Updated Range Report M1917 Eddystone

[Group Therapy]

Last February I took this M1917 Eddystone to the range and did well at 100 yds, but the performance tanked out at 200.

After receiving a lot of advice here I went back to the range and applied that advice. Mainly slowing the pace to control barrel temp, using 180 flat tail bullets instead of 150 gr PPU. and some other advice.

Very happy with the performance now. Shot 45 rounds. Here are two of the ten round targets at 200 yards:





Some range pics:





Thanks to everyone who offered help.

Information

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[One Holer]

Nice shooting

[Patrick Chadwick]

Not sure what diameter the 10 has on that target, but everything in the 8 with most in the 9-10 is about as good as it gets with as-issued iron sights. Looks like the foresight blade could be drifted a touch to the right, as the grouping is about 1 MOA right.

Assuming that the spread is just PWF, you could try gluing* a ring to the backsight to make the hole a bit smaller (about 1/16"). That improves the vision for us "senior" shooters!

*Use Pattex or a similar adhesive, so it's a reversible alteration, but allows you to test the rifle better!

[Group Therapy]

Not sure what diameter the 10 has on that target, but everything in the 8 with most in the 9-10 is about as good as it gets with as-issued iron sights. Looks like the foresight blade could be drifted a touch to the right, as the grouping is about 1 MOA right.

Assuming that the spread is just PWF, you could try gluing* a ring to the backsight to make the hole a bit smaller (about 1/16"). That improves the vision for us "senior" shooters!

Thanks Patrick for the feed back. This was my father's CPM/NRA purchase back in the late '40's. He passed it on to me, and I handed it off to my son. We have great fun shooting it! Other than the semi-sportered stock, it is little changed from when my father got it. We love it as a piece of family history. Partly because when my son was about 10 years old we gathered as a family with Uncle Bert. You see, Bert was a WWI veteran. Very old then and could hardly speak coherently. But he and my son had a conversation nonetheless.

Now this is certainly not the exact rifle Uncle Bert carried in France. But it is certainly of the type. When my son and I take it to the range, it is not just a fun time, but a family heritage event in honor of Uncle Bert, and all that history connected with the M1917. My son is actually firing what Uncle Bert fired on the battlefield 100 years ago. And Bert was not just a family story, but a real person, a WWI vet my son sat down and spoke with. Uncle Bert is long gone now of course. And my son is in his 40's.

I digressed. Sorry.

Regarding the aperture, we actually mounted a modified ladder from Shooter Sight with a smaller aperture. Turns out all he does is glue up and redrill the hole. Works good! I took the cue and did same with some other GI irons I shoot. Tiny hole, long sight radius--amazing results with 64 year old eyes.

And I had the same thought as you about moving the front sight blade. But I cautioned my son to wait and see how he does with it some more. I was suspecting I actually might have been shooting with a slight rifle cant, and I did not want to chase that issue with sight adjustments.

On that topic, is it right cant, or left cant that pushes the POI to the right?

Have a good day. Commence firing!

[Patrick Chadwick]

Left cant to the left. Right cant to the right. If you keep the sight line in exactly the same orientation, but rotate the rifle through 360 degrees, the POI will actually move round in a circle - the sight setting is a vertical offset of the barrel centerline that moves round with the barrel. No joke - it was tried out and verified in the 19th century. By Gibbs, I think (but I'm a thousand km away from my books at the moment, so can't check the reference).