Model of 1917 Eddystone.

[coneten]

Local shop has an Eddystone. Looks to be a re-arsenal. SN559832 makes it 1918..barrel is E 4-18 and very good condition. Nice walnut stock, R on fore end, with [SSAA] San Antonio Arsenal and a boxed RF, [P] under pistol grip. All parts visible are E marked with the exception of the R marked bolt. What are these rifles going for these days?

Information

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[jamie5070]

The big question is , What is the condition of the bore? The prices on gb seam to be a little low right now. The last mixmaster I saw in a local shop was heavily worn with a rough bore and a price tag of $625. It was in for only a week or two.
john

[coneten]

The bore is very good..gleaming and nice crown.

[Patrick Chadwick]

a) Decide what your primary aim is:

1) Shooting, or
2) Collecting.

For collectors, all-matching parts appears to be a major priority. The rifle is not all-matching, so it scores low on a collector's scale.

For shooting, the bore condition is the absolute first priority factor. Parts can be obtained, wood can be cleaned etc. etc. But a shot-out barrel makes the rifle worthless as a shooter.

But beware! Shiny is not automatically good. M1917s and P14s were used as second-line/Home Guard rifles and polished to death, with the enthusiastic use of the pull-through producing a super-shiny but bell-mouthed muzzle. My best rifles have been arsenal "sleepers". That means covered in century-old crud, fossilized grease, and plenty of dings from being shunted around. But practically mint bores.

So it depends in the end on how you judge the barrel, if you are unable to test-fire it, which is the typical situation. I will not bore you and everybody else with a long text on how to do that, unless you specifically ask for it. But that is the essence. And one very good reason why I prefer to buy from dealers, as dealers here will take a gun back if you are a serious target shooter known to the dealer or a mutual third party, and say that the thing simply shoots lousily.

It's your judgement!

Patrick

[eldowerks]

So it depends in the end on how you judge the barrel, if you are unable to test-fire it, which is the typical situation. I will not bore you and everybody else with a long text on how to do that, unless you specifically ask for it.
Patrick

Mr. Chadwick, I, for one, would be glad to learn how to evaluate a barrel in a gun store setting.

If I'm interested in a particular rifle, I'll bring a bullet, bore snake and bore light to the gun store. The bore snake because sometimes a barrel is so full of dust or lint that I can't see the rifling, a bore light to illuminate the bore and a bullet to check for muzzle wear... but I'm sure there is a better way.

[Patrick Chadwick]

OK, eldowerks, you're on the right lines.

What follows is fairly comprehensive. If it seems so long that it could be a chapter from a book - well, you are right, that's exactly what I am cooking up at the moment.

Basic kit
In many cases you will not be able to try out the rifle that interests you. It is therefore advisable to carry a set of basic tools when you go to look at an old rifle. And it is advisable to carry out these tests before shooting the rifle, even if it looks OK.

(Extract) .... Here's what I have in my "be prepared - you never know what you're going to come across" kit, plus a description of how to apply it. The complete checking procedure can be carried out in a far shorter time than it takes me to write this, and while nothing is foolproof, it enables you to weed out most of the duds in a few minutes. A rifle that passes all of these tests is worth trying out at the range, if the price is right.

a) A cleaning rod that is, ideally, long enough to clean the barrel from the breech end. The rod must be brass or plastic-covered, NOT naked steel (I, as an owner, would object to that). NOT a bore snake. Not only can bore snakes become horrifically jammed, but you need a rigid rod for some of the tests that follow.
b) Cleaning felts for the caliber concerned. These are made in Germany by VFG, but something similar ought to be available in other countries. I carry a mixture of various sizes in a small box. For those who do not know them, these are little felt cylinders, about 1/2" long, which screw onto the end of the cleaning rod. They are excellent for barrel evaluation. If you cannot get the felts, take some felt patches instead.
c) Cleaning patches + jag.
d) Bronze bore brush
d) The very best penetrating oil you can find.
e) A dummy cartridge case, fully resized, loaded with bullet (but no primer or powder).
f) A felt-tip marker pen.
g) A watchmakers eyeglass.
h) A bore light (not necessary for bolt-action rifles, but vital for muzzle-loaders).

……..

RULE 1 If the dealer/owner is not prepared to let you make these tests, walk away right now.

RULE 2 Establish the price that you will pay IF you are satisfied with the rifle BEFORE spending time on increasing the value of somebody else's property!

Bore evaluation
Be cautious of super-shiny bores! Before I bought my Eddystone M1917, I had seen and even test-fired a couple of P17s. That is what we Europeans tend to call the M1917, regardless of what the purists say. The dud examples both had traces of a red band of paint around the fore-end that was applied by the British to avoid confusion of the M1917 in .30-06 with the P14 in .303. It seems that the majority of these rifles were issued to the Home Guard in WW2. So they were typically not used by serious riflemen, but were instead polished to death to please inspecting sergeants.
The standard British cleaning tool was the pull-through. No-one who has seen how stone blocks can be cut by ropes covered in abrasive will have any difficulty in appreciating that a pull-through, especially after absorbing the inevitable dirt of everyday use, can wear a muzzle, especially as the tendency is to always pull in a certain way, thus always rubbing in the same direction. The two examples that I tried were catastrophic shooters, as the muzzles were bell-mouthed back for about ½". The first time, I took the offending rifle to a gunsmith who measured the muzzle with a plug gauge. The second time, I knew myself what was wrong.

