Well, this story has a happy ending as I just finished restoring my unscrupulously modified Remington M1917 to spec. Oh, its still not as-issued, as it has an Eddystone lower handguard, but at least the handguard original an not modified! Thru EB I acquired a used, but nearly pristine Remington barrel that was even closer to the date of manufacture of the rifle (based upon the serial number.) The SELLER even turned out to be "local" and I was able to fully check out the barrel before purchasing. ME & TE were 1.0 & 0.0 respectively! I ordered and quickly received a proper handguard ring and a nice looking used handguard (it even had similar wear characteristics as the rest of the wood!) and it all went together effortlessly (even the barrel change went well!) HOWEVER, and Im not sure what to think about this, the bolt closed on all three gages ("GO", NO GO, and "FIELD"!) So do I need to find another barrel, and if so...how do I know the HS will check out????????

So here it is, with bayo mounted and the offending parts replaced! THANKS GUYS FOR ALL YOUR HELP! Im jus tjot sure I actually have a "shooter" due to the headspace!!!!

BACKGROUND TO THIS STORY:

I bought an M1917 a few years back and just two weeks ago got around to checking it out and WHAM...it was unscrupulously modified. All my firearms are shooters, but Im a collector and have slings, bayonets, and accessories for each of my 87 long gun collection (WWI, WWII, & Cold War) so I had to have the proper bayonet mounted on it for my display. I recently acquired an M1917 bayonet and when I tried to mount it on the rifle the muzzle ring would not go over the muzzle. When the handle was located properly the bottom of the bayonet muzzle ring was EXCACTLY in line with the top of the muzzle!

After some help with the guys here on this forum I sussed out that the barrel had been shortened by 3/8" (two turns of the thread) at the chamber end and the barrel turned down and rechambered. My guess is that it was a NOS barrel and someone tried to cut the headspace, cut too much, and ruined the barrel. Ive done it myself to a total of 4 '03 and A3 NOS barrels...I cringed each time thinking that I knew better! Anyway, the owner at the time then put the modified barrel back on and found a unidentified handguard ring that was too small that would only fit to the seam between receiver and barrel. Then bubba-scam-artist cut the lower hand guard so that everything "fit" and to the casual observer the rifle looked like a normal M1917. In fact, the new headspace was good anAttachment 121550Attachment 121551Attachment 121552Attachment 121553d the ME and TE were both under 1.5!

OK, so that resulted in a good shooter with lots of life left, albeit NOT to spec, let alone "as-issued". To some, that might not have mattered, BUT the GB listing never mentioned ANYTHING about the modification! Now I confess that if I had done my homework and paid more attention to the listing maybe I should have noticed that the rivets were missing on the far end of the lower handguard, but otherwise, it was a fake...a good fake, but a fake! I was devastated (I just discovered all this within the last two weeks.)

So, the moral of this story is that it is possible to acquire a decent M1917 these days...but it may take some effort and just a little additional cost! And as always...CAVEAT EMPTOR!
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