Eddystone Birch stock?

[Coal Burner]

I have an Eddystone, #1,250,xxx with an 11-18 dated barrel and all Eddystone parts. The whole thing was painted black when I got it, so I stripped the paint off and applied RLO.

The stock is clearly stamped with an "E" at the forend, with no other markings remaining. The wood is very light colored, it appears to be Birch. The handguards are the usual black Walnut. In Stratton's book, he states that all original WWI era stocks for the US Model of 1917 were American Black Walnut, and that some of the WWII replacement stocks were made of Birch. I did not notice anything about this in Ferris's book.

Did Eddystone make replacement stocks during WWII? Were any of the original stocks Birch? It is definitely not a P-14 stock.

[Tom in N.J.]

No, Eddystone did not make any replacement anything in WWII. The armament plant closed at the end of WWI and Baldwin expanded their locomotive area. Here is a picture of the Baldwin factory site after 1928.

[chuckindenver]

likely it was made by Milton Bradly, they made a lot of replacement 17 stocks.
under the buttplate it may have a M stamped, my Remington is a Birch stock, with this marking installed by RIA during rebuild..

[Coal Burner]

likely it was made by Milton Bradly, they made a lot of replacement 17 stocks.
under the buttplate it may have a M stamped, my Remington is a Birch stock, with this marking installed by RIA during rebuild..


Interesting - does your Milton Bradley stock have the "R" stamped at the forend? I would have assumed mine was a replacement stock if it were not for the "E" clearly stamped at the end, as well as a couple of eagle heads. I remember a 2 or 3 digit number under the buttplate, I will look at it again when I get home.

[chuckindenver]

it is marked with an E as well

[Calif-Steve]

I thought 3 different wood types were approved for the M1917 rifle during WWI. Walnut was in very short supply and airplane propellers were high priority for walbut.

[chuckindenver]

iv seen 2 types of wood, and 3 lengths of buttstocks, and a couple subcontractors of stocks and handguards as well.
Birch and Walnut is what iv seen so far. what is the other type of wood?

[Calif-Steve]

I know "satin walnut" was approved. Also know as sweet gum. I have one such stock.

[chuckindenver]

iv delt with gunwood on garand and Carbine stocks, no fun...sticky, and rough.
iv not seen one yet for the 17

[Patrick Chadwick]

Just as a marker, my Eddy, numbered 1,299,xxx with 11-18 barrel , has a black walnut stock, was staked on foresight, backsight and both trigger guard screws, and had an "as-new barrel but a helluva lot of dings from being shunted from store to store over 90 years. Everything was properly marked with Es, eagles and inspections numbers as per Ferris pp101-108, and I am satisfied that the rifle is as manufactured (apart from the dings, of course). So they hadn't run out of walnut a month after Coal Burner's example and about 6 weeks before the end of production (the graph on P. 88 of Ferris indicates a production rate of about 100,00 a month!).

So I would assume, unless documentary evidence to the contrary is forthcoming, not walnut = not original.

Just one further thought, Coal Burner: what did you use to strip the wood?

I recently did some experimenting with a walnut stock from a scrapped Mauser, and found that with caustic soda followed by hydrogen peroxide you can bleach European walnut right out to the color of raw beech! Look at the structure of the wood, not the color - maybe it IS walnut and you overdid the chemicals!

Patrick

[chuckindenver]

well, i have experianced my first 17 sweet gum stock, what i thought was birch, i find is actually sweet gum, and is really hard to sand and prep. just clogged up regular sand paper, so i used sanding blocks, they worked well, stained it heavy, and will see how it comes out..
mine is not marked M but has a U8 under the buttplate, RIA FK for rockisland rebuild,
learn something everyday..

[Coal Burner]

Just one further thought, Coal Burner: what did you use to strip the wood?

