Re: Head spacing and worn out 03 Springfield
OK I'm gonna get flamed for this, but here it is....
My grandfather gave me a US model of 1917, Eddystone. It was in full original military glory. I shot it for a number of years and it developed a headspace problem causing bulged cartridge bases and some case head seperations. I bought a set of headspace gages and sure enough, the headspace was excessive. I searched around for available barrels, gunsmiths to do a barrel changeout, and considered the same thing you did about re-cutting the existing barrel. The gun still puts 3 rounds into less than 1 inch at 100 yards and the barrel has nice shiny strong rifling. I just couldn't see trashing the original barrel.
I ruminated on this for a couple years and one day just got the old girl out and started to see if I could figure out a way to take the slop out of it myself. I noticed when I closed the bolt on a "go" gage, the bolt could be jiggled back and forth by hand. I put in the field gage and all but maybe 1 or 2 thousandths of the slack was gone. Just barely perceptible movement of the bolt. I thought about this off and on for a few months, then finally decided nothing ventured-nothing gained. I pulled the bolt out and took it to work where we have an ace welder. I got him to add some metal to the rear of the bolt locking lugs with a stainless welding rod.
When I got back home a couple weeks later, I took a file and carefully worked down the added metal until the bolt would barely close on an empty chamber. Of course I had removed the extractor etc previously. I then used my "go" gage as a fitting tool and worked the metal down until the bolt would close on the go gage and would not close on the "no-go." This took all of about 4 hours. Test-fired with progressively stronger reloads until I reached my accuracy load with excellent results.
No more bulged cases, no huge gunsmith bill, I have the satisfaction that I fixed it myself, and the rifle is back in service and I can once again enjoy using it.
I am not advocating that anyone else do this, merely relaying my experience with this exact same problem as the OP. I am a lifelong mechanic and pretty much can't stand the thought of not being able to fix anything myself. It's just a mental problem I have.....
YMMV
ETA: during the diagnosis portion of my DIY project I also got some cerrosafe from Brownells and took a cast of the chamber to make sure it was not out of spec. It was OK.
