Winchester M1917

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Firpo

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Greetings from Southern California, USA. It was suggested by a friend, nmckenzie, that I reach out to you folks up north regarding a recent Winchester M1917 I purchased which appears to have served a portion of it's life with the Canadian Military. I was unaware that any of these rifles had been distributed to Canada and am hoping that you may be able to shed some light on it's possible history. I have always enjoyed history, however only recently starting a collection of WWI/WWII weapons which was spured on by the recent passing of my grandfather who served in the USN 1943-1945. Upon his return he brought with him a Japanese Arisaka T38 which I cleaned up, loaded some ammo (6.5 Jap isn't easy to find), took to the range and gave a home in my safe. Somehow :rolleyes: it managed to attract some company bringing my meager military rifle collection up to five WWII rifles and now with the addition of the M1917 the WWI count to two.

Unfortunately my iPad doesn't seem to perform the best with this website. This is the fourth time I've written this and every time I attempt to load more than one image it wipes the slate clean as it where. I'll try posting a few more individually and if there is anything specific you'd like to see I'll put that up as well.

Your help is very much appreciated.

 
Midway wants $43.49 per 20 for Norma 6.5 Jap ammo. Norma ammo has always been expensive.
Oh and your rifle was probably an RCMP issue or possibly to one of the B.C. militia units keeping the Japanese out.
 
"Small Arms of the Mounted Police" does not list the US M1917 as an RCMP issue.
About 100,000 M1917s were bought by Canada in 1940-1 and issued to RCAF, RCN and militia units in Canada. TheC^ on the stock is the Canadian military ownership mark. M1917s were also issued to the the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers (PCMR not RCMP) in BC along with other arms.
 
Please do not take anything Sunray says seriously. He has a huge audience of one.

Canada and the UK received and bought quite a few P17 rifles when WWII broke out in Europe. As you know, the P17 came about by remodeling he P14 which was chambered in 303Brit. When the US went into WWI they didn't have enough 03s to equip the men they sent over to France. They already had the P14 equipment set up in several factories like Remington and Winchester. With some slight modifications to the bolt, rails and magwell/follower they converted them very quickly to 30-06 production and produced millions of them. Rumor has it that US infantrymen were mostly armed with the Enfield rather than the Springfield. It is also rumored that one of your heroes actually carried an Enfield (York) while he rounded up several hundred German prisoners during an outing to get a bit of sun.

To my knowledge, which isn't nearly as good as many here, the P17s that were issued in Canada to rear echelon troops. They also served on airfields etc. Many also carried their predecessor the Pattern 14.

Because Canada and the UK issued two different cartridges in two almost identical looking rifles ammunition conflicts posed some problems. All of the Canadian and UK P17s that I have seen had about an 8 in portion of their fore ends, just behind the front sight painted red with black numbers declaring them to be 30/06 on them. Perfectly understandable.

Your rifle looks to have been refinished at some point. The broad arrow C mark is typically Canadian. Not sure what the Brits used. You will also note that your rifle's bolt is numbered to the receiver, unlike US issue bolts. It should also have some of our acceptance marks stamped into the metal ahead of the receiver. I don't know if your rifle has the red painted and cartridge type painted on the fore end or not but as far as I know, it should have.

Other than that, it's pretty much an average P17.

Nice, complete P17s in Canada with excellent bores will fetch C$500 or more. I have seen a few in overall excellent condition go much higher than that.
 
Another nice little bit of info is kind of cool.....When the M1917's were sent to Canada they included their original issued WW1 M1907 Leather Slings....

Not likely to put anything really nice like that to waste, our guys and the Brits as well took the leather "target" slings off and matched them up with the Lee Enfield No4 T Sniper rifle kits.

Frugal MacDougal in procurement said, why buy new when you can get the same thing for free!

