Remington 1903A4 Rifle

I've had this rifle for several months now and I figure its time for a breakdown of my experience. At this time I've fired about 400 rounds through it.
My first impressions were solid. Beautiful Turkish walnut spliced with American as a sapling resulted in a nice piece of wood. Based on the look and feel I'd say it was planted in the 50's. It also seems to be a stock made by Boyd however I cannot confirm this. The stock is quite a bit more blonde towards the muzzle than it is at the rear. This results in an unfortunate mismatch in wood. Not the end of the world however but the wood peculiarities don't end there. The stock was dry when the rifle arrived, real dry. Now its normal for a 1903 stock to have a boiled linseed or Danish oil finish, but this rifle didn't appear to have anything applied. When I got the rifle home I applied some boiled linseed to the stock. After wiping it down a huge amount of wood dust came off in my shop towel. This led me to remove the action from the stock and continue the process. After some wiping and coats of boiled linseed, The stock smells good, feels good, has a layer of protection and isn't shedding dust on the barrel/action and on my hands. The wood here is quality, real quality, but a little more love with the stock would have made the price tag of the rifle seem just that much more reasonable.
As for the finish, I'm very happy. The barrel, bolt, and receiver seem to have been finished at the same time at the US Armament shop. Color is perfect, no blotching and is exactly like a new old stock 1903 you'd see at a museum. The follower in my magazine is milled for some reason despite it being a 1903a3 technically and the finish is totally shot but its a follow so if it works, I'm happy. Sadly, the magazine didn't work upon receiving the rifle. First time I brought it home I loaded it with five rounds of PPU 150 gr "M2 Ball" 30-06. The rifle simply wouldn't feed without me pressing my thumb on the neck of the cartridge to lift the rear high enough . Otherwise the bolt simply ran over the top of the cartridges. Frustrated, I tried snap caps and they did the same. After taking the action out of the stock for the linseed oil treatment, I resat the magazine follower/spring and the issue was fixed. I don't know what happened and I made sure I wasn't loading the magazine improperly the several times I tried it. The bolt clearly experienced some pitting in its storage over the years but its minor and not on pressure bearing parts like the breach face or bolt lugs. The refinishing prevents the pitting from getting worse any time soon. The bolt is also clearly a late/post was Remington made bolt as the third lug has the simplified design. If the lack of a scallop cut bothers you, you've been warned.
Moving on, the action is smooth and trigger seems to be at the absolute minimum for CMP Vintage Sniper matches (3 lbs). My gunsmith checked the action and both locking lucks are making good contact with the action and the safety lug isn't (as intended by design). The scope wasn't installed quite perfectly so I had him adjust the alignment as well. As for the rifle itself, the last thing worth mentioning is that disabling the magazine cutoff requires alot more "technique" to operate so to say than most 1903's out there. Now, this is to be expected. These rifles, as described in the listing, are reactivated parade rifles. The magazine cutoff was welded to the receiver to prevent removal of the bolt. With my particular example. Its best to just to leave the magazine turned on unless field stripping.
While this isn't about the rifle itself, its worth mentioning that the Lyman Alaskan reproduction scope is excellent. While the finish is quite poor, the glass is excellent and turrets track true and the scope hasn't broken from the recoil yet as many poor quality scopes would. I have no real complaints.
Finally, I was able to achieve 1 MOA groups reliably with this rifle. Yes that's right, 1 MOA and using the aforementioned PPU stuff to boot. Is the rifle perfect? No its not, but if you consider the life of this rifle until now and the work that was done to get it to this current state, you can't go wrong if you want a good rifle for the CMP Vintage Match like myself. Based on serial number of my rifle the receiver was made in 1943 and I'd wager it saw no combat with the proliferation of M1 Garand's by that point. Shortly after the war it was converted into the parade rifle I described. This means the receiver probably had less than say 50 rounds through it before me. In my eyes, this was a new old stock receiver.