hi , im maybe able to inform a little but not by any means a definitive source , but ill offer what i can and if you like contact me ill give you some more intelligent sources than i - there are a couple here who are fairly well versed that may jump in to add and or correct me ,
for your project - its a little less easy than one might hope ,
this rifle originated in development as the experimental mauser type magazine rifle of 1900 , with an enfield type cutoff for the magazine feed , for the rimless mauser type cartrige - our previous adopted rifle used a rimmed cartrige like the enfields ,
originaly submitted for evaluation as the M1901 , for testing , and accepted as superior to the current-at-the-time krag bolt action rifles , very few of these exist today ,
the low number springfield rifle you selected does come up as a 1907 mfgr , these are of concern as to heat treat technology , safe after 800,000 is the rule of thumb , should be a nice script marking as opposed to later block letter rollmarks , it would have originally worn a straight grip stock [no pistol grip of any kind] with finger grooves on the forearm , and fitted with an M1905 bayonet [the very early M1903s were fitted with a rod bayonet like the late trapdoor rifles ] its 17" , bright polished blade and walnut grip scales that should show the machine cutting ,
the early M1903 rifles were designed for the M1903 ball ammo 30-03 round nose bullets till 1906 , then were switched to M1906 ball ammo with the pointed spitzer bullet , yours would have been made for 30-06 , so that assumption is good ,
short of these two changes there were no others till 1929 when the military adopted the M1903A1 with pistol grip stock ,
there were two main arsenals mfrgring , springfield in massechusets - the original government arsenal , then rock island [a small island in the center of the mississippi river between moline-rock island illinois and davenport-bettendorf iowa ]this was also a federal POW camp durring the civil war ,
that said this was re-barreled in june or after of 1918 , end of WWI , that could mean it served - and came back to be refurbished , but whether it served overseas or not it was re-arsenaled , this was the official US military rifle of that era [although WWI was the dawn of commercial contracts - another whole story of its own that leads you to the M1917 rifles ] and we were short of rifles during WWI so i cannot think it was sitting in storage , it served stateside or overseas ,
but , records were sparse and over the years those that might have added to your story were lost , the US did not unit mark there rifles as some other countries did in this era , so tracking the rifle will be hard to impossible beyond what the springfield armory offers in their shipping records , mostly tells you what branch by the depot it was shipped to ,
it will be near impossible to track the rifle to a specific unit let alone a specific individual ,
one could go on for hours typing the minutia , but the research will be fun , its an interesting era in american military small arms development[i think the most interesting] and one that was extreemly influential in our history ,
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one quick question tho - you said "the bolt says U.S. springfield armory"
while i realise this may have been a novices misstype , i need to add that the US did not mark their 'bolts' such , only the reciever , if the bolt has markings its foreign use marks - and again i repeat i think a novice typo as they would not have put that on it , the bolt may be marked "NS" for nickle steel ?
BTW - you can use my photos from old posts if they are of help
rifle should look like the middle one here -
and the bayonet should look like the top one here -
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I will see what i can do about pics....might be able to get some on later tonight