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At some point in the production of the Remington Model 30, Remington exhausted their supply of excess 1917 Enfield parts and began manufacturing new parts. Does anyone know when the switch occurred, either by date or serial number? I have a late production Model 30 which I assume was made with newly manufactured parts.
A good bit of what I write here is conjecture. With that said, here goes: From the get-go, some of the model 30 parts were newly made; stocks, butt plates, sights, etc., obviously. But many such as receivers, bolts, trigger guards were modified from original parts, again obviously. I have never seen one, but I have read that very early 30's were cock-on-closing. Again, while I've never seen one, I would be surprised if the early 30's did not have the left-hand twist of the 1917. I have a few model 30's and, if you look closely, you can see leftover machining from when they were made as 1917 parts. For instance, the hole for the screw that held the spring for the 1917 ladder sight was filled in and then matted over. The anti-bind rib that was added to the later bolts was simply riveted on. For the shorter .25, .30, .32, .35 Remington cartridges, the magazine box was blocked front and back (with a solid steel block!) and the 1917 follower chopped front and back to fit. Remington apparently did some experimentation with the model 30; I have one in .30 Remington that has a 7-groove barrel!
It should be noted that Remington made a LOT of 1917's during WWI and when their contracts expired, they would have had tons of parts left over. When you consider that only around 38,000 model 30's and about 2,500 model 720's were made in a little over 20 years, that would only amount to less than a weeks production of model 1917 parts. I don't believe that Remington ever ran out of bolts and receivers and, probably, some other parts as well. I read somewhere that Ruger used surplus 1917 extractors when he began the model 77.
There is an excellent book "Guns of the World" 1972 Peterson publishing that has an excellent article on the Remington 30S variations
including how the stock design changed and covers the Rem 30S carbine. production ended in 1939 and as the Winchester Model 70
really cut into the sales of the Rem 30S by 1937. this is an excellent article with alot of photos if you can locate the book
Nice history here.
Some of the parts were used on the South American rifles.