Pattern 14 with "E.Y." markings

Several years ago I acquired an Eddystone P14 in what appears to be original, unaltered condition with about 95% of the blue finish intact It has the correct stock, volley sights with matching serial numbers on the bolt, receiver and rear sight. All the components have the Eddystone "E" marking. The right side of the buttstock has crisp, Broad Arrow, encircled I.E., and PATTN'14 markings. The serial number is 401970. The right side of the buttstock and left side of the receiver rail are stamped with "EY" (Emergency Use) marks. What exactly was the criteria for EY designation? I cannot find any specific information about "EY" designation beyond the definition.

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Originally Posted by Tom Jackson

What exactly was the criteria

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It could be designated for any number of reasons at the time, we can't tell which one it was at the time. They didn't mark them with the reason just the decision.

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Originally Posted by Tom Jackson

Several years ago I acquired an Eddystone P14 in what appears to be original, unaltered condition with about 95% of the blue finish intact It has the correct stock, volley sights with matching serial numbers on the bolt, receiver and rear sight. All the components have the Eddystone "E" marking. The right side of the buttstock has crisp, Broad Arrow, encircled I.E., and PATTN'14 markings. The serial number is 401970. The right side of the buttstock and left side of the receiver rail are stamped with "EY" (Emergency Use) marks. What exactly was the criteria for EY designation? I cannot find any specific information about "EY" designation beyond the definition.

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"E.Y." from what we know and what we see, was used to mark weapons considered to be either of insufficient quality or condition to be general issue, but not so poor or worn as to be marked "D.P." There are some cases where obsolete arms were marked Drill Purpose even though they are apparently still in good enough condition for issue, and in wartime some of these weapons have been officially reverted from their DP status when weapons were in short supply.

It seems that "odds and ends" were sometimes liable to be downgraded to DP status, again, not necessarily because they were in poor condition or unsafe, but because there was some need for DP arms and either not enough suitable weapons to convert, or not enough of a particular type to make them useable as anything else.

I've never heard of an EY rifle being upgraded to general issue standard, but it doe seem clear that at least the decision to mark a rifle DP was sometimes based on local needs and conditions, rather than the actual serviceability of the weapon.

In the case of apparently near-new P14s, I can't see any logical reason for them to be downgraded to EY status unless they were considered unsafe for general issue as there were many thousands of them in store, and later on general issue, and ostensibly they were in excellent condition.

Which really only leaves us with one logical conclusion: manufacturing defects.

And of course as these rifles were assembled from gauged and inspected parts and apparently conform to the dimensions of the patterns and drawings to within acceptable limits for use, it is also logical to conclude that defect(s) serious enough to render them unsafe probably involved either the materials or the heat treating of them.

Steel was probably bought in batches from whatever producers could supply it. Some batches are better than others, especially in that time of high demand and short supply and less sophisticated testing. The attached article details some of the problems encountered: heat treating of steels being made difficult or unreliable due to steel mills wanting to keep their methods and alloys secret.

Your rifle in the 400,000 range is a long way from the "first 60,000" range, but at this point we don't seem to know what the key factor was, but if it was a material quality problem, that is one which could crop up at almost any point in the contract, especially if different steel suppliers were being used, by choice or necessity.

A simple machining or dimensional problem one would expect to see corrected as the contract progressed, but material problems I suspect could appear at almost any point, and would be they detected soon enough to prevent such materials being used? Everything we know about the P14 contracts suggests they were an exercise in "bleeding" the British government by the manufacturers. How much did they even care about quality control?

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Originally Posted by Surpmil

"E.Y." from what we know and what we see, was used to mark weapons considered to be either of insufficient quality or condition to be general issue, but not so poor or worn as to be marked "D.P." There are some cases where obsolete arms were marked Drill Purpose even though they are apparently still in good enough condition for issue, and in wartime some of these weapons have been officially reverted from their DP status when weapons were in short supply.

It seems that "odds and ends" were sometimes liable to be downgraded to DP status, again, not necessarily because they were in poor condition or unsafe, but because there was some need for DP arms and either not enough suitable weapons to convert, or not enough of a particular type to make them useable as anything else.

I've never heard of an EY rifle being upgraded to general issue standard, but it doe seem clear that at least the decision to mark a rifle DP was sometimes based on local needs and conditions, rather than the actual serviceability of the weapon.

