my first 1917 with a crack...

[schneidb]

You have great eyes. How did the Criterion Barrel do?

[Chuckindenver]

the 17 barrels are awesome. iv installed a few, with a snap, min, reaming needed,
got great range reports back.
much better then the 03 barrels...poopoo.

[johnnymg]

No pics?

[Chuckindenver]

had pics posted for a few weeks...cleaned up all my old pics, to make room for more

[bladeswitcher]

[Calif-Steve]

I think I would have that one Magnafluxed. No reason to wonder at all.

[jmoore]

Dye penetrant (spot check) will work here, as well, if you have trouble finding a cooperative machine shop or engine rebuilder/speedshop. Yiu will likely get some bleed from the rough finish and join lines, but if you follow the direction exactly it works well enough to find even small fractures. Photograph promptly- the dye will continue to bleed into the developer over time.

[Chuckindenver]

old post, but great pics...id say its done....looks like barrel was installed by someone other then the military, notice the finish differance in the barrel and reciever,
id take Jims advise and see if you can get a crankshaft reuilder to magnufux check it...you will have to completely take the rifle down.
most car guys like guns as well, and will be happy to help.
id like to save that pic for my arcives if i may...
so far 3 1917,s have surfaced in the last year with fractures from barrel installations....{not done by the military}
thanks for sharing the info.

[Uncle Ray]

I'm the first to admit that I know nothing about re-barrelling M.17's, but I do recollect back in the late 1960's when I had some 40 M.17's converted to .308W by taking out the original 30/06 barrel, shortening the threaded end, then running a .308W reamer in to cut a new chamber, and then re-fitting the original barrel.

Two things were observed; firstly the barrels were extremely hard to remove, so much so that the barrels in most instances had to be "relieved" by hack-sawing around the barrel where it abutted the receiver. Once that was done, the barrels came out easily. The cutting did not affect the barrels, as the re-chambering meant that the barrels' external face was moved forward anyway.

Now for the interesting part. On relieving the face of the barrel, three of the actions developed cracks.

It was thought that the cracks occurred following the "relieving" and removal of the barrels.

With the British .303" rifle,(No. 1 Mk III SMLE), the barrel is screwed up onto the face of the inside of the receiver. With the P.14, M.17 and the No.4 .303" rifle however, the barrel is screwed up to the outside face of the receiver.

In the mid 1960's we were advised by our Small Arms Factory Lithgow that because the No.4 rifle barrel screwed up to the outside of the receiver, a torsion wrench should be used on fitting replacement barrels, set at 125 foot pounds maximum, to ensure that the ends of the No.4 receivers were not placed under undue tension, as we were told that THERE WAS A STRONG POSSIBILITY THAT THE RECEIVERS MAY CRACK WHEN REMOVING THE BARRELS LATER.

Although there was no reference to either the P.14 .303" rifle, or the M.17 30/06 rifle having this problem, we came to the conclusion that as the M.17 barrel breeched up on the face of the receiver, like the .303" No.4 rifle, and if both the receiver, and barrel shoulder were at maximum dimensions, undue pressure would be put on the receiver face, and when relieved, that's when the receiver cracked.

Fitting a replacement barrel would make this crack more apparent, I assume. Our cracked receivers were all Eddystone-made.

An observation made from first-hand experience back in the 1960's, but I would be interested to know, just for the record, what was the torque applied to those barrels at the factory all those years ago when fitting the original barrels.

[Calif-Steve]

Eddystone used air guns to install barrels. Both Winchester and Remington installed barrels by hand. Most likely both WRA and RA "tried" a barrel prior to installing them. Very doubtful Eddystone "tried" anything, they most likely grabbed barrel from the pile and on it went. Also note Eddystone made the huge majority of finished rifles and their quality control people were over-worked to say the least.