I have a Remington 1903 and read somewhere that loading it as a single shot might break the ejector (as opposed to loading from the magazine). This confuses me because the rifle was designed to carry a full magazine load while using it as a single shot (magazine selector down) for ammo conservation, and then going to full 5 shots out of the magazine by flipping the magazine selector up when necessary. Can anybody clear this up for me?

No way for it to break the ejector -- think you must mean the extractor, which is beefy enough to make breakage from single loading an extremely unlikely event. To clear it up -- I think you got bum information.

The 1903 Springfield is a CRF magazine/action. All CRF rifles have a problem feeding a single round into the chamber, as opposed to feeding from the magazine. Most shooters of CRF rifles if they want to shot them single shot will load a single round into the magazine and let the rifle strip the single round out of the magazine and under the EXTRACTOR. Therefore it loads just like a multi shot feed CRF rifle.

The extractor is the problem in CRF rifles when single shooting. the Extractor has to "jump" over the case rim if the round is fed directly into the chamber. Many Mausers with CRF will not work or will break the extractor is single round direct feed is used. But on the Springfield, to help this inherent weakness, the front surface of the EXTRACTOR is slightly beveled (relieved). this gives the Single shot loader a chance to push harder and ramp the extractor over the case rim. Often CRF shooters will also push in on the rear half of the extractor with a finger as they close the action; this allows the extractor to see-saw a little and more easily "jump" the case rim.

So yes, single shot feeding of CRF is not great in most actions. The Springfield rifle, because it has a mag cut-off, anticipated this and beveled the front of the extractor...so you can do it without ruining your rifle.

Hope this explains what you had read.

Interesting, the mag-cut off and the single shot feed was seldom used by the military and never taught to troops. The cut-off was actually a bad feature, as a soldier in battle might have the mag-cut-off on "Blocked" and compromise his action. IIRC the military board made the Springfield armory add this feature during the development of the '03 as they feared to much ammunition would be wasted.

Yes, extractor is what I meant. You explanation makes sense. I generally shoot single shot mode and found it easier to just put the round in and close the bolt rather than push it down into the magazine and back under the bolt to feed. I didn't want to hurt anything, which is why I asked.

Check out that bevel on the front of the extractor. Some people hone it a little IF they are going to be doing a lot of single shot shooting. I just load into the magazine on CRF and not concern myself; which is probably what the article was suggesting.

good luck shooting.

BTI, the 03/03A3 was a push feed design and a control feed design, the Mauser was/is a control feed design depending on which reloading forum is giving the advise.

A friend built a Wildcat 7mm (03 receiver), he had 4 out of 10 cases experience case head separation, I suggested I could have checked his rifle before it left the shop, I told him I could have met him at the rang and temporally fixed the problem long enough to get his cases fired and formed.

Then of course, I informed him I formed first then fired, and there was no excuse for someone to ream a chamber and not know the length of the chamber from the bolt face to the shoulder of the chamber after they finished the chamber.

BTI before the Internet



F. Guffey