Standard Enfield Canvas slings were used on the M1917's when they were in our service. Cheers
 
Thanks all for such a quick response to my question. You have all been very helpful. As the rifle has unfortunately been refinished all signs of red paint if it were there has been removed. Other than that the rifle is in fine shape with strong rifling and good, non-reblued finish. I do find it strange that it hasn't been re barreled after what you have taught me in that it served in WWII. My other WWI era rifle is a 1903 Springfield, accepted in 1918 that was re arsenaled in August of '42 as marked by the new barrel and stock. That one too has been varnished although not sanded so all cartouches are strong and easily identifiable. Had a friend give me a repro WWI stock he had so in appearance I have it back to as close to "WWI Appearance" as I can (on my budget). Only thing I have yet to add is the bayonet however all originals I've seen are $350+ and the repros are in the area of $125 but I'm not sure about them as I haven't heard very good reports on their quality. All the others in my little collection, MN91/30 hex, MN M44, Arisaka T38, VZ24 and Yugo M48 have original finish, stocks, bayonets, slings and field cleaning kits. I'll be sure to look very closely for any further markings that may point to specific units and let ya know.
 
Here is a close up of what remains of the red band on mine. You can see the stenciled "30-06" to differentiate from the .303 Pattern 1914 rifles

red%20band.jpg


rifle%20full%20view.jpg


Canadian markings on receiver and wood

receiver%20markings.jpg


butt%20markings.jpg


Original ammo box with matching red band

Canadian%203006%20box.jpg
 
6167 said:
Another nice little bit of info is kind of cool.....When the M1917's were sent to Canada they included their original issued WW1 M1907 Leather Slings....

Not likely to put anything really nice like that to waste, our guys and the Brits as well took the leather "target" slings off and matched them up with the Lee Enfield No4 T Sniper rifle kits.

Frugal MacDougal in procurement said, why buy new when you can get the same thing for free!

Standard Enfield Canvas slings were used on the M1917's when they were in our service. Cheers
Click to expand...


The Brits also used leather slings on their P14/17s. I was under the impression that the No4 T slings were actually P14 slings which of course would have been the same as those on the P17s.

OP, one reason your rifle wasn't rebarreled is that very few of them saw a lot of use other than to show an armed presence. Back when International Firearms had their warehouses in Montreal they had a bunch of them on sale for the princely sum of $20. Mostly their stocks were beat to hell and had white and red stripes painted on the stock and floor plates to designate them as Drill Purpose rifles. They also had half inch holes drilled through the top cover/stock and barrel chamber then had a steel rod welded in place. All of this was done without dismantling the rifles before hand. The thing about them, they all had perfect blue and pristine bores. The firing pins were still in place but had been ground off and the bolt face welded shut. There was also a big DP stamp on the receiver.

I talked to one of the fellows that butchered those rifles. He told me they were as new when they were brought in. But seeing as they were considered obsolete it made them the perfect choice for training/bayo practice/drill.

I bought several of them for parts. The stocks weren't worth reworking but once in a while you will see one on a put together at a gun show. I stripped them of the metal bits and used the stocks for firewood. Most of them were broken in one manner or another anyway. International as well as a few other surplus dealers in Canada had new replacement stocks/complete bolts/barrels. So putting them back together as whole rifles wasn't a problem and it was cheap. The big thing was all of the bayonets disappeared. They are very pricey now and still few and far between.
 
myenfield there are a couple of different stories going around about that ammo in the CIL boxes with the RED stripe. The two stories I have heard are : The RED STRIPE is an indication that the cartridges are loaded with extra care to regulate their velocities so they could shoot between the propellers on aircraft fitted with interrupter gears attached to their nose mounted machine guns. WWI and of course later some WWII aircraft mounted their guns in this fashion. The second story: the ammo was purposely loaded for the 30-06 rifles in Canadian and UK service.

When that stuff was surplussed, I bought a crate of it. Now, sadly there are only about a dozen boxes left. My P17s. Springfield and Garands love that stuff. It is some of the most consistent surplus ammo I have. The only other surplus ammo that will match it for consistent accuracy is the 8mm Mauser built by CIL, again in white boxes and supposedly intended for BESA machine guns in Canadian and UK service.

