Enfield "P 17" action
- Thread starter longknife
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- Vancouver Island BC
You mean M-17???, never heard of a P-17, there is a P-14 in 303 British
Has anyone ever had a first hand expirience with a brittle Eddystone action? I saw pictures in Rifle magazine years ago, the guy claimed he broke apart a Eddystone with a screwdriver handle. The ones I have played with seemed no different than Win or Rem ones.
When I went to Gunsmithing School at Trinidad, Colorado in 1966-67 we were taught to avoid doing any caliber alterations to an Enfield Eddystone due to the hardness and possible brittleness being a problem. Re barreling may be a problem as well. Actions have cracked in trying to remove barrels. If you build a rifle and have an action failure in cases like this, it is not gradual, it would be an unpredictable catastrophic failure.
It may or it may not be a problem but it isn't worth it as far as I am concerned.
buckbrush, I think you will have to search far and wide to find a single person who has had first hand experience with a broken Enfield of any manufacture. The internet is a wonderfull place to learn but you must be able to filter the data otherwise it all becomes alot of jarble imo. I have seen a few 14's and 17's modified and would have a hard time knowing where all the parts used in the build came from, could be either one of the three. Century International built a boat load of rifles on these Enfields and I don't think they ever had any problems with action failures at least I never heard af any, A-Square Rifles used these actions exclusively in their Hannibal series of rifles and they chambered some very large and powerfull cartridges in them, never heard of any failures with them either. It is important to know where and how this mysterious Enfield that failed came from and what it's history was! I know that there was a Tikka T3 that blew up recently, does that mean that the T3 is dangerous! It should be remembered that these are all mechanical objects and that there is always a chance of failure in any design. The Enfield story has been floating around for many years. As guntech mentioned sometimes the recievers broke when the barrels were being removed but it is also widely known now that Enfield used tremendous pressure when they installed their barrels and the common practice today is to cut a relief groove prior to attempting removal, it is the only shure way of saving an action which will otherwise bend or crack no matter who is the manufacturer. Bear one thing in mind nobody ever questioned the reliability of the Eddystone Enfields in factory form, this is only a problem in the custom rifles, that tells you something!
JMHO
bigbull
catastrophic rifle failures
Several years ago some Tikka and Sako rifles had catastrophic failures and there was a recall by the parent company, Beretta....unfortunately lawsuits are still pending and in those cases EVERYONE gets sued, manufacturer, wholesaler, dealer, etc....I know for a fact that a Vanc. Island dealer was served with a writ this year on one of these failures.....
Several years ago some Tikka and Sako rifles had catastrophic failures and there was a recall by the parent company, Beretta....unfortunately lawsuits are still pending and in those cases EVERYONE gets sued, manufacturer, wholesaler, dealer, etc....I know for a fact that a Vanc. Island dealer was served with a writ this year on one of these failures.....
I think Bigbull is making my point. There is no evidence of Eddystone failures that I can find. I have a20 ton press that I use with bushings as a barrel vise. I have never been able to disasemble any p-14-17 enfield with a Brownells reciever wrench and the press.
I could probably take one apart if I hit the wrench with a sledge, and it would probably crack the reciever if I did it weather it is a Win., Rem., or Eddystone. I just cut the barrel shoulder as already stated.
I think the brittle Eddystone tail is an old wives-Gunsmith tale.
I could probably take one apart if I hit the wrench with a sledge, and it would probably crack the reciever if I did it weather it is a Win., Rem., or Eddystone. I just cut the barrel shoulder as already stated.
I think the brittle Eddystone tail is an old wives-Gunsmith tale.
Actually, some of the old (teens, 20s, 30s) gunsmith info and write ups address this, and they have fairly detailed (including names) documentation of the hardening procedures as they were done in the various factories. The reason the Eddystone actions were singled out was the method of hardening, done by "eye" (using colour as a reference to hardness) rather then by temperature samples. All the 14s and 17s have very tight barrel to receiver joints in my experience, it's just that SOME Eddystones were hardened too much, which let them brittle. I believe the broken Eddystone story was written by Ackley (at least that's where i recall seeing it first), and I would tend to believe him. But there again, we have one man, on one shift, who may have misjudged the hardening on how many guns? It would be a small percentage, I think. I have custom rifles built on all the manufacturer's 14s/17s, and to date I haven't seen any problems with any of them. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist (or hasn't in the past) just that I haven't seen it. If it truly bothers you, cut the barrel joint loose, strip the receiver, and have it rehardened, it doesn't cost that much. - dan
Good point dan, I saw a Eddystone P14 the other day that made my eyes water, it was beautifully finished and blued, all those curves and cutouts without any broken edges look really good with a nice blue.
bigbull
Who heat treats firearms actions in Canada? I know some outfit around Toronto does Prarie Gunworks and ATR's actions, probably in bunches. I have a muffle furnace, but would be hesitant to try and heat treat any steel of unknown composition.
why these guys would have to heat treat an action is hard to undestand. There are very good steels available that need no heat treating to become a receiver or a bolt...the cutting tools to machine them are also available...what hardness and tensile strength are they striving for?
Hatcher doesn't mention any Enfield problems in his Notebook.He was the army officer in charge of the conversion of the P-'14 to M-'17.There will be some questions with any rifle made during war time haste. But the Enfields are all made of Ni-steel like the pre-war M-70(there have been questions about those receivers,too) and the late numbered Springfields. My Eddystone was bit on the soft side,in fact. Remingtons were the best made.Eddystone barrels were torqued hard,needing a relief cut to safely remove the barrel.The biggest concern wouldn't be hardness,rather the mediocre gas handling.Pre-war barrel steel isn't as good as our modern steels either,so barrel life would be shorter.
On a P-17 ,here's some of the work:filling the duck pond,removing the ears,lengthing the box,dog's leg,straightening the bottom metal,hingeing floorplate and latching it.
On a P-17 ,here's some of the work:filling the duck pond,removing the ears,lengthing the box,dog's leg,straightening the bottom metal,hingeing floorplate and latching it.
Weatherby .30-378 cartridge
The gun you should get is a P14 if you are going to rebarrel to a Weatherby 30-378 cartridge. The cartredge head is larger than a 30-06. The guys that used to make 7mm & 300 Mags used the P14 actions because they already were milled to take the larger shell casings. The P14 bolt face is larger than a P17 and the bottom of the receiver is milled differently for a large rim, and in this case a belted round.
Buy a high number P14 as the heat treatment problem would have been resolved. I have a number of P14's and I wouldn't hesitate to rebarrel one of them to something bigger and more powerful.
The gun you should get is a P14 if you are going to rebarrel to a Weatherby 30-378 cartridge. The cartredge head is larger than a 30-06. The guys that used to make 7mm & 300 Mags used the P14 actions because they already were milled to take the larger shell casings. The P14 bolt face is larger than a P17 and the bottom of the receiver is milled differently for a large rim, and in this case a belted round.
Buy a high number P14 as the heat treatment problem would have been resolved. I have a number of P14's and I wouldn't hesitate to rebarrel one of them to something bigger and more powerful.
A lot of people prefer to refer to it as 'Model 17' or M17. The P14 is short for 'pattern 1914'.
'P' or 'M', it all depends on who you ask.
