New P14

[harry mac]

Hello, new member here but I'm a longtime milsurp lover. Your receiver looks to have the star marking just below the R E which indicates it had the larger bolt lug upgrade in December 1916. This designates the rifle as a P14 MkI*. If that is the case the volley sights are incorrect for that rifle as they were removed when this upgrade was done. There should also be a MkI* stamp on the buttstock around the makers mark if the stock is original to the rifle. I believe the daisy stamp on the bolt indicates this upgrade as well. The location of the serial number on the bolt indicates this as well because the number was originally on the underside of the bolt handle making this somewhat of a force match. With the bolt open you should see a milled half circle at the base of the barrel just before the chamber, this was done to facilitate the larger bolt lug. If you remove the hand guards there should be a year stamping on the chamber which will tell you the year it was made. Mine is on the left side of the chamber. A guesstamate based on Remington's first date of manufacture for these of 3/25/16 and an average production of 1000 rifles per day makes your rifle to be made on or around mid October 1916 which seems correct for the MkI* upgrade as all rifles made in and after December 1916 didn't require it. I know all of this after much research due to the purchase of my Remington P14 about a month ago! Mine is in the high 93,000's also with the upgrade and most of the same markings but no import mark with a guesstamate build date of 6/26/16. Oh and I'm retired so I have the time for this kind of research.
They are nice rifles and mine shoots very well, enjoy it. - Bill

Bill, the * modification was not an "upgrade" carried out on rifles in service. It was incorporated during the manufacturing process.
The only way this would have happened as part of the Weedon programme would have been if a Mk1 rifle was found needing a rebarrel, in which case a Mk1* barrel may have been used to carry out the repair.
Just to show the difference between your MK1* and my Mk1, here's a pic of the breech area on mine.
By the way, mine appears to have escaped the Weedon process all together.