Should I buy Eddystone 1917

[Aragorn243]

I'm a casual collector of milsurplus having half a dozen rifles from various nationalities but am basically a novice at it. For the most part, I've sought inexpensive pieces that are in good functional shape and just need a bit of TLC to clean them up etc.

I've been making some calls to various gun shops in the area to see what they have and found a shop that has a pair of Carcanos that I decided to check out.

Beside the Carcano was an Eddystone 1917 that at first I ignored but decided to take a gander at the price, $299.00. That got my attention but as I don't know a tremendous amount about them I went home and researched them quite a bit last evening.

The receiver was made in September of 1918. It has been rebarreled with a Johnson barrel with no date stamp. The stock is what I believe to be a Remington as it is stamped with an "R" on the tip of the stock. That is the only stock marking I can find and I looked it over pretty well. Only problem is that whoever had it before loaded the stock with some sort of reddish shellac that could very well hide any faint markings.

The bolt is a mix of a Remington body with some Eddystone parts. The safety works, the trigger has a nice even pull. The bolt however is stiff to pull back once the trigger has been fired. There are a few flat spots worn onto it that seem odd to me and the side portion which slides through the groove and can be seen looking at it's right side is scored pretty heavily.

The overall finish of the metal doesn't look too bad. It's there, very dull parkerized blue look. The ordnance bomb on the left side of the receiver is only 2/3's there.

The bore doesn't look that great but the rifleing is there and it's hard to tell if it's just overly dirty or just dull. They ran a wire brush and a patch through it a few times after I asked about it and the bore has a bit of shine to it but looks scratchy and the two counter guys said they "think" they can see some minor pitting toward the center of the barrel. My eyes didn't really know what to look for.

Having priced these last night, I believe $300 is a bit on the cheap side for one of these even in poor condition but I would prefer a rifle that I can shoot and do so safely. They cannot gage the bore. Their opinion is that it is functional but they admitted they really know very little about it.

Being that it is a late 1918 rifle, the receiver hardness or brittleness shouldn't be an issue from what I've read but again, not sure. That it is a military rebarrel would also seem to indicate that the receiver is not cracked but again, I don't know their proceedure for this if it was.

So my goals for this are to one, remove the shellac mess that is on it, clean the stock up nicely and probably linseed oil it and to shoot it occasionally. Not competitively but more to just know that it works and is relatively accurate. I think the stock will clean up OK, it's in fairly decent shape with a few of the usual dings and gouges. I can't tell if it's been sanded down already but that possibility exists as the brass pins are longer than the wood is wide. Cleaning the bore and action is also a definate. It is very dry now and that was one of the reasons why the bolt may not be cycling smoothly according to the sales guy.

The big red flag is that this rifle has been in their store for almost two years now. It had been $400 up until a few weeks ago when they reduced all their milsurps that have been there for a while. So it's like I'm missing something with it that all the other guys that go through that place aren't. It's a pretty heavily traveled gun/sportsman shop.

Any opinions on the condition/value etc would be greatly appreciated. As my last milsurp purchases were a British 303 and a Swedish Mauser from Woolworths for less than $100 each and a Mosin Nagant for $89 two weeks ago, this is a pretty big step up in price for me. I'm not intending to resell the rifle so profit is not an issue but I don't want to lose money on it either with a bad purchase and a rifle I have no chance of using.

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