I'm not sure if this is the right forum or not but after reading many of the posts on here I feel there is a lot of knowledge to be tapped. My friend died suddenly and now his wife is selling a bunch of stuff to make ends meet and she has a rifle that is marked CF 1917 Winchester and it looks like it hasn't been changed at all. There are a few marks such as a flaming bomb on a few parts and the letter W on several more. I would guess there are war memorabilia collectors that would be interested if it is completely correct but I'm not sure where to take it to be checked.
- Eddystone 1917 Enfield Serial Numbers
- 1917 Enfield Serial Number Locations
- Winchester Model 1917 Serial Numbers
If anyone would know a ballpark value or the procedure to validate it we would be very grateful. Most of the main components will be marked with a 'W' from Winchester. There were three primary locations for manufacture, Winchester, Remington and Eddystone (which was under the control of Remington). Parts marked with an 'R' were made at Remington and parts marked with an 'E' were made at the Eddystone works. The first thing to do is verify if it is in fact a 1917 or a Pattern '14 as they look almost identical. If it is a 1917 the front top of the receiver will be marked with the model, if it is a Pattern '14 from Winchester it will just have a 'W' in front of the serial number but no model number. The fact that it has the flaming bomb U.S.
Ordinance mark on the bolt indicates it is almost certainly a model 1917 but you should check the receiver to be positive. Next, look at the end of the barrel just behind the front sight (on top). The barrel should be marked with a 'W' and a date with a month-year.
Without actually seeing the rifle it is impossible to give an accurate value but if it is all Winchester, has the original bluing and has not been arsenal overhauled they have been selling in the range of $600-$1200 with condition and originality being the driving factors for the higher prices. If it is mix-matched parts, refinished, cut-down, drilled & tapped, sporterized or in overall poor condition they sell from $300-$600, again depending upon actual condition and the extent of the deviation from original. In what part of the country are you located? Maybe a local WACA member can give you a hand. Hope that helps.
Guys, Thanks for the M1917 thread. I have what would be in the 'mixed' category M1917, 11-18, #441564, 30-06 described by JWA.
It is new from the Los Alamos arsenal after being parkerized. It's box marked DCM.
It is in the original box, marked 1946. Shipped to Alamogordo, NM. Great condition after the work on it, and all the markings on the box plus the 'oily' yellowed paper wrapping. Winchester marked as M1917, WP under stock, and standard sights have W on ends and center, with one end having 35 on it. Flaming bomb with W above and 11-18 below on barrel. 060 on sight, W on sling holder, WP under stock, under forearm is an logo looking like the upper half of an eagle and 39 below.
On stock is AAp and JA. Barrel is 4 grove with 4-43 mark.
Bolt has the Eddystone 'E' as does under stock strap. I have not fired it.yet! After all that, is it still just a mixed, parkerized rifle in the $600 range, or does anything special catch anyone's eye as unique to a collector? AA generally stands for Augusta Arsenal. The eagle on the stock was probably the original marking. The 'P's are proof marks. Total arsenal refinish after WW1.
Sold in many degrees of condition by the DCM along with lots of other military weapons. I once saw a mint, untouched Winchester, in the original box go for $500 at the Great Western Gun Show many years back. They are beautiful in original configuration. Super accurate too with the right loads. I have been out of US Martial Arms for years now.
Sold my last Smith-Corona 03-A3 to Rick Hill.
Springfield Armory Museum - Collection Record Springfield Armory Museum - Collection Record Send us your own about this object. Title: RIFLE, MILITARY - U.S. RIFLE MODEL 1917 ENFIELD.30 SN# 1 Maker/Manufacturer: MAUSER-ENFIELD Date of Manufacture: 1917 Eminent Figure: WILSON, WOODROW Catalog Number: SPAR 3192 Measurements: OL:117.4CM 46 1/4' BL: 66CM 26' 9.1 lbs.
Object Description: U.S. RIFLE MODEL 1917 ENFIELD.30 SN# 1 Manufactured by Winchester, New Haven, Ct.
In 1917 - Enfield P14 designed to accept.30-06 cartridge by merely adjusting the bore diameter. 5-round integral box magazine. Matte-blued finish with walnut stock. 5-groove rifling; lh, concentric. Leaf rear sight graduated to 1,600 yards.
Well in buttplate for cleaning rod, etc. Weighs approximately 9.1 lbs. This weapon was presented to President Woodrow Wilson on 23 January 1918. Winchester made a total of 465,980 M1917 Enfields.
Markings: Receiver: U.S./W/1. Ordnance bomb/Star in circle. Barrel: W/Ordnance bomb/7-17.
