M1917 Stock question/issue

[BobinNJ]

I recently purchased a beautiful example of a Remington manufactured Model of 1917. The barrel is 7/18, and the rifle shows evidence of re-arsenaling, as there are various Eddystone & Winchester parts. The question I have concerns the stock, which has an arsenal cartouch and an "E" on the forestock. It appears that a previous owner removed wood from the forestock, as the barrel is free floated, from the hand guard ring all the way to the muzzle. Question is, should I attempt to reestablish contact at the forend, either with acraglass, or a piece of wood? Or, am I better off leaving it "As is". The rifle shoots well, and shows signs of being accurate, at least 2 - 3 moa. Opinions?

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[WarPig1976]

If it shoots leave it. Of two pristine examples of Eddystones I've seen, one being mine, there's very slight contact at the tip. Perhaps a few pounds at most.
Two/three Moa is very good for a service rifle, doubt you'll get much better.

[Patrick Chadwick]

"Never change a winning team" also applies to that tricky mix of wood and metal known as a rifle.

If the present grouping is in the 2-3 MOA range, you can reckon that about 1MOA of variation is the rifle/ammo combination (with optimized ammo), 1MOA is the limitation of aiming with a blade foresight, and 1MOA is your PWF or Personal Wobble Factor. So it will be difficult to see if any alterations produce a statistically significant improvement unless you get a good scope fitted and shoot from a rest. My Eddy also groups about 3MOA with service sights, but just about manages 1MOA with scope and rest.

I found that the biggest improvement in grouping was achieved by carefully selecting the powder charge to suit the resonance of the long barrel. Maybe this will help -

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....highlight=Eddy

Post#8 - group size halved by selecting powder charge.

Stretching an analogy to the extreme: don't pull up the plant to see how the roots are growing - try varying the quantity of fertilizer (nitro)!

[Patrick Chadwick]

Question is, should I attempt to reestablish contact at the forend, either with acraglass, or a piece of wood?

Definitely not - that's like trying to correct a bent barrel by hitting it with a hammer - you have no idea how much force is required and where to apply it.

[fjruple]

If it shoots leave it. Of two pristine examples of Eddystones I've seen, one being mine, there's very slight contact at the tip. Perhaps a few pounds at most.
Two/three Moa is very good for a service rifle, doubt you'll get much better.

Warpig-- I would just leave it the way it is. The lack of contact is a good thing. To really test out the accuracy you may want to pick up a scope and a S&K scope mount and some good accurate ammo and see how it groups.

--fjruple

[WarPig1976]

I would just leave it the way it is.

Definitely, that's what I tried to convey. If it shoots, it shoots. Leave it be.

[Richardwv]

As far as shooting goes, whomever did that most likely did all subsequent owners a favor. Wood changes dimensions...and sometimes even direction....with changes in humidity/temp/age. While some rifles require some barrel pressure, that has to be tweaked from time to time to remain the same. The one thing you can be sure of is that 100 years after it left the factory things have moved a bit. If you are getting an honest 3MOA with it, all you can really do by fiddling with it is to take something that is spot on and make it worse.

[BobinNJ]

Thank you all for your input. I agree that the floating was, most likely, done for a reason. The barrel does still contact the nose cap in the upward dimension, and has little in the way of lateral play. I just wish whoever did the fore end trimming didn't do so aggressively as there is about a 1/4" gap. I will definitely be exploring the potential benefits of handloading, as I do so with my other milsurps.

[fjruple]

Thank you all for your input. I agree that the floating was, most likely, done for a reason. The barrel does still contact the nose cap in the upward dimension, and has little in the way of lateral play. I just wish whoever did the fore end trimming didn't do so aggressively as there is about a 1/4" gap. I will definitely be exploring the potential benefits of handloading, as I do so with my other milsurps.

BobinNJ--

If you can track down the previous owner it may help to find out who did the work. The M1917 Rifle was the only rifle issued in the National Rifle matches in 1919. It a long shot.

--fjruple

[BobinNJ]

I'll reach out to the store I bought it from (at a gun show 2 weeks ago), but they didn't have much info at the time, other then that it was on consignment. The stock was either a WW2 replacement or pre-war, so it wasn't WW1 vintage.