I stopped by Coal Creek Armory tonight to drop off a present for Tamara to go with her Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh.
While I was there I saw the 1903A3 Remington Springfield rifle she traded towards the purchase of the mystery gun. (Tam showed me the mystery gun, but I won’t spoil her surprise. LATER: Mystery revealed.) Nice rifle. If Tam had come to me first I probably would have bought it.
So here’s the trivia challenge. The 1903 Springfield and its later variants shoot the .30-06 cartridge. The .30-06 (“thirty aught six”) is the U.S. .30 caliber cartridge of 1906. The 1903 was adopted in (wait for it) 1903. How is it that a rifle adopted in aught three fires a round from aught six? It’s like a freakin’ Harry Turtledove novel or something.
No Googling allowed, and don’t answer if your name is Tam (who knew the answer on the spot).
Update: The Answer and Lots of Springfield Trivia
Trebor nailed it in comments. The .30-06 was a slight re-formulation of the original .30-03 cartridge. I thought the only change was the bullet shape, but the case is actually 0.07 inches shorter. A rifle chambered in .30-03 could fire the .30-06, with some loss of accuracy, but a rifle in .30-06 can’t fire the .30-03 because the case is too long to fit in the chamber. The .30-03 powder burned extremely hot and bores were eroding quickly, so the powder was re-formulated for the .30-06 to burn cooler.
Almost all of the original 75,000 1903s were recalled and re-chambered for .30-06. It’s estimated that less than a hundred 1903s survive in the original .30-03 chambering.
The most significant change between the two cartridges was the bullet weight and shape. The .30-03 had a 220 grain, round-nosed bullet with poor aerodynamics and a curved trajectory. The .30-06 adopted a 150 grain, pointy-nosed bullet of the “spitzer” style that had become popular in European military rifles because of its flatter trajectory and greater range. Here’s a comparison of the .30-03 (top) and the .30-06 (bottom):
Links
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Reload Bench has an excellent history of the .30.06, including later ammo variants the M1 and M2.
Wikipedia entry for the .30-03 notes that Teddy Roosevelt had a hand in the changes to the original 1903 Springfield. He didn’t care for the sights, which were subsequently improved to an astonishing degree, yielding one of the world’s best milsurp target rifles. Of the bayonet, Roosevelt wrote to the Secretary of War, “I must say that I think that ramrod bayonet is about as poor an invention as I ever saw.” The ramrod bayonet was discontinued and replaced with a knife bayonet.
M1903.com is a site dedicated to the rifle. Their article Ten Oddball ’03 Springfield Variations has more interesting history, including pictures of the rod bayonet.
One variation they missed is the Pederson Device, which converted a 1903 into a 40 round, semi-automatic rifle firing a pistol-sized .30 caliber cartridge to help troops cross the No Man’s Land of WW1 battelfields. The Pedersen Device could be removed and the rifle restored for use with the .30-06 cartridge. They were officially referred to as pistols for counter-intelligence purposes. Some 65,000 Pedersen Devices were manufactured for U.S. troops in France. The war ended before they could be used. They were subsequently scrapped, and only a few dozen remain in existence.
John Pedersen later designed a semi-automatic rifle chambered in a cartridge of his own design, the .276 Pedersen. John Garand designed his rifle to use that very cartridge, but the military wanted a .30-06 rifle. Garand redesigned his gun for the .30-06, resulting in the U.S. M1 Garand rifle, the first semi-automatic battle rifle adopted by a major military power. Pedersen also designed the Remington 1951 pistol and co-designed the Remington Model 17 pump action shotgun with John Moses Browning. Once Remington’s patents expired Ithaca copied the Model 17 and sold it as the Ithaca 37.
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I am assuming the answer involves a flux capacitor.
The first round for the Springfield was designed in 1903. It was the .30 – ’03. In 1906 the cartridge was changed. That’s the .30 – ’06 we are familiar with now. All rifles produced after 1906 were chambered for the new cartridge. Old rifles were retrofitted. I can’t recall if the change was just a switch to a spitzer bullet or if it it was more involved.
Btw, the switch in the cartridge is the reason that the battle site zero for the battle sight on the Springfield is an incredible 547 yards.
The .30 -’06 had a different trajectory than the .30 – ’03. IIRC, the battle site zero for the Springfield firing the .30 – ’03 was about 300 yards. When they switched to the new ’06 round, the front sight height really should have been changed to allow for the difference in trajectory. But, the specs for the front sight stayed the same and the battle sight zero went to 547 yards. This required soliders to shoot as much as three feet low to hit targets at 200 yards. Not an optimum situation.
So, what do I win? A minty Springfield ’06? Or just the glory and adoration of the public?
Btw, I saw a Winchester 94 for sale the other day at a local Gander Mountian chambered for .30 – ’03. I’d heard it was a somewhat popular commercial cartridge for awhile, but this was the first commercial rifle I’d seen chambered for that caliber. I passed.
“So, what do I win?”
Net.fame.
Carnival of Cordite #52 (part two)
Now that you have finished reading our re-cap of The Year in Cordite, let’s take a stroll through two-weeks worth of new material! There’s so much stuff here that it’s hard to put it all into neat categories, so let’s
i own a model 03 springfield made at rock island in oct. 1904. it is in the serial number range from 10,000 to 11,000. it is chambered in 30 cal.1903. it is unaltered and in 95 percent condition. i am looking for a value for insurance purposes
Mel, I hope this link helps you find some answers…. http://www.oldguns.net/q&a5_01.htm
senI have a later model numbered a3-03 handed down three generations with the pedersen notch in it.And was wondering the value,although I would never let it go because of family values.
Alvin says he has an A3 with the Pederson device notch cut into the receiver, yet all info I have seen says that the pederson device was discontinued even before the end of WW1, the A3 was not produced until after WW1 and previous 03s cannot be modified into A3s, so the question is: What does Alvin really have? Or does he have an 03 and he doesn’t know the distinction of an A3? Does he have some ‘hybred’ 03? If it was really for the Pederson device; were they not all marked “MARK I’ and is Alvins so marked? Just Askin.