A P14 Mystery Modification...

[Potashminer]

I recently received a Winchester P-14 - full military action, barrel and sights, but in a cut down mil-surp stock. It came to the previous owner from a gun shop in small town Ontario, so probably was someone's "moose gun", for which it would be very well suited.

It is nearly completely all "W" marked parts. It has numerous "BNP" marks and other markings to show it spent time in England at some time in its life.

See picture below. I noticed that small brass disc shaped thing when I removed the floor plate - after removing spruce needles and dried grease, the face of it appears to have been turned off on a lathe - slight concentric marks on the brass / copper visible under magnifying glass:



From the other side of the floor plate, it appears as if the brass / copper item is threaded through (although the "head" has no slot), or might be a "T" shaped plug riveted through a hole that had been drilled in the floor plate.



I am quite certain that the hole and the repair were not a military authorized thing, so most likely done after in civilian hands. However, I can not come up with any plausible idea about "why" someone would do this - I would appreciate any thoughts about what plausible purpose the hole or the filler might have served?

 

[Potashminer]

I have another picture below, showing the floor plate, magazine spring and follower assembled - I had thought that disc might have something to do with anchoring the magazine spring in the floor plate, but the clearance is obvious. The trigger guard, magazine box, floor plate and follower are all marked "W", and the magazine spring has the Winchester "Triangle" on its bottom forward surface, so I believe the original parts here are correctly matched - just no idea what that hole might be about?

 

[Pblatzz]

This is my educated experience..

Some sporters made back in the day on a P14 action have issues with feeding with 5 rds in the box mag. They work fine with 4 rds but it will not feed with the 5th rd in the mag. The top cartridge in the magazine has a tendency to move forward and not go up the feed ramp, then the rim moves rearward and jumps the rim of the cartridge below = rim lock.

The pin was to keep the mag spring forward to help prevent this.

My 2 cents.

P

 

[Potashminer]

Certainly a possibility! I was thinking of a purpose for the hole; wasn't thinking that maybe it was the disc that was wanted! I have a few BSA sporter conversions of the similar M1917 - had always wondered why BSA did their funky shaped grinding to re-shape the cartridge feed rails in the action - then read (somewhere??) that it allowed dependable feeding of round nosed bullets - the original M1917 was designed for the American military 1906 cartridge with the pointy full metal jacket bullet, and appeared to work perfectly with them. Maybe something similar happening with these P14's - back in the day, I do believe the 215 grain RN was "the" 303 British moose bullet, and very different shape than the military FMJ, so dependable feeding could have became an issue...

 

[bearhunter]

Looks more like a botched attempt to install a disconnect lever, so the floor plate could easily be dropped.

I had one many moons back with a lever installed in that spot but a hinge was also added at the front.

Back in the day, there were a lot of gunsmith books available with all sorts of suggestions for converting just about every milsurp ever made to some sort of a sporter.

Many of those conversions were started and never finished. Some of the parts were sold off in bulk when small shops went out of business. Sherwood USA sold off a lot of partially finished bits as did Apine and Parker Hale out of the UK

 

[35Wailin]

My P-14 does not have this, so I believe it is a post-war civilian modification.