760 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Remodelling The Springfield Rifle 
The Sportsman who has Ideas of his own can Make Many Changes to Suit his Individual Taste —The Joys of 
Creating a Gun That is Your Own in Style and Pattern 
By E. F. Watson. 
UR great American rifle manu¬ 
facturers give us generally in 
material and workmanship the 
best lines of rifles in the world 
for the money; yet sportsmen 
frequently complain that the 
smoothness of operation and the 
little detail points are far from 
the standard they would like to have set. How 
many of us find it necessary to work over the 
rifles which we purchase, even though we pay a 
high price for an extra finished weapon; in al¬ 
most every instance that finish is on the outside, 
and does not extend to the inside works and to 
giving a rifle the smoothness of manipulation 
which is so greatly desired and so seldom at¬ 
tained in the factory product. I know of only 
one of our great companies that finishes its 
rifles so that they cannot be made to work 
smoother by the purchaser. 
The average woodsman or farmer takes very 
little care of his weapons and all of us have 
seen rifles which have killed a great deal of 
game slowly rusting away because the ownei 
fired a shot a month or two previous with smoke¬ 
less powder and entirely neglected cleaning the 
barrel. The woodsman and the farmer, however, 
with their one rifle each, are not the men to 
whom the large arms companies must look for 
the greatest sales of their products. Many city 
men who have a longing for the woods which 
can only be gratified a short period each year, 
take great interest in their weapons and dream, 
perchance too much, of the time when they will 
be able to use a favorite rifle in securing some 
coveted trophy. It is this class of sportsmen 
that buys the largest number of arms, that is 
willing to pay a good price for a superior weapon, 
and, as the city man has not the advantage of 
being outdoors and familiarizing himself with 
hunting conditions as he would like to, he must 
needs take advantage of every improvement in 
firearms to get his proper share of game. 
Rifles are made along certain standard lines 
and though distinct improvements may be pointed 
out in the lines and design of their arms the 
companies are extremely slow in adopting them, 
even when they know that such adoption will 
meet with the approval of the vast majority oi 
sportsmen. 
In European countries, up to the beginning of 
the present war, efforts seem to have been made 
to meet the wishes of the sportsmen, doubtless 
because they belonged to the wealthier class, were 
able to pay for what they wanted and insisted on 
getting it. I have in my collection a Peterlongo 
Mauser, such as is used frequently in Africa for 
hunting the largest game. It has a forearm ex¬ 
tending to the muzzle, weighs eight and one- 
quarter pounds and its recoil is about fifty-two 
pounds, but I can safely wrap my thumb over 
the tang in front of the high comb and not get 
my nose knocked off when the rifle is fired; the 
cost of this rifle is on a plane with its kick. We 
have our army Springfield and a friend of mine, 
who is used to a Sauer Mauser, tenderly rubbed 
his nose after firing the Springfield for the first 
time and felt to see if any blood was trickling 
down. The Springfield stock, from trigger to 
buttplate, is twelve and five-eighth inches long, 
while it should be about thirteen and one-eighth 
to thirteen and one-half inches. I am unable to 
figure how long a man’s head should be to en¬ 
able him to rest his cheek on the comb in such 
a way as to help steady the rifle. It seems as 
though the comb ought to be over one-half inch 
higher than it is. In shooting the Springfield 
without modifying the stock my finger nails, no 
matter how closely they were trimmed, would 
cut my chin. The Springfield rear sight is doubt¬ 
less perfection from a military standpoint, but 1 
smooth and perfect trigger pull which is so de¬ 
sirable. 
There would be just one objection to our arms 
manufacturers making perfect rifles. The vast 
army of gun cranks would be obliged to devote 
their energies to something else than kicking and 
perfecting their arms, and so a great deal of 
pleasure would be lost to us. 
The first thing I do with a new rifle is to find 
out that it is accurate by means of lead plugs, 
micrometer measures and shooting, then the fa¬ 
vorite sights must be put on, the working parts 
made satisfactory, and any improvement in the 
outside finish which suggests itself is quite likely 
to be carried out. If the rifle is of the high 
power class it is fired with a short range load 
with a metal patched bullet to see if by any 
happy chance it will shoot at twenty or twenty- 
five yards with the same sighting as with the 
A Remodelled Springfield Pattern. 
cannot get out of my head the thought that mili¬ 
tary rifle sights should be designed for long 
range shooting and, also, for quick short range 
shooting under adverse light conditions, such as 
a hunter encounters. Soldiers are dressed to be 
as nearly invisible as possible, just as game has 
protective coloring. Most hunters prefer rear 
sights like the Lyman or Marble, and one who 
would use a black front sight like our Spring- 
field would be badly handicapped. Why should 
not the Springfield be equipped with a front 
sight having a bead which could be seen? Ivory 
would be too delicate, but a sight with a gold or 
silver colored bead might be made strong enough 
to answer all purposes. 
I have quite a collection of modern rifles and 
do not believe there is one of the entire outfit 
as it originally came to me, with the exception, 
perhaps, of a little .22 calibre No. 7 Remington 
which some of your readers may remember has 
the, very long, full pistol grip, and a .22 high 
power Savage, with pistol grip and Lyman sights. 
The No. 7 Remington rifle is no longer manu¬ 
factured and it is a pity, for its stock and general 
outlines are extremely graceful, the comb being 
of sufficient height to enable the rifle to be held 
with great steadiness, despite its very light 
weight. Probably the price asked for it, $18 for 
a .22 single shot, was too much. It was neces¬ 
sary with all my rifles, except the .22 Savage 
high power, the .22 No. 7 Remington and the 
Peterlongo Mauser, to polish the actions, lighten 
the trigger pulls and work them over in various 
ways in order to obtain the greatest rapidity of 
fire of which they are capable and to get the 
heavy load. Once in a great while one gets hold 
of such a rifle and its advantage to the big game 
hunter in giving him a chance shot at grouse 
without making much noise is apparent. 
The reason a metal patched bullet is selected 
is because if one uses a lead bullet he may find 
his rifle shooting inaccurately with the metal 
patched bullet high velocity load, unless the rifle 
be carefully cleaned with a scratch brush before 
the heavy load is used. It is inconvenient to 
carry a rod and scratch brush in the hunting 
field, especially when a good part of such field 
is set on end. A Marble-Brayton auxiliary car¬ 
tridge or a supplemental chamber is also obtained, 
selecting one, if possible, that uses a pistol car¬ 
tridge with metal cased bullet. An odd thing 
I discovered with my .22 high power Savage was 
that a very light load with a lead bullet does not 
shoot the same as the .22 long rifle cartridge 
when used with the Marble-Brayton auxiliar car¬ 
tridge. At a short distance the .22 long rifle 
with the auxiliary shot to the same point at 
twenty yards as the high power load without any 
change in sighting, while the short range load 
in the regular shell required the sights to be 
changed considerably. 
The modifications one can make in a Spring- 
field are almost without limit. The illustration 
is of a remodeled Springfield on which has been 
substituted a thirty inch barrel chambered for 
the .30 Newton cartridge. Mr. Newton ground 
out the bolt head and the magazine, as that was 
necessary to handle the different size shells. The 
stock is the original Springfield stock remodeled 
and a fine pistol grip of proper shape has been 
