M1917 Enfield still in use with Danish military unit

[lionking]

Discovered this recently, a Danish military dog sled unit still uses the M1917 rifle along with the Glock 20 10mm handgun. Pretty impressive for a rifle that saw heavy action in WW1, saw some action in WW2 and many other small wars .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol

I have two a Remington and a Winchester, would like to get a Eddystone one day to have the three manufactures. Shot my Winchester the last couple weekends, it was shooting low and tested a couple brands of ammo, yesterday on a windy day did get it shooting in the black at 100 yds using the ladder sight.

I haven't gotten great groups from the Winchester yet, my Remington does better but it is a fun gun to shoot I like the feel and sights of it.

 

[boom boom]

Fortunately for you, the Eddystones are the most common and cheapest m1917 rifles of the three. However, the price on complete rifles has escalated quite a bit. Yours was refurbished at San Antonio Armory probably just before or during early WWII. Some were rebarrelled --these will show HS for High Standards or JA for Johnson Automatics right before the front sight mount. Can't remember if some were restocked but this would be apparent if under the front tip that your stock was not marked R, E, or W.

If you have the original WWI era barrels, then you might want to slug the bore as the Remington might simply have a tighter bore. Switching to flat based bullets can help with worn rifling or larger than spec bores (as can resizing bullets for the bore).

There is also a known problem with century old wood stocks shrinking and this can result in the trigger guard screw bushings in the stock being a bit proud of the wood. The 1917 rifle has two of these bushings for the front and rear trigger guard screws. See this post for a discussion of the issues--it is a simple fix if that is the case with your rifle. http://forums.thecmp.org/archive/index.php/t-92159.html

 

[boom boom]

One of the reasons that the Danish still use these rifles is that the 1917 is one of the strongest of all of the military bolt actions with great leverage to put a cartridge in the chamber and then extract it. The iron sights are also one of the better iron sights for battle and the .30-06 version holds six cartridges. It will continue to function even in the horrible conditions in the Artic. Similar reasons the Canadiens held onto their Enfields for so long.

 

[Gordon]

All though I sold my Elmer Kieth cartouched 1917 a couple years ago with bayonet, belt with bolo knife and first aid kit, these are probably the ultimate bad conditions fighting rifle IMHO . I still have a Remington Express Carbine in 3006 which is handier

 

[AlexanderA]

Some were rebarrelled --these will show HS for High Standards or JA for Johnson Automatics right before the front sight mount.

The rebarreled guns to be wary of are only those made by Eddystone. Of the three factories, Eddystone was the only one that wasn't a traditional gun factory (it was a former locomotive factory). Some of the original barrels were overtorqued at the Eddystone factory. This wasn't a problem until the original barrels wore out and had to be replaced. The process of removing the original barrels sometimes caused hairline cracks in the receiver ring.

Therefore, Eddystone rifles with HS or JA barrels have to be inspected very carefully for receiver cracks. These are very hard to see and might be positively identified only by magnafluxing. Knowledgeable buyers will bid a lot less for rifles with the combination of an Eddystone receiver and a HS or JA barrel.

 

[FL-NC]

I have one I bought for my US collection years ago. I need to shoot it sometime. I keep forgetting about it because it's in the "collection safe".

 

[AlexanderA]

When we think of Denmark, we think of an advanced European country, and we wonder what use they would have for such a throwback weapon. We tend to forget that Denmark owns Greenland, which is a vast expanse of snow and ice populated by a few primitive natives. Denmark needs simple, rugged bolt action rifles for the same reason that Canada does.

 

[Whiterook808]

Mine is a Remington, and it shoots good! It is a rebuild, but I think post WWI, since the barrel is a 1918 dated Eddystone, and the stock is Winchester. You could say my one rifle represents all three makers.

They are great rifles!