In Germany, milsurp shooters are keen on those aluminium link chains, as they feel they are historically correct with their K98s. Most people are unaware that aluminium is corrosion-resistant because it forms a thin layer of aluminium oxide on the surface, and that aluminium oxide is an excellent grinding paste. So bell-mouthed muzzles are no rarity with German service rifles either!

Test 1 Crude obstruction
Open the breech. Remove the bolt (if bolt-action). Look down the bore from the breech end. The gun must be unloaded, and I hope you can see right through from end to end. Don't laugh, bores have been known to have bullets (and broken bore snakes) stuck in them!

Maybe the bore is clean. Frequently it is not. It is amazing how often owners and dealers who would like to get a few hundred dollars, euros or whatever from you fail to take the time to clean the bore. Maybe they are just plain lazy? Or maybe they are not too keen on revealing the horrible truth? And do not be overly impressed by shiny bores either. As you will learn later, they can be the worst!

Test 2 Muzzle
Use the watchmakers eyeglass to check for obvious damage to the crown. Simple scratching is easy to correct, but visible corrosion or bell-mouthing is not. If that stage is OK, the next is a bit more subtle. Use a felt-tip marker pen to paint over the bullet around the area where it would be seated in the rifling. The cartridge case holds the bullet so that you can insert the bullet in the muzzle and then, holding it firmly against the rifling, twiddle it around. When you remove the case, you should see a bright line, a few millimeters from the mouth of the cartridge case. Theoretically, you could measure the diameter at this point and know what the bore diameter is at the muzzle. In practice, you will not be able to do this with sufficient precision without a bench micrometer, and any rounding of the muzzle crown will confuse the issue. However, if the ogival section disappears completely into the muzzle (which is why a cartridge is better as a test tool, so you can pull the bullet out again!), forget that barrel and look elsewhere. It is possible to counter-bore a muzzle, but this costs real money and the result is by no means guaranteed to be an accurate rifle.

Your next task is to clean the bore. Run a patch through the bore. The bore may have been oiled. While that is good for preservation, an oil film can make a dull bore look shiny. For evaluation, you want a dry, clean bore.
Look at the patch. Is it oily? OK, clean until a patch comes out dry.

Then run a cleaning felt through the bore. Is it dirty?
If the felt comes out black with muck, you can hope that the bore is just plain filthy or has fossilized grease from long storage. Several of my rifles had black bores when purchased, but cleaned up beautifully. Use the bronze bore brush to break up the crud, and carry on cleaning, using some drops of penetrating oil on the patches.
If it comes out grey, the bore may be seriously leaded. This was the case with my Brazil Mauser, which I got for a wall-hanger price because the grooves had practically disappeared. You are taking a risk if you buy a rifle with a bore in this condition, as the bore may be seriously pitted underneath. And you won't discover that until you have taken the rifle home and spent a considerable time removing the lead..
If the felt comes out as a ragged brown-stained lump, this means that it has been torn on hard rust which has already pitted the bore. Unless the rifle concerned is a great rarity (i.e. you are looking from a collector's viewpoint) and you are desperate to have exactly that model, then I recommend that you leave it, as it is unlikely ever to make a good shooter.

Test 3 Bore test
Now put a cleaning felt of the right diameter onto the end of the cleaning rod, and push and pull it slowly up and down the bore. With a little practice, you can detect a ringed barrel, a seriously bell-mouthed muzzle, or a badly worn throat, as the friction drops when the felt passes over the widened spot. I once found 3 rings in this way, in a .22 barrel. Amazing how someone can ruin their barrel not just once, but 3 times over! That one was a real shame, as it was an externally immaculate pre-war Mauser target rifle, the type with a bolt that looks like a mini-98 action. But it couldn't hit the target at 50 yards.

The lesson is: It’s the internal values that count.
.... (End of extract)

If the rifle is good so far, you can also make a rough check on the throat and the head clearance, using a specially set up dummy cartridge and a threaded rod, but I think this was already enough for "Lesson 1".

I hope your "Eddy" passes the tests. Please report back on the result.
Until then, a Happy Easter to you and all forum members, from

Patrick

[jmoore]

Or, if you're mad, (like me), you get a Hawkeye bore scope, in addition!

In actual fact, it DOES pay for itself over time, and has quite a few uses!

[Patrick Chadwick]

"In actual fact, it DOES pay for itself over time, and has quite a few uses!"

- That's also my favorite excuse for buying tools!

Patrick

[jmoore]

The borescope has kept me AWAY from rifles that might have been otherwised purchased, AND steered me onto pieces that might have otherwise been passed up. You don't generally need any elbow grease to make an inspection, once you know what to look for.

BTW, most all 1917s have a wee bit of pitting in the bore (often only visible w/ the 'scope), but that in of itself won't affect it's shootability or accuracy!

[Patrick Chadwick]

Excellent argument jmoore!

Patrick