If you find a pure 1917, its a fake. I have yet to see a pure one (maybe in a museum and the ones taken off the line for presentation to various

Your gun and up to you, I don't think historic value is ruined, not a lot to start with, no one knows where parts were swapped. Barrel condition is going to drive the value anyway (as is finish)

In response to Patrick.

In fact the parts interchange delayed production by a significant time when rifles were in extremely short supply (non existent in many cases of training) It was a negative. P14s did not have that interchange capability. The exchange ability while convenient latter on overall was probably a significant negative. More guns would have also meant more spare parts and far less need to fudge them back together rather than just issue a new gun and send the messed up one to a rear area where they could be torn down, spare parts created (or new spares installed)

Factories did not swap parts, period. They came out all OEM.

Yes they did get mixed up not only in the field (where the interchange did make it easier) but all the re-arsenal work they went through did that as well.



The major feature of M1917 production was that, as far as possible, all parts from 3 different manufacturers should be interchangeable. So no US armourer fixing up M1917s would have worried much about matching E's or R's or W's. Part interchangeablilty was intended to be used to produce as many rifles as possible as fast as possible in the factory, and to keep up the maximum availability of functioning rifles in the field. Especially for the M1917, the snooty collector's attitude of "it's not all matching therefore not original" is historically incorrect. See Ferris "United Statesicon Rifle Model of 1917".

As to "history", nobody can tell now whether the parts were used in the factory, because delivery shortages required taking parts from one of the other factories, or "officially" swapped by a US armorer at a later date, or even swapped by you or me five minutes ago.

So go all-Eddy if you like. It's irrelevant for shooting anyway