 

[BigSteve57]

The rebarreled guns to be wary of are only those made by Eddystone. Of the three factories, Eddystone was the only one that wasn't a traditional gun factory (it was a former locomotive factory). Some of the original barrels were overtorqued at the Eddystone factory. This wasn't a problem until the original barrels wore out and had to be replaced. The process of removing the original barrels sometimes caused hairline cracks in the receiver ring.

Therefore, Eddystone rifles with HS or JA barrels have to be inspected very carefully for receiver cracks. These are very hard to see and might be positively identified only by magnafluxing. Knowledgeable buyers will bid a lot less for rifles with the combination of an Eddystone receiver and a HS or JA barrel.

Interesting. I have a 1917 that was my father in law's. He bought it after WW II still in cosmolene. It was the first rifle I ever shot and with his teaching I was eventually able to knock out a groundhog at 200 yards with it.

• Are there markings that denote the barrel's pedigree?
  • The RIA + FK is Rock Island Armory + Frank Krack.
• Maybe the original barrel?

Here's what I have:

 

[22250Rem]

Very interesting and amazing...... Didn't know there were still rifles that old in official government service. I had thought the Canadian Rangers were the last to use very old rifles; which were Lee-Enfields that were in service until about 2011 or 2012, IIRC. Someday the Danish units will come to the realization that they will need a new weapon system just like the Canadian Rangers did when replacement parts and things got too difficult to obtain. I'd bet that the Danish will go to the same rifle that Canada picked for their rangers. I forgot what their official name for it is but it's basically a Tikka T3x Arctic Rifle..... Which is the version available to civilians. A nice stainless steel .308 bolt rifle in a laminated stock.

 

[AlexanderA]

• Are there markings that denote the barrel's pedigree?
  • The RIA + FK is Rock Island Armory + Frank Krack.
• Maybe the original barrel?

Here's what I have:

Do you have a picture of the markings on the barrel, immediately behind the front sight?

 

[tark]

Interesting. I have a 1917 that was my father in law's. He bought it after WW II still in cosmolene. It was the first rifle I ever shot and with his teaching I was eventually able to knock out a groundhog at 200 yards with it.

• Are there markings that denote the barrel's pedigree?
  • The RIA + FK is Rock Island Armory + Frank Krack.
• Maybe the original barrel?

Here's what I have:

Your rifle was arsenal rebuilt at Rock Island. Frank Krack was the inspector from 1941-46. If the barrel is original it will be marked "E" with a month and year, either 1917-18.

 

[boom boom]

The rebarreled guns to be wary of are only those made by Eddystone. Of the three factories, Eddystone was the only one that wasn't a traditional gun factory (it was a former locomotive factory). Some of the original barrels were overtorqued at the Eddystone factory. This wasn't a problem until the original barrels wore out and had to be replaced. The process of removing the original barrels sometimes caused hairline cracks in the receiver ring.

Therefore, Eddystone rifles with HS or JA barrels have to be inspected very carefully for receiver cracks. These are very hard to see and might be positively identified only by magnafluxing. Knowledgeable buyers will bid a lot less for rifles with the combination of an Eddystone receiver and a HS or JA barrel.

According to Chuck in Denver who is a milsurp gunsmith, all three makes of receivers can have cracks but the problem is very rafe--his belief and others are that these are often caused by ham handed removal of barrels and not specific to Eddystone makes--they just made more of them than the other factories. There was considerable internet speculation of pneumatic tooling used to install barrels at Eddystone which some call a myth but unlike the low number stuff on Springfields, the 1917 rifle issues are more speculative in nature.

Ferris has probably one of the more concise discussion of the issues in his 1917 book.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=47515&page=1 and see http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=19835 And here is a Remington with a crack http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=30438 and here
https://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?298190-1917-Eddystone-cracked

 

[Paul7]

Until last year Denmark still used the Sig P210 pistol.

 

[BigSteve57]

Do you have a picture of the markings on the barrel, immediately behind the front sight?

Your rifle was arsenal rebuilt at Rock Island. Frank Krack was the inspector from 1941-46. If the barrel is original it will be marked "E" with a month and year, either 1917-18.