In the case of apparently near-new P14s, I can't see any logical reason for them to be downgraded to EY status unless they were considered unsafe for general issue as there were many thousands of them in store, and later on general issue, and ostensibly they were in excellent condition.

Which really only leaves us with one logical conclusion: manufacturing defects.

And of course as these rifles were assembled from gauged and inspected parts and apparently conform to the dimensions of the patterns and drawings to within acceptable limits for use, it is also logical to conclude that defect(s) serious enough to render them unsafe probably involved either the materials or the heat treating of them.

Steel was probably bought in batches from whatever producers could supply it. Some batches are better than others, especially in that time of high demand and short supply and less sophisticated testing. The attached article details some of the problems encountered: heat treating of steels being made difficult or unreliable due to steel mills wanting to keep their methods and alloys secret.

Your rifle in the 400,000 range is a long way from the "first 60,000" range, but at this point we don't seem to know what the key factor was, but if it was a material quality problem, that is one which could crop up at almost any point in the contract, especially if different steel suppliers were being used, by choice or necessity.

A simple machining or dimensional problem one would expect to see corrected as the contract progressed, but material problems I suspect could appear at almost any point, and would be they detected soon enough to prevent such materials being used? Everything we know about the P14 contracts suggests they were an exercise in "bleeding" the British government by the manufacturers. How much did they even care about quality control?

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Surpmil-- I don't think there was this problem with the Eddystone and Remington, Ilion plants as they obtained their steel from Midvale Steel which is a sister company of Eddystone and Remington, Ilion. In fact Midvale would take over ownership of the Eddystone plant in January 1918. All of these plants were owned and operated by J. P. Morgan through stock ownership.
The serial number is a bit high for a 400,000 EY. Most of the early Eddystones had reliably issues with feeding. Tom did not indicate if the rifle was a Pattern 1914 MKI or MKI*. I do know that Eddystone did change their followers and magazines later in production to solve the problem. These parts are easily identified with a "2" being stamped on them. The earlier ones are not stamped at all. Good pics can tell.

IIRC some time ago it was said the P14 in British service was readily EYed later on due to parts not being interchangeable. But rifle still in excellent condition.

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Originally Posted by Daan Kemp

IIRC some time ago it was said the P14 in British service was readily EYed later on due to parts not being interchangeable. But rifle still in excellent condition.

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Do we know whether the EY designation was applied to weapons individually, or only in "batches"? My impression is the latter.

We know the A.E.F. asked that no further Winchester M.17s be sent to France in 1918 due to non-interchangeability of parts, however we also know that the "motivation" of the workers and managers suddenly shot up when the M17 was being produced rather than the P14. (This article from the time confirms what IDS says in "The US Enfield" about the matter)

And yet, the War Office chose to put aside 10,000 Winchester P14s for possible sniper use...suggesting that they viewed them as having superior accuracy over the Remington rifles.

The problem with the Pattern 1914 production. each contractor was permitted to do their own changes as they saw fit. There was no "Pattern 1914 rifle board" to oversee the compatibility of common parts. The UK wants the stop gap rifles fast to replace Lee Enfield SMLE for front line service until SMLE production could catch with the demand. The UK government had problems with Winchester as they were paying for equipment and materials not used in the production of their rifles. Today we would call that contract fraud to say the least. The UK put a stop to that. The contractors would threaten the UK they would shut down production. I am pretty sure that Gen J.T. Thompson who set up the Eddystone plant was well aware of the non-compatibility of parts issues and the unwillingness of the contractors to follow the UK lead on their standards. That all would change when John T. Thompson was re-called to active duty to head up the Small Arms Board especially the "Rifle Board". He of course brought with him the issues he noted on the Pattern 1914 rifle project and he was going to have none that nonsense with the Model of 1917, by the name he personally gave the rifle. The US contractors may tell the British government to *uck off but the US Army Ordnance was not going any of that. They only had to look at S&W when they tried that and the US Government seize the company for the duration of the war. With even that Winchester tried to do their own thing by producing 10,000 rifles that were not to the specification of the Model of 1917 as the spec was not released yet. That would come back to haunt them as Gen. Pershing would not permit any incompatible Winchester 1917 in the AEF. Winchester was still fighting this issue after their 1917 met the compatibility requirements of the US Army Ordnance Department. Winchester had to approach the US Army Ordnance to get them to ensure the Winchesters were used in Europe. Acceptable compatibility was achieved by January 1918. But the black eye was still out there long after that date.