1917 double barrel date stamp

[sakorick]

Yes. Winchester had some major standardization problems with their early rifles. Rifles were prohibited from being sent to Europe until March of 1918 and only those made after Jan 1st by any manufacture. All units issued Winchester rifles were replaced with Remingtons and Winchester M1917 rifles were only issued to CONUS units. The issue wasn't resolved until April of 1918 when the AG office approved Winchester rifles made with a barrel stamp of 1-18 or later as approved for shipment to units in theater. There is a big write up on the Winchester problem in Scott Duff's book on the M1917. The bottom line is that Winchester had so many non-standard parts they could not meet the standardization criteria.......in other words, many Winchester parts would not work on Eddystones and Remingtons. Interestingly, none of the P14 rifles made by the 3 contractors were even remotely standard and the British simply didn't care. Regards, Rick.