I walked away with a nice looking Eddystone M1917 from a gunshow in Springdale, AR on Saturday. I'm no expert on them, but everything is marked with an 'E' and the finish looks uniform on all the parts, so I wonder if it might be original. I've read that M1917s were parked towards the end of the production run, and I think I'm looking at parkerizing rather than bluing on this one.

I took out the trigger guard and magazine floor plate and they are all marked with an E, as well as the buttplate, front sling swivel, and bayonet lug (upper band?). The bore is shiny but looks to have some dried cosmolineicon or grease near the throat. There is dried grease on other parts of the rifle as you'll see in the photos.

One thing that interests me is that the bolt handle has a "USMC" stamp on it. I was under the impression that the Marine Corps only used the M1917 as a drill rifle and not in combat. Is this correct? If so, I wonder if mine was one of those. It has been dropped at least once, as the trigger guard has a slight dent in it.

Thanks for any information.


The overall shot of the rifle.


Does the finish look original?










Here is where the bolt is marked "USMC." Sorry for the blurry pic.


What arsenal did this stamp come from?




The rifle with my only other US military bolt action rifle: a 1943 Smith-Corona M1903A3.

Thanks for looking this far and for any information.
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