A moment of silence, Tales of Bubba and M1917's

[OldIronFan]

I picked up a misidentified sporterized rifle at auction a few weeks back. I was told it was chambered in 8mm Mauser, but that is not accurate. 

Finally got around to tearing it down for investigation and identification this week. There were no visible external markings on the barrel or receiver so I hoped something was hiding under the wood line or under the added scope base. It was....

A moment of silence for what could have been a nice Remington M1917. Instead some brilliant "gunsmith" apparently rebarreled it, ground the rear sight ears off, and butchered a few scope base holes into the receiver.

The bore diameter is .300 
Neither 30-06 or .308 headspace gauges check out.  I do not have .303 headspace gauges but the .300 Bore diameter would be on the small size for that anyway. 
I am going to cerrosafe cast the chamber tomorrow if I get a chance. 

The one upside so far has been the nice light Timney Sportsman Trigger that I found installed when I began to strip it.
Hopefully it ends up being serviceable since its wall hanger value has been lost. 

 

[papa61]

it looks nice anyway. I am not educated in rifle actions but since you tried 30-06 I assume it is long action so that leaves the short 300 magnums out? I would use it to make a nice custom since I like anything .30 caliber. 

[Garufa]

What does the bolt face look like?  Has it been goobered with?

[gregintenn]

2 hours ago, OldIronFan said:

The bore diameter is .300 

7.35x51 Carcano perhaps?

[Garufa]

13 minutes ago, gregintenn said:

7.35x51 Carcano perhaps?

Yeah, that weird Italian round was common for Bubba to use.  

[gregintenn]

1 hour ago, Garufa said:

Yeah, that weird Italian round was common for Bubba to use.  

Ya just never know. Can you think of another .300, or thereabouts bore chambering?

[Quavodus]

Did you measure groove diameter or on top of lands? if you measured lands, it very well might be .300. But groove diameter would probably be .308 or somewhere thereabouts. I don't mean to insult your intelligence. It's just that lots of people have done this. 

[MacGyver]

As wonky as it is, I hope that old rifle put meat on someone’s table for a lot of years. 

[Johnny reb]

The SPECIFICATION for the 1917 is .300" bore, five .005" deep grooves - a .310" groove diameter if you have a 5 point micrometer for your slug.  
Lands and grooves are the same width which led Col Hatcher to conclude it is actually "tighter" than Springfield rifling .300/.308" but with grooves three times as wide as lands. 
By that standard, a WWII two groove barrel is tighter still. 

SAAMI specifies the rifling plan for each cartridge but also has a minimum bore-groove cross sectional area so as to avoid tolerance stacking and to allow for off brand barrels.

[Johnny reb]

Some people are either unaware or forget.The caliber .30 M1917 was British it was developed a the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Loch. It was to have a .30 bore, 1-10 left handed twist, chambered in 303 British.

[No_0ne]

11 minutes ago, Johnny reb said:

Some people are either unaware or forget.The caliber .30 M1917 was British it was developed a the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Loch. It was to have a .30 bore, 1-10 left handed twist, chambered in 303 British.

Yes, and no.  The M1917 was basically a P14 Enfield, redesigned for the 30-06 then used in the Springfield 1903's already in production.  As Winchester and Remington already had the tooling set up to build P14's for the British, it was cheaper and faster to adapt the Enfield to use the same ammo as the Springfield rifles, rather than set up new lines to build 1903's.  Although the P14 used the 303 British ammunition, it was originally designed as a new rifle (the P13), with a new cartridge, namely the .276 Enfield.  This new cartridge was to be a more advanced, rimless, bottlenecked design to replace the older 303 then in use, however the advent of WWI and the corresponding need for rifles and ammunition led the Brits to shelve the new cartridge design and utilize the 303 in the new P13 rifles for expediency and logistical concerns.  Thus, the P13 was renamed the P14, with the only real difference in the ammunition each was chambered for, and the M1917's were then similarly rechambered to use the 30-06.  There are some very minor differences in each configuration (P13, P14 and M1917), mainly due to either variances in measurement systems or to ease manufacture as the rifles went into mass production, but there are as many (or more) variations between the Remington, Winchester and Eddystone M1917 variants as between the US and British guns ...

[Johnny reb]

2 hours ago, No_0ne said:

Yes, and no.  The M1917 was basically a P14 Enfield, redesigned for the 30-06 then used in the Springfield 1903's already in production.  As Winchester and Remington already had the tooling set up to build P14's for the British, it was cheaper and faster to adapt the Enfield to use the same ammo as the Springfield rifles, rather than set up new lines to build 1903's.  Although the P14 used the 303 British ammunition, it was originally designed as a new rifle (the P13), with a new cartridge, namely the .276 Enfield.  This new cartridge was to be a more advanced, rimless, bottlenecked design to replace the older 303 then in use, however the advent of WWI and the corresponding need for rifles and ammunition led the Brits to shelve the new cartridge design and utilize the 303 in the new P13 rifles for expediency and logistical concerns.  Thus, the P13 was renamed the P14, with the only real difference in the ammunition each was chambered for, and the M1917's were then similarly rechambered to use the 30-06.  There are some very minor differences in each configuration (P13, P14 and M1917), mainly due to either variances in measurement systems or to ease manufacture as the rifles went into mass production, but there are as many (or more) variations between the Remington, Winchester and Eddystone M1917 variants as between the US and British guns ...

