Recently I bought an Eddystone M1917 with the receiver and barrel still in military configuration, nothing cut down, but in a Boyds sporter stock. The receiver SN seems to date to October 1918 and it has an Eddystone 10 18 barrel. The bore is bright and clean with great rifling. Also has original E trigger and trigger guard, but a Remington bolt.

The receiver has maybe 15% of the finish remaining, but the barrel has 90-95% greenish parkerizing. (Looks it was rebarreled sometime?) I'm not sure whether to have the receiver and barrel refinished. Because the finish is so different between the two it looks kind of odd, but then, refinishing kind of takes away from the history of the piece. I'm currently looking for a military stock and have obtained E stock hardware--some blue, some parkerized. I'll most likely refinish the stock hardware so the finish is the same.

The question is, because I wouldn't have an original stock and stock hardware anyway, does it detract from the history of the piece to refinish the receiver and barrel? Because stocks seem to be scarce--and pricey, I might buy a new replacement anyway.

I'm new to the forum, and will try to figure out how to post pix
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