WWII, the US Military was using the Garand Rifle as the primary service rifle. After my Dad died, Mom gave me some of his things, which included his WWII "Soldier's manual", and a pad with the qualification records Dad shot at Fort Leonard Wood. Dad qualified with the 03-A3 Springfield, the M1 Garand, and the M 1911 Colt pistol.
I've looked thru online firearm sales publications, and was surprised to see that military rifles converted to sporting rifles did not have much value. As unmolested military rifles, they are worth quite a bit more. I started with a bare Springfield receiver, so it was not as though I scrapped most of a military issue Springfield.
Dad had always said the 03A3 Springfield had a reputation as quite an accurate rifle, and I've heard it from other people as well as in published articles. I am oldschool in many ways, and I like to see a blued steel action on a wooden stock, and a bolt or lever action is about all I've ever needed for hunting. Somehow, going into the woods with a plastic stocked semi automatic rifle having a brushed stainless barrel and action just does not seem right to me. Four or five cartridges in my pocket, wrapped in a cloth to keep them from rattling, a few basic things like matches, compass, energy bars, and maybe a bottle of water and I am set. The Mauser and Springfield rifles always enjoyed quite a reputation for accuracy, and the actions of those rifles are as good today as they ever were and will hold their own against a lot of the newer rifles.