1903a3 in in Win 225 cartidge feed problem

[nmaul]

I recently acquired a Smith Corona 1903a3 receiver that has a 225 Winchester barrel on it. As you can imagine, it does not feed the much smaller than designed cartridge properly from the magazine. I need to take up the extra space in the magazine box some way or other. I envision cutting down the width and length of the follower, lining the mag box on the sides, and putting some kind of blocks in the front and rear. Does anyone have any experience with this, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel? I know that thousands of these rifles were sporterized, so someone has already done it. Is their a ready made product available?

 

[nicholst55]

No ready-made product. You can epoxy a piece of aluminum bar to the back of the magazine box to reduce the length, and cut your follower to match. Good luck with your project!

 

[Chawbaccer]

The model 70 was chambered for this round, maybe you can get a 225 magazine box and follower from Numrich and modify it to fit your gun.

 

[rcmodel]

I don't think the magazine box being too long is your problem.
The .225 Win case design is.

Part of the feed problem can be traced back to the semi-rimmed cartridge design on the .225 Win. The rim is 30-06 size, but the case body is more like a 30-30.

As the 03 Springfield (and the Model 70) have the feed rails milled into the bottom of the receiver to guide 30-06 cartridges, it will not feed 30-30 size semi-rimmed cases very well without modification to the receiver feed rails. (Model 70's in .225 were made to feed them by the factory)

It's not a job for the feint of heart, or one without experience on grinding feed rails.
You only get one chance to get it right.

rc

 

[dirtyjim]

you will need to fab up two angled spacers for the magazine. the back spacer will need to be thick at the top and thin at the bottom the front spacer will need to be the opposite. that allows the rims to stay in front of each other and should solve most of your feeding problems. it worked ion my 220 swift mauser.
sometimes using the follower from a p14 or a siamese mauser also helps, it wasn't needed in my mauser but i know others that have used them

 

[nmaul]

Thanks very much to all of you for your info and suggestions. Haven't decided exactly how I'm going to proceed, but now I have more ideas to work with. I'll let you know how it turns out.