I agree just trying to keep it simple. Due to the number of American manufacturers and the quantity of rifles produced, a lot of people are unaware of why they are referred to as Enfields or having anything to do with the Brits,  in general.

[OldIronFan]

13 hours ago, Garufa said:

What does the bolt face look like?  Has it been goobered with?

Bolt face may have been turned at some point. Diameter is .480~.481 when checked with pins. 

Cerrosafe is cooling now so I will be able to measure chamber dimensions shortly. 

[OldIronFan]

11 hours ago, Quavodus said:

Did you measure groove diameter or on top of lands? if you measured lands, it very well might be .300. But groove diameter would probably be .308 or somewhere thereabouts. I don't mean to insult your intelligence. It's just that lots of people have done this. 

Bore was checked with pins so that is true bore not groove diameter. I do not have a multi point bore mic small enough to check 30 cal groove diameters handy. 

My normal barrel blank spec for 30 cal is as you stated Ø.300 - .302 Bore and Ø.308-.310 Groove. 
That is why I initially tried the 30-06 and .308 headspace gauges. 30-06 should have been the original chambering and .308 would have been a common caliber to rebarrel/rechamber for when this was likely "sporterized". 

I can push a slug through it after everything has cooled and I have the Cerrosafe slug out of the chamber. That will get me groove diameter but I suspect it is a true 30 cal

 

[OldIronFan]

And the answer is 30-06 after all. 

Cerrosafe plug measured out pretty close to the 30-06 chamber dimensions so I rechecked with everything stripped. Apparently there was some interference with the butchered stock that was keeping the bolt handle slightly up and not showing a difference between the go and no go gauges. 
With the stripped bolt and the action out of the stock there is a clear difference. It is actually slightly tight but acceptable on the go gauge. 

Now I have to decide if I am going to re inlet and refinish the stock, strip and refinish the barreled action, and "restore" the gun to pretty but sporterized condition. Or do I adjust the stock, clean, lube, and reassemble in rough beater gun condition and use it as a truck gun for quick after work deer hunting trips. 

[OldIronFan]

Oh side note;

Likely not rebarreled. Looks more like some one cut it down removing the original front sight and likely did some smoothing of the profile. There are what appear to be original index marks on the action and underside of the barrel at the shoulder. 

[OldIronFan]

12 hours ago, MacGyver said:

As wonky as it is, I hope that old rifle put meat on someone’s table for a lot of years. 

I bet it did exactly that. 
Might do it again this winter...

[gregintenn]

Mystery solved!

I’d scope and shoot it before I sunk much money and time into it. Looks like it would make a decent truck gun as is, or it has the potential to be a very nice sporter.

[OldIronFan]

37 minutes ago, gregintenn said:

Mystery solved!

I’d scope and shoot it before I sunk much money and time into it. Looks like it would make a decent truck gun as is, or it has the potential to be a very nice sporter.

I am leaning that way. I will likely blast and parkerize the floor plate and trigger guard since it had no finish and light rust. I will have to do a little work to the stock to get everything fitting better. I don't think I am going to tear the action down any further at this point to refinish. I will likely see how it shoots and use it for a bit before I decide to go further. 

[OldIronFan]

Another side note is the serial number comes back as 1917 December production. 

There are a fair number of missing markings but so far all stamps are "R" save for the floor plate that is marked "W" 

[gregintenn]

I know I am in the minority, but there is a soft spot in my heart for sporterized milsurp rifles. They represent a time in America where folks did what they had to to feed the family. I love ingenuity born out of necessity. 

[Quavodus]

Yeah, a lot of old Lee Enfields, Springfields, Mausers, etc. were sportered as hunting rifles back in the day. I bought a K98 about 10 years ago that had stock cut down and barrel bands and bayo lug removed. I bought a stock set and fixed it up nice.

[Ronald_55]

My first deer rifle was a sporterized Enfield that my Papaw gave me. Dad had a scope mounted on it. 

I bought a rechambered Remington Mosin Nagant  a while back. Still gotta get time to cerrosafe the chamber. Does not seem to be 30.06, but we will see. The barrel was cut back so that nothing but Remington shows on the top rear. 

[Quavodus]

2 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

My first deer rifle was a sporterized Enfield that my Papaw gave me. Dad had a scope mounted on it. 

I bought a rechambered Remington Mosin Nagant  a while back. Still gotta get time to cerrosafe the chamber. Does not seem to be 30.06, but we will see. The barrel was cut back so that nothing but Remington shows on the top rear. 

That older M91 Mosin sounds like a Bannerman. They cut the chambers off and rechambered to .30-06. Soldered in a ring in boltface and changed extractor. did magazine modifications, etc. Look up Bannerman, interesting info.  Might not be a .30-06 but, sounds like it.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Quavodus

[Ronald_55]

1 hour ago, Quavodus said:

That older M91 Mosin sounds like a Bannerman. They cut the chambers off and rechambered to .30-06. Soldered in a ring in boltface and changed extractor. did magazine modifications, etc. Look up Bannerman, interesting info.  Might not be a .30-06 but, sounds like it.

Yeah, I have been down that hole. Nothing seems to match their work. Suppossedly they marked all the rechambered ones on the barrel too.

I will get back to it soon. I set it aside due to other projects for now. Worst it becomes parts for my other Mosin Nagants. 

Luckily the heavily sporterized 1903A3 I bought last is functional. Butter knife bolt handle and sorta blocky stock. Gonna get a scope on the added bases soon. 

I might have a thing for milsurps and ugly unloved guns... It is an expensive combo sometimes.