Well I'll be danged. I've had the rifle all this time and never really paid attention to that marking until now. It's

E
Bombshell
7-18.​

Thanks!
PS: what would have been involved in an "arsenel rebuild"?

 

[tark]

Well I'll be danged. I've had the rifle all this time and never really paid attention to that marking until now. It's

E
Bombshell
7-18.​

Thanks!
PS: what would have been involved in an "arsenel rebuild"?

View attachment 814628

The rifle is completely disassembled down to the barrel and receiver. All parts are then inspected for serviceability. Un-serviceable parts were discarded. This was not done on an individual, one rifle at a time basis. If the barrel was deemed serviceable, the original breech bolt was checked for headspace and left in the gun. No attempt was made to keep all original parts with their receiver. At the end of the process the guns were usually re-finished and the gun was assembled out of a pile of serviceable parts. This is NOT military Bubbafication. It a legitimate rebuild by the Army, done by professionals, and is a part of the guns history.

Your rifle may be a mix of various parts. There should be an "E" stamped on the front end of the stock below the barrel. An "R" or a "W" would indicate the obvious. Most parts on the gun, barrel bands especially, were stamped with the manufacturers letter. Don't be discouraged if you find your rifle is a collection of "Rs" "Ws" and "Es". 95% of the M-1 Garands in this world have been arsenal rebuilt at least once.

 

[boom boom]

Well I'll be danged. I've had the rifle all this time and never really paid attention to that marking until now. It's

E
Bombshell
7-18.​

Thanks!
PS: what would have been involved in an "arsenel rebuild"?

View attachment 814628

I'll add a little to Tark's excellent summary:

Your firearm appears to have the original dark bluing for the 1917 rifle and with the original barrel (fwiw here is a serial number and date of mfg website for the 1917 rifle http://oldguns.net/sn_php/mildateslookup.php?file=us_m1917edd.dat ). Roughly August or September depending on who you believe, 1917 rifles were parkerized (different formula than WWII) so you would appear to have one of the last blued ones. There can be about one month or so difference between the barrel date and the receiver on these rifles.

In the factory rearsenaling program during and before WWII, apparently the Army did not do so good on warehousing these rifles between the wars and a lot of barrels and stocks were ruined on the 1917 rifles thus necessitating barrel replacement and stock/handguard replacement. Some, not all, receivers were parkerized using the WWII formula so these appear grayish green rather than the earlier blackish parkerizing used in WWI. All of the P14's were originally blued.

If I remember correctly from Hatcher's notebook, post WWII, the Army went through these rifles again for serviceability before giving them to the DCM for disposal. From what I've seen on stock cartouches, SAA (San Antonio Arsenal) and OG (Ogden) were some of the main players in restoring these--RIA is relatively uncommon.

As a sidenote to this, OGEK cartouches in a box on these rebuilds means no less than gunwriter Elmer Keith was the inspector. I have one of these stocks but unfortunately someone sporterized it by chopping the length and shortening the buttstock. Another more humorous story is that some new bolts for the 1917 rifles were needed for WWII--one of the replacement companies was United Shoe Manufacturing Company (USMC) and that is marked on the bolt handle of these bolts. A lot of folks have taken that marking to jump to rifles used by the U.S. Marine Corps which might have been true for a few individual units or individuals but generally the Marines used Springfields in WWII.

 

[CapnMac]

the 1917 is one of the strongest of all of the military bolt actions with great leverage to put a cartridge in the chamber and then extract it.

That is no exaggeration.
The 1917 was derived from the (British) Pattern 1913 Rifle, which was meant to operate with a 7x62mm ".280" cartridge which wa a beast. But, the Brits had only just settled on the then current .303 round only a few years previously. So, the .303 stayed the British round, if with a tweak or two along the way.

This presaged events only about 20 years' later when the .276pedersen (7x51) was not adopted in favor of the billions of M2 .30-06 ammo the US had on hand (that, and the .276 was an unproven round for MG use).