I have two Springfields deriving from the 1903(A3) rifle. One is a .30-06 which has been restocked by my father, probably with some other modifications such as bluing the barrel and, importantly, changing the bold handle to allow use with a telescopic sight. The other is a .25-06 with a medium weight 24" barrel restocked by my father. Both rifles have a 15.5" length of pull, which suits my 6' 2" frame very well. Both rifles shoot quite accurately, probably more accurately than I can shoot them -- 1" groups for the .30-06 and 1.25" for the .25-06 (these groups also seem to be sensitive to the specific commercial loads that I shoot -- maybe other commercial loads or handloads tuned to each rifle would improve accuracy). The .30-06 has part of the forward iron sight still in place: the blade with the bead has been removed, but the heavier component that attaches to the barrel and formerly held the blade remains. This is a little unsightly (pun intended!) and the sight picture through the scope shows this as a blur, but is not a practical problem. I talked to a gun smith about removing, and basically the appropriate fix would be to chop off about an inch of barrel and recrown. Because the gun does shoot well, and I'm not keen about losing barrel length, I've never moved forwards with this modification. Maybe I still will do this some day. The barrel now is about 24". I suppose most would say that the performance decrease of the .30-06 in a 23" barrel versus a 24" barrel is negligible, but I'm just not sufficiently motivated to get this modification done.

Having said all that, I love both rifles. They are handsome solid pieces to carry in the woods and hunt with. I plan to use the .30-06 on my second elk hunt in about 3 weeks in SW Colorado.