My first M1917 rifle

[mmontag]

Hello Everyone!

I just recently acquired my first M1917 rifle, which is a Remington with some Eddystone parts. My rifle has serial number 1574XX. The barrel is marked with an R, flaming bomb, and dated 2-18. The bore is like a mirror, rifling is very good. The only mark on the stock is an R at the very front of the stock in the small area surrounded by the front barrel band. The metal is blued with slight ware on the edges of the receiver, butt plate, and various places on the bolt body. The rear sight ladder face is in the white, numbers are dark, aperture piece is blued, the cocking piece is in the white as well as the bolt release spring. The cocking piece also has an "NS" on it. The parts marked with an E are the under side of the bolt handle, the bolt release body(not the spring), the safety lever, the front barrel band, and the rear sling swivel plate. The safety lever also has an eagle with a tiny symbol underneath it. The left side of the receiver is stamped with a flaming bomb, and a BM with a crown over it. The ball of the bolt handle also has a BM with a crown over it, the top of the bolt handle has a flaming bomb. The top edge of the receiver on the left side has two eagle stamps, one with an F under it and one with what appears to be a 7 under it. The front sight post has either a 090 or 060 depending on which way you read it. Both the front sight post and the part holding the front sight post have an R on them. There appears to be a cosmoline-like substance in various places on the rifle, like inside of the hole at the end of the bolt handle, and inside of the gas escape hole on the right side of the receiver ring, and inside of bolt lug recesses of the receiver. The cosmoline-like substance has no smell to it at all. The bore is clean and most of the rifle is clean, so I don't know if someone applied this substance, or failed to clean all of it out in some places. The trigger is great and the rifle came with what appears to be an old M1907 sling. The stock looks like dark walnut, looks original with a brass pin above the front of the trigger guard, and a blued recoil bolt below the receiver ring. There is no rust, the rifle seems well taken care of, and there is nothing in the trap door on the butt plate. All of the screw heads look excellent.

My question would be where this rifle was rebuilt? It has no stamps on the stock like I've seen some rifle have after they were refurbished/rebuilt. Parts were swapped out at some point I'm assuming since it has some Eddystone parts it must have been rebuilt somewhere. The stock is fitted appropriately, the front of the barrel is pressing straight down against the stock at the front barrel band as it should. It looks appropriately put together. I'm sure it will be a great shooter. The front sight blade is fixed via a punch mark on the front which lines up with a mark on the body of the blade, it doesn't look like it has been moved from it's original position.

[browningautorifle]

Love to see some pics of this one.

[mmontag]

Love to see some pics of this one.

Sure! Pictures coming this weekend. My camera was unavailable so I did my best to describe everything in great detail, but of course pictures are the best way.

[browningautorifle]

It will sure help the guys to figure what's original and what's replaced.

[mmontag]

There we go. Let me know if you would like more pics of something specific. I just borrowed this camera and I tried to get the best
focus/lighting.

-Mike

[mmontag]

I realized that there are no clear pictures of the left side of the receiver. This is the best one, and that stamp on the left side of the receiver is a BM with a crown over it, and a flaming bomb.

[browningautorifle]

Nice, that should help them see what's what.

[Mk VII]

Attachment 134236 stamp on the left side of the receiver is a BM with a crown over it

British commercial proof mark. Should on the bbl as well (often under the handguard)

[mmontag]

British commercial proof mark. Should on the bbl as well (often under the handguard)

Interesting, so this one actually came from the U.K. I don't see any import marks but perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.

[Sapper740]

You can easily tell if the front sight is a .060" or a .090" by measuring its height above the center line of the bore. The 11 various front sight's heights will be between .985" and 1.135" so a .060 stamped sight will be 1.060" above the center line of the bore and a .090 will be 1.090". You may wonder why .060 and .985 don't add up to 1.060". That is because the first two sight heights are -.015" and 0". Remington's production started in 10/1917 and continued until 12/1918 with a total production of almost 586,000 rifles. Your barrel is original since M1917 replacement barrels would be stamped either HS for High Standard or J.A. for Johnson Automatic and would be parkerized. All this information can be found in Charles Stratton's British Enfield Rifles Volume 4.