Springfield Research Serivce: 1-Presented to Pres. Serial numbers compliments of Frank Mallory, armscollectors.com. Web site photo showing Springfield Armory Superintendent Doug Cuillard holding this weapon. Notes: The British temporarily broke away from the Lee-Enfield design and went with this Mauser-type action weapon in 1914. Although the U.S. Was ostensibly neutral in 1914, that did not stop the British from contracting with Remington (Eddystone Arsenal) and Winchester for their P14 pattern rifle. Once the U.S.
Entered the war in 1917 there was an immediate need for firearms as they were simply not enough M1903s to equip the new conscripts. From 1917-1918, over 2,200,000 M1917 Enfields were manufactured with Winchester supplying 465,980. Citrix in compatible with previously installed. Most of the 'doughboys' in WWI were actually outfitted with this substitute standard weapon, and not the standard M1903 rifle. Springfield and Rock Island managed only 270,000 1903s during World War I. 'When the United States entered the war, they needed more rifles than Springfield Armory could produce and accordingly turned to commercial manufacturers.
They were already tooled up to produce the Enfield for the.303 British caliber and it was a small job for their engineering department to redesign a few of the tools and produce this rifle chambered for the.30/06 Springfield. Engineers went still further. The British Enfield Model 14 as produced in this country did not have completely interchangeable parts.
Assembly, therefore, required the services of a skilled mechanic, who had to play around with a pile of parts and locate one which would fit. This not only was impractical from a military standpoint, insofar as Ordnance engineers were concerned, but also, from a manufacturing standpoint, greatly increased the cost. The United States set to work in standardizing all parts, not only so that assembly could be speeded up but also so that parts from one factory would fit a rifle produced elsewhere. Previous to 1917 these three factories producing Enfields had established an individual assembly record of 50 rifles in one working day for one man. After we had standardized the Enfield the assembly record was 280 rifles a day while the assemblers in the various plants average 250 rifles per day per man. The Eddystone plant finished its British contract on June 3, 1917.
Winchester produced its last British rifle June 28, and Ilion on the 21st. Winchester delivered the first of the modified Enfields to the United States August 18, while Eddystone first produced September 10, and Ilion October 28. The progress was extremely rapid from that point on. During the week ending February 2, 1918, production of military rifles in the United States was 9,247, of which 7,805 were modified Enfields and 1422 were Springfields built at Springfield Armory and Rock Island Arsenal. Total production for that week was 50,873 guns of both types. Ten months after we declared war on Germany, the United States was producing in one week four times as many rifles as Great Britain had turned out in a similar period after then months of war an our production was ten twice as large in volume as Great Britain achieved throughout the war. An interesting fact little known is that despite the fact that the Armistice took place November 11, 1918, at the eleventh hour, all military production in the United States was stopped November 9, 1918.
Apparently, the Armistice wProduction of Enfields at Eddystone Arsenal was 1,181,908. At Winchester the number was 465,980 and at Ilion 545,541. This Enfield Model 1917 was made only in.30/06 caliber.
Also looking back on the Enfield it is interesting to note that this standardization save a great deal of money to the United States. The cost of the Model 1914 Enfield to the British Government was $42.00 each. These modified Enfields cost the United States Government, due to standardization methods, approximately $26.00 each. A total production of 2,202,429 Model 1917 Enfields saved the United States Government $37,441,293 over and above the British cost, if figured on the price to the British. The Enfield rifle did retain one peculiar feature. Despite the fact that the United States changed the chambering tools to those of the.30/06 cartridge, they still retained the large-bore dimensions of the.303 British. Bore diameter was retained at.30.
There were five groove of uniform left-hand twist whereas the Springfield had a right-hand twist, one turn in 10 inches. Width of grooves was.0936 and width of lands the same. Depth of grooves was.005. Hence the average Enfield barrel measured in grooves diameter from.310 to.311. A great many of these examined by this author measure as great as.313' - Philip B.
Sharpe 'Early U.S. Enfield Serial Numbers. Enclosed are two photos of a U.S. M1917 Enfield with receiver markings unlike any of the four M1917 Enfields that I have owned in the past and present. The rifle is obviously a very early Winchester because of the four-digit serial number and the 'W' stamped on the receiver, as opposed to the normal six-digit number on the typical U.S. M1917 Enfield, etc. Can you help me identify this rifle?
The Winchester Model of 1917 with the 'W' and serial number on the receiver is an early production variant. The first approximately 5,000 M1917 rifles manufactured by Winchester were marked in this manner. This variant is pictures and mentioned in my book U.S.
Infantry Weapons of the First World War. It is a standard production version and not any sort of prototype rifle. An early production Winchester M1917 rifle with this receiver marking format would probably be worth a premium of at least 25 percent over a Winchester M1917 with the typical receiver markings, assuming comparable condition and degree of originality. AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, May 2005 'Wilson was a great man but he had one basic fault. He was willing to do anything for people except get off their backs and let them live their own lives. He would never let go until they forced him to and then it was too late. He never seemed to understand there's a big difference between trying to save people and trying to help them.