The brass used in those cases is exceptional. With the proper care and under 50,000psi loads I still have hundreds of cases that have been reloaded dozens of times.
 
FYI Quote from one of 2 manuscripts I have from a fellow teacher, now passed on, who was a B25 pilot on anti-submarine patrol in WW2. This is from early days of WW2 when he was a Local Defence Volunteer. He has the rifle numbers wrong, but the manuscript is dated 1992, so memory can fade.

"I was given an arm band marked LDV and was set to work in a grand requisitioned residence removing petroleum jelly from new American P18 and P21 rifles. They had been in storage since 1918 and 1921 and were packed about ten into a wooden crate and although they were all the same, they were made by different manufacturers, Winchester, Remington or Browning. (Eddystone??)

After wiping off as much as possible with rags we set them around the rooms, leaning them against the expensive wallpaper with newspapers under them to absorb the jelly that continued to ooze from the pores of their stocks for several days. They were of 0.300 calibre and the rimless ammunition was limited. We also cleaned some Canadian Ross rifles with a straight-action breech block. they used nickel-plated bullets which were in even shorter supply. We were told that in the Great War [it wasn't called WW1 until much later] the Ross rifles were relegated to sniper use because while they were extremely accurate they seized up with rapid fire. Something to do with the nickel plating.
 
Bearhunter - you may well be correct about the ammo. I do recall, however, seeing wartime ammunition boxes marked something along the lines of "synchronized for aircraft use" or something like that. With the red band painted on the rifles I can certainly see how this would be an obvious indicator to those using the rifles that the ammo matched up. It could well be possible that the red banded ammo was originally for aircraft and the rifles were painted to correspond to ammo in stores. Considering that many of these rifles were used by the RCAF that makes even more sense. I have also attached a photo below showing what appear to be M17 rifles in use by the British home guard also marked with the red band, although the band is painted in a slightly different location.

British%20home%20guard%20photo.jpg
 
bushwhacker said:
FYI Quote from one of 2 manuscripts I have from a fellow teacher, now passed on, who was a B25 pilot on anti-submarine patrol in WW2. This is from early days of WW2 when he was a Local Defence Volunteer. He has the rifle numbers wrong, but the manuscript is dated 1992, so memory can fade.

"I was given an arm band marked LDV and was set to work in a grand requisitioned residence removing petroleum jelly from new American P18 and P21 rifles. They had been in storage since 1918 and 1921 and were packed about ten into a wooden crate and although they were all the same, they were made by different manufacturers, Winchester, Remington or Browning. (Eddystone??)

After wiping off as much as possible with rags we set them around the rooms, leaning them against the expensive wallpaper with newspapers under them to absorb the jelly that continued to ooze from the pores of their stocks for several days. They were of 0.300 calibre and the rimless ammunition was limited. We also cleaned some Canadian Ross rifles with a straight-action breech block. they used nickel-plated bullets which were in even shorter supply. We were told that in the Great War [it wasn't called WW1 until much later] the Ross rifles were relegated to sniper use because while they were extremely accurate they seized up with rapid fire. Something to do with the nickel plating.
Click to expand...

Lots of supposition and assumptions generated by rumors in those manuscripts. Some of it is still taken as fact.

The P18 and P21 designations were obviously taken from the barrel date stamps rather than from the receivers. No big deal but you are a lucky fellow to have those documents.
 
Here's another stamp just behind the flaming bomb on the left side of the receiver. Not sure if it's a US or Canadian stamp. Also, I was told to look under the handguard as there may be more markings to see. I take possession of the rifle next Wednesday so I'll give it a good cleaning and look to identify all possible stamps and markings. Thanks again for all the great information.

 
The red band on the DCCo 30-06 Cdn box was in harmony with US practice of WW2 era, a red band indicated ball ammo.
 
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