Q on Brit/Canada use of M1917's

[Too Much Coffee]

The question of a notch at the rear of the recvr. bbl. ring just above the mag well has come up. No one has a documented answer. They seem to have been milled, a half moon notch, some into the "M" stamp of "Model of 1917". These rifles seem to be re-imported back to the USA from Canada, Denmark, NZ possibly?

Do you "Limey" types have any "real" answers for this notch?????????

TIA
Mark

Information

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[Melanie_Daniels]

Something like this ?

[Too Much Coffee]

Does anyone have an answer as to why it was done...documented, not what some might think it was for? There has to be a documented answer???

[PeterN]

My M1917 has the notch. I would like an answer also. I was told it was for a longer round used in Greenland, but that may or not be true.
Regards
Peter.

[Mk VII]

We see them here, but not until recent years. It's not a local mod.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

I suspect it has a lot to do with cartridge clearance during loading from stripper clips.

.30-06 M2 Ball cartridges are listed as being 3.345" (84.84mm)max length. Add to that the space occupied by the clip and it is a neat fit into the receiver opening. (I don't have an M-17 to hand but I measured a P-14 as having a clearance of 82.11mm (3,232"), a bit short for .30-06.

Obviously, the M-17 would have been manufactured to allow clearance for clip feeding, but in the event either the clip locating surfaces were worn or otherwise out of spec, or, more likely, the clips themselves were a bit of a "racing fit", there might be a problem.

The filled clip would rotate forward and the top cartridge(s) could possibly foul the receiver ring.

As for different cartridge lengths in service ammo, it is possible but unlikely. Given that the stuff has to work in ALL service weapons in that calibre, length is critical, especially in machine guns. As an example, when the Brits and Commonwealth changed from Mk6 to Mk7 .303 ammo, the new cartridge had the same overall length, otherwise it would not have worked. This particularly applies to all MGs that pull the cartridges from the belt to the rear, i.e. Vickers, Maxims, Brownings etc. as the meplat of the projectile rides against the front of the feed tray area as the feed arm / extractor (choose your terminology) engages it.

I have seen the problem occur when someone I know tried to fire 150gn soft-points through his .30-06 Browning. They were just short enough to prevent the cartridge extractor engaging the rounds reliably. Note also that blank-firing kits for M1919s etc like the Blank Adapter M9, use a "live cartridge blocker" that has two functions: It fills the space normally occupied by the bullet, thus preventing the feeding of live ammo and providing a bearing surface for the shorter cartridge.

Interesting how all this stuff is interlinked.

[Melanie_Daniels]

Does anyone have an answer as to why it was done...documented, not what some might think it was for? There has to be a documented answer???

Difficult, because it is privatly made. I bought the rifle from a Norwegian ex-wale hunter and he told me, that this was necessary for a special ammunition for wale hunting.

And most of the M1917, that were used in Norway, came from Canada.

[purple]

This is an old chestnut going back to the early CSP days. The Danes used the M1917 as a post-WW2 reserve weapon. It appears that some of these may have come from Canadian stocks which were aquired to arm reserve troops in Canada during the war. This is where the question arises about whether the receiver notch was a Canadian or Danish mod.

About 18 yrs ago I bought 3 ex-Danish M1917s,2 Rems and a Win. 2 of them had the notch modification while the other did not and none showed signs of previous Canadian ownership. I have also examined quite a few Canadian surplus M1917s over the years and none had the notch modification. I also have seen a WW2 Canadian training film on the M1917 and none of the rifles featured in the film had this mod. My conclusion is that this was a Danish modification which was done to some,but not all,of their M1917s.

It's hard to understand why this mod was done as clip feeding of the standard M2 ball round works just fine in the M1917. Remember that the rifle was designed to use the earlier WW1 standard .30-06 round which was even longer than the M2. If clearance on clip loading was found to be a problem then the millions of rifles in US service would no doubt have been modified to solve this problem.

[Melanie_Daniels]

I saw hundrets of Danish rifles without the notch. And most of Danish rifles came from Canada.

[Warren]

Check and see if the barrel has been changed or evidence of re-barreling. A LARGE number were converted to 7.92mm in Belgium with the receiver notched for the longer 7.92mm cartridge. I wonder if due to the poor sales that the remainder were just put back into original calibre but had been modified with the cut. The conversion price did not justify the additional price and 7.92mm ammo was not that common in North America after WW II other than what was brought back by dad and grampa. Surplus ammo did not start to hit the streets in bulk until the early and mid 60's.