With luck you can help 'em - but they always save themselves.' - Raymond Robins U.S. ENFIELD M1917 RIFLE.30: EDDYSTONE ARSENAL 1917 174160 MANUFACTURED 19 MANUFACTURED REMINGTON ARMS 1917 26364 MANUFACTURED 1918 519177 MANUFACTURED WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS 1917 102363 MANUFACTURED 1918 363617 MANUFACTURED Total: 2193429 References: Sharpe, Philip B. The Rifle In America.
Funk and Wagnalls. UNITES STATES MARTIAL & COLLECTOR ARMS. Military Arms Research Service. San Jose, Ca. Walter, John.
RIFLES OF THE WORLD. DBI Books, Inc. Northbrook, Il. Searching provided.
I have a US Model of 1917 Winchester, in a mauser action, with a 237,XXX serial number, that has been chambered in.300 Wby. My original post was '300 Weatherby ammo OAL'. As I was taking it apart I found the serial number and manufacturer under the mounting plate for the scope. This has obviously been modified from the original chambering but I can't seem to find out much info about how common this rechambering was for the gun.
The fit and finish was first class around the barrel and chamber and the barrel had been glass beded, however the the finish around where the bolt handle locked into place looked like an ameture did it. I did have a local Weatherby enthusiest suggest that it may have been an early prototype version from Weatherby, but I have my doubts. Does anyone have any information or history on this type of conversion? I have a US Model of 1917 Remington. This action was taken from the British Enfield P-14 or Pattern 14 rifle. The three companies that zonie mentioned, had a contract with GB to mass produce the P-14 rifle for them in WWI. Once this contract was completed in early 1917, the US Govt contracted with the same three companies to produce a 30-06.
Since they were already tooled up for this action, they designed the US Model of 1917 or M-17. This is a cock on close type action and the first action to use the bolt handle as part of the locking lugs for added strength.
Since the British used a 1 in 10 left hand twist barrel chambered in.303 Brit, there was only a few design modifications needed to convert it over to the Springfield 30-06. The original 30-06 barrels were still rifled with a 5 groove 1 in 10' left handed twist just like the P-14, the only difference was the head-spacing was done on the bolt face and not in the case head. After the war, many of these rifles were stored and later used in WWII, which many people do not realize, they were still one of the more abundant rifles used in WWII as well as WWI. In WWI the Springfield armory could not keep up with the needs of the armed forces and therefore the need for another alternative rifle was necessary, and that is why this model rifle came about in the first place. There were actually more of our Dough-boys armed with the 1917 rifle than there were Dough-boys who were armed with the Springfield 03. The actions were very strong, the strongest of the time actually, and still considered to be one of the strongest today. However there were some of the Eddystone actions that had some failures, but this was due to some of the processing of the steel, and not the tooling or the design.
Most if not all of the bad or suspicious actions were removed from circulation and were destroyed. There was not very many of these in the first place, so there was not a lot to destroy. As for re-chambering the rifle into a 300 Win Mag, basically, any skilled gunsmith of the time or even at present, could have just re-drilled out the original chamber to the larger specs of the 300 Win Mag, and used the same barrel due to it being originally bored for a.30 cal bullet.
Very few other modifications would have to be done. The bolt face would have had to be changed to accommodate the larger head of the cartridge, and maybe the extractor too. I can't think of anything else at this time though. If the barrel has any cartouches stamped in it, then this was probably an original barrel.
There would be a flaming bomb stamp just forward of the action on the very top of the barrel. If the barrel is still the original length of 26' then there will be a date stamp in the form of Co. W 10-18 for example.
Eddystone 1917 Enfield Serial Numbers
This date code would be out near the muzzle. If you have the complete serial number I can get you a link to find out when your action was produced, down to the month, and maybe even the day. Let me know and I will look up the info for you. Please post some pics, I would love to see your rifle. My suspicions were correct then. The barrel and action are original Military made in March of 1918 by the Winchester Co.
1917 Enfield Serial Number Locations
The barrel has just been drilled out to accept the 300Win Mag case. I do notice that the bolt is not exactly original. I can't make out from the photos just how much is not original, but one thing is for sure, the bolt handle is different than original. I believe this was after the first attempt at sporterizing this rifle. My idol download pc. My guess is that someone took a M1917 Winchester and sporterized it to a nice hunting rifle chambered in 30-06 and sometime later someone re-chambered it to the 300 Win Mag which meant that they had to change the bolt and this is why the notch in the wood stock looks the way it does.
The original bolt was not straight, it had a severe back-swept curve which would require the notch toward the butt. If you can get some close ups on the bolt out of the rifle, then I can tell you if any of it is original.