I recently did some experimenting with a walnut stock from a scrapped Mauser, and found that with caustic soda followed by hydrogen peroxide you can bleach European walnut right out to the color of raw beech! Look at the structure of the wood, not the color - maybe it IS walnut and you overdid the chemicals!

Patrick



I thought about the exact same thing, but the barrel and receiver inletting was never painted, and it was all light yellow before I started stripping anything. Plus the structure of the grain just doesn't look like walnut (to me) no matter what color it is, and I have a couple of walnut 1917 stocks to compare to.

I spot checked three different shades of Fiebing's leather dye on it, and they all turned out bright red. Birch always seems to turn red with that type of dye. I wound up scrubbing most of the leather dye off and using a Minwax stain to avoid the red coloration.

I'm surprised that rebuild stocks from another contractor would have the "E" stamp. Why would they even bother with that on a replacement stock years after the fact? Also surprised that they would use any type of gum wood - in my experience the grain is twisted like a rope and I won't even try to split it for firewood.

If anyone is curious enough, I can take pictures of it when I get home in a couple of weeks.

[mp-43]

I don't claim to be an expert, but I too have a birch stock on my 1917. The stock came from Numerich, described as "hardwood" and was in NOS condition. That is to say dry, dusty and slightly dinged from storage. Cost under $40 a few years back. It is marked with an R at the tip and has an eagle head 339 stamp ahead of the magwell. As far as I know, the eagle heads were phased out long before WW2, so it doesn't make sense for them to be re-applied by a contractor during ww2. I have heard the same thing that the birch stocks were all produced during ww2, but I find it hard to believe that they would bother to use the old markings.

[bordercav]

I have the same exact stock with the same stamp! I purchased it online a year or so ago.

[Dan Wilson]

Well if it has the eagles head stamp then it IS an original stock, these inspectors stamps were not used outside of initial acceptance.

Dan

[bordercav]

Here's the view of my Eagle/R stamped Birchwood stock

[beachbumbob]

That is a lovely rifle.

Bob

[bordercav]

Thanks, it's one of those projects that finally came together. I purchased it from Auction Arms about 2 years ago for around $600. It was a WWI/WWII rebuild with an 11-18 Rem barrel (shiny, smooth bore, no headspace issues) that is quite late for the receiver serial number. It had been reparked so the receiver stampings aren't super crisp, but decent enough and no pitting on the receiver. The bolt (and it's internals) were Eddystone, but the triggerguard & follower (less the floorplate) were R, as was the sear. The stock was a WWII (no mfg stamp) dark walnut with SSA & OGEK stampings. None of the furniture was R. Luckily enough, I was able to source many R stamped parts from ebay (stock, bolt) as well as Springfield Sporters & SARCO. Even luckier for me is the small handful of W stamped parts & the unmarked stock set brought me a small fortune on ebay offsetting most of what I spent to get this rifle to all R stamped configuration. The icing on the cake was the sling that came with it wasn't the Kerr you see in the photos but a proper M-1903 sling that now adorns my 1896 Krag, a $150 sling based on the last one that sold on ebay recently. If I add up what I spent and offset this with what I sold or didn't have to spend (the Krag sling), this rifle ended up costing me around $250. Now I gotta take it to the range to validate the whole exercise.:thup:

[Dan Wilson]

Unless someones humping M1917 stocks, that is original equipment, and very very nice looking original equipment :)

Congrats on a beautiful rifle.

Dan

[bordercav]

One other thing, the forend tip wasn't drilled. I had to first fit the upper band to the tip with a wood file, then drill to fit. The finish was as dry as a bone; I hit it with steel wool to smooth it out a bit, then a couple of coats of linseed oil and it came back too life quite nicely as you can see.

[Calif-Steve]

3 years back I ordered a M1917 stock off Numrich. It was cracked badly and I sent it back. Well, I waited about a month and reordered another M1917 stock. They shipped that same cracked stock to me! I sent it back. That was the last stock I have ever ordered from them. You can find wood at big gunshows. Good luck.