Q. My wife and I were celebrating our first child when a gentleman came up to our yard as the party was underway and asked about an old wretched Ford pickup that I intended to restore. He said he needed parts to get his similar truck to work and mentioned he didn’t have any funds at the time but offered an old gun he could trade. We made a deal, and I’ve kept that gun to this day. However, I still don’t know what it is. My limited research suggests it may be a shipboard-type shortened barrel. Any help would be appreciated.
A. You have a Model 1903A3 rifle manufactured by the L.C. Smith & Corona Typewriter Co. that has been “sporterized” by a civilian owner sometime after it left government service. The military did not modify or cut down rifles for shipboard use. Many thousands of M1903A3 rifles were sold as surplus by the Director of Civilian Marksmanship in the 1950s and 1960s, and many were sporterized for hunting and sporting purposes. Unfortunately, there is no way to trace the “history” of a particular rifle.