Not a bad looking rifle though, and probably a shooter. I would recommend taking it to a competent gunsmith and have it checked for safety before I would shoot it though. I'm missing something is this a 300 Weatherby or 300 Win mag? I was talking with an old time gunsmith and said the 1917 bolt face can be opened enough for either caliber. There are several ways to make bolt conversions on these old military rifles. In a jig heat, bend, re-contour.
Cut reverse handle re-weld and re-contour. Buy an after market bolt handle and weld. Probably a few other ways also. The 1917 has a pronounced dog leg looking bolt handle no where near the slight swept handle in the picture. That doesn't really mean anything as to if the whole bolt is original a good gunsmith can contour these bolt handles many ways. I'm sure Mikey can tell from good pictures otherwise take it to a good gunsmith that knows about these rifles and see what he says.
LSB#: 180411RR04 Make: Winchester Model: 1917. Now a Sporting Rifle Serial Number: 40836 Year of Manufacture: August, 1917 to April, 1919 (page 129 of Charles Stratton’s book, British Enfield Rifles Volume 4 The Pattern 1914 and U.S.
Model 1917 Rifles). Barrel Date: 9-18. ATF classified Modern as modified from original configuration. Caliber: 30-06 Springfield Action Type: Bolt Action, Internal Magazine Markings: There is no visible import mark. The top of the receiver is marked “U.S.
/ MODEL OF 1917 / WINCHESTER / 40836”. The front of the barrel is marked “(partial) flaming bomb / 9-18”. The barrel shank is marked with two “eagle’s head” inspection stamps. The left side of the receiver is marked with an Ordnance Department “flaming bomb” proof. The top left of the receiver is marked with two faded “eagle’s head” inspection stamps. The top of the bolt handle is marked with a “flaming bomb” and the bottom is marked with a “E” (Eddystone).
The left of the cocking piece is marked 'NS', with an eagle's head inspection stamp and 'W'. Barrel Length: 24' Sights / Optics: There is no provision for iron sights. The left side of the receiver has been drilled and tapped to accept a swing-out set of rings holding a Lyman Alaskan 2.5x scope with fine crosshair reticle. The scope shows wear and scratching on the body with clear glass, in about Good-plus condition.
Winchester Model 1917 Serial Numbers
Stock Configuration & Condition: The custom hardwood stock has a pistol grip, cheek piece, dark nosecap, steel grip cap, brown ventilated rubber recoil pad, dark insert at the top of the wrist behind the receiver, checkering on the grip & forearm, and QD sling swivels at the front of the forend and in the belly. The stock has a patch of light marks below the bolt release, a few other scattered light marks, mostly sharp checkering with only a few very small mars and light handling marks. The insert behind the receiver is likely a chip repair. There are currently no chips or cracks in the stock. The LOP measures 14 5/8' from the front of the trigger to the back of the pad, 13 1/2' to the rear of the wood. The recoil pad has hardened with age and is disfigured with moderate-severe wear, in about Fair condition. The stock rates in about Very Good overall condition as not original to the rifle.
Type of Finish: Blue Finish Originality: Refinishd Bore Condition: The bore is bright and the rifling is sharp. There is no erosion.
The bore shows an M.E. Of about 1.5. Overall Condition: This rifle retains about 92% of its metal finish. The finish is thinning at all edges, moreso at the muzzle.
The barrel has a spot of wear surround a pit on the top about 3' from the muzzle, a patch of scuffing approximately 3' behind that and a few scattered light marks. The receiver has a small patch of wear and light marks on the top-left at the rear edge of the ejection/loading port. The floorplate shows moderate-severe wear which has been touched up with cold-blue. The trigger guard is mostly worn to white at the front. The screw heads range from sharp to lightly disfigured with strong slots. Most text markings are clear with soft edges.
Most proof and inspector markings are shallow to very faint. Overall, this rifle rates in about Very Good condition as customized. Mechanics: The action functions correctly. We did not fire this rifle. As with all used firearms, a thorough cleaning may be necessary to meet your maintenance requirements. Box, Paperwork & Accessories: The installed scope and mount are included. Our Assessment: This Winchester Model 1917 was made about 100 yrs ago.
It has since been dropped into a custom stock with hand checkering and has had its barrel cut back to 24 inches. It has marital markings including “flaming bombs” and “eagle heads” that add to the historical value of the rifle. Luckily the bore is still strong and should be able to put tons of.30-06 downrange. Please see our photos and good luck! CA Legal or CA Private Party Transferable: This can be transferred/sold in California. LSB#: 180411RR04 Make: Winchester Model: 1917. Now a Sporting Rifle Serial Number: 40836 Year of Manufacture: August, 1917 to April, 1919 (page 129 of Charle.
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