HS A3 barrel?

[Darreld Walton]

I have never seen an HS-marked barrel with the 03A3 chamber bolster, either. Brophy lists a HS marked barrel with 2-44 date on 03A4 No. 3,417,466 (page 190). A barrel with that date would have been a replacement on that early receiver number. Could be an '03 barrel sans rear sight base, or just one of those errors in the book. (?)

Resp'y,
Bob S.

I rebarreled the 1903A4 that'd been sporterized with a very similarly marked HS 1903 barrel, after I removed the sights at both ends. Used a pull-through reamer, and have to say that it was well worth the effort. To say that it shoots well is an understatement. I also used that barrel so that no one down the road would ever mistake it for being anything but what it was, a recovered sporterized A4. In the meantime, I'm burning through what I have left of my 1959-60 dated Frankford Arsenal National Match ammunition, and now I have this grin on my face that's gonna have to be chiseled off from the groups it's giving me........maybe some old armorer knew what he was doing when he used that HS barrel on his rebuild.

[John Beard]

I have never seen an HS-marked barrel with the 03A3 chamber bolster, either. Brophy lists a HS marked barrel with 2-44 date on 03A4 No. 3,417,466 (page 190). A barrel with that date would have been a replacement on that early receiver number. Could be an '03 barrel sans rear sight base, or just one of those errors in the book. (?)

Resp'y,
Bob S.

The M'03-A4 in Brophy's book is a put-together. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, some HS barrels were released in-the-white without sight bases. Brophy or someone acquired one of those barrels and stuck it in the M'03-A4 featured in his book. The barrel is not original to the rifle by any stretch of the imagination.

Hope this helps.

J.B.

[Bob S]

That's kinda what I figured. It did seem like an anomaly .....

Resp'y,
Bob S.