Help with a .303 British

[homer76]

Approximately 10 years ago my uncle was talking about turning in a rifle rather than going through the hassle of registering it. It belonged to his father. My loud cry of "Noooooooooooo!!!" was probably heard on the other side of the country.

After putting a couple of rounds through it, having an Uncle Mike's recoil pad put on it, and firing a couple more rounds it ended up sitting in the back of my gun safe until yesterday.

I think it is a sporterized version of a 303 and I'm assuming the '17 on the side is the year of manufacture. It has an internal magazine. I have included photos. The serial numbers do match. Also not shown is my uncle's SIN number scratched into the bottom side of the barrel.










Did the rifle start out with this stock or was it sporterized? Are synthetic stocks available for this model?

What is the approximate value? (I'm assuming not high).

What model is this rifle?

Is it realistically possible to turn it into a detachable mag fed rifle?

What would the barrel twist be?

I'm assuming this rifle has very little monetary value. I plan on putting on a scope mount since it is already drilled for it (anyone recommend a good one piece scope mount if it works?), bed the action, refinish stock, perhaps shorten barrel (currently 26 inches), and turn it into a back up hunting rifle. I will be reloading if anyone can suggest a appropriate grain of bullet for deer and black bear.

My last question is bore size. Through what research I have done the bore could be .308 to .3011. Is this something I can check myself? Could anyone recommend a good gunsmith in the Lower Mainland, BC that is very knowledgable about these rifles?

Thanks for wading through this long post.

 

[happydude]

-It is a Pattern 1914 Enfield in .303, assuming it's not a M1917 in .30-06., and it is based on a Mauser action
-It's worth about $100-$150
-The stock has been badly sporterized and the rear site has been removed and a new site placed on the barrel
-It is supposed to have an internal 5 round mag, and I doubt external mags are easy to come by as they'd have to be custom/forced fit
-You can slug the bore using a lead weight (check out Surplusrifle.com for instructions), but standard .310 or .311 bullets for a .303 would be fine
-The P14/M17 actions are known to be strong and are suitable for conversion to other calibers

 

[bluey]

-It is a Pattern 1914 Enfield in .303, assuming it's not a M1917 in .30-06., and it is based on a Mauser action
-It's worth about $100-$150
-The stock has been badly sporterized and the rear site has been removed and a new site placed on the barrel
-It is supposed to have an internal 5 round mag, and I doubt external mags are easy to come by as they'd have to be custom/forced fit
-You can slug the bore using a lead weight (check out Surplusrifle.com for instructions), but standard .310 or .311 bullets for a .303 would be fine
-The P14/M17 actions are known to be strong and are suitable for conversion to other calibers

Yes....Model 1914 Enfield............make a nice rifle if the sporterization was done right. I always found these to be a bit heavier then the std Enfield.
Don't know why they did not make them to take the std Enfield 10rd mag.

 

[homer76]

Thanks for the quick replies guys.

What calibers could this rifle be converted to other than 303 Edge?

Since the rear sight has been removed would a one piece scope mount be possible?

Does anyone make a synthetic stock for this model? I see ATI makes stocks but not sure if it would fit mine.

 

[tiriaq]

The scope base you can use will depend on how the rear receiver bridge was altered. There is a possibility that a bridge mount for either a Remington 700 long action, or a Model 70 Winchester might work. Sometimes when the receivers were altered, it was intended to match one of these. You might get lucky.

 

[maple_leaf_eh]

Well, it was a $400 rifle that is now worth about $150. (Sentimental value not included)

The P'14 / M17 / "Enfield" as the Americans call it, is made of steel that is wretchedly hard to machine or drill for scope bases, so any work will have to be carefully thought out. If the rear bridge is the same height as the receiver ring, then almost any length of standard Weaver pattern base blank (go to Epay ...) will work. Otherwise, you'll be fitting and filling to get a base or bases that are level and straight.

All is not lost. I have a Century Arms 'Centurion' Model 1917 with a Pattern 1914 bolt, with a new barrel chambered in .300 Win Mag. The stock is a generic Bell and Carlson or Ramline black injected molded black plastic, marked for Mauser 98. The appropriate high and low spots were ground down or filled in to make a very satisfactory all-weather big game rifle. The problem is, very little of the original rifle remains. But it is what it is.

 

[woodchopper]

Patt'14 rifles have been converted to many large magnum calibers.

Barrels are very tight and have a square thread so they are fun to take off and the new barrel is fun to thread. But a good smith will be able to build that into whatever you want. The actions are very strong, some of the earlier ERA rifles are rumored to be too hard and may crack but if yours has a 1917 dated barrel that would not be a problem.

Synthetic stocks are out there and not that hard to find.

 

[homer76]

Cool!!! Thanks everyone for answering my many questions.

 

[BUSHMAN79]

I think the brittle actions from ERA go right into the M1917 production, it wasn't a problem confined to early manufacture. Some Remington actions are brittle, too.

 

[Calum]

I'm still waiting for proof of known failures in the ERA actions.

 

[RRCo.]

I'm still waiting for proof of known failures in the ERA actions.

I don't think you're going to get such now, but the early ones seem to have been mostly converted into Drill Purpose "DP" or "Emergency Use Only" "EY" rifles even though the ones I have seen appeared to have seen very little use.

Usually DP or EY rifles are worn out. Those I saw were not, that suggests there was another reason. They all seem to be early Eddystone "ERA" rifles.

These comments I have saved from other forums:

Low Serial number Eddystone-Any Problems???

Guys there is more to the cracked receiver problems than identified above. I used to work in the US Army Small Cal. Weapons Lab, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ and worked with a guy that used to rent a room from a guy that was third shift plant foreman at Eddystone. He related that there was no heat treating expertise for lack of a better description in those days. The guys in the forge room judged the correct heat by "looking" at the steel billets in the gas furnace.

That is the good news guys. Now here is some of the bad news. The guys in the forge room were paid piece rate, i.e. the more you do the more you make. Well they were supposed to heat the billets to between red and bright red and pull them out with the tongs and place them the trip hammers. Three hits first position, two hits the second position and one hit the third position.

Well the good ole boys in the forge room found that if they turned the furnace up a bit more and took the billets to white hot they could stamp the billet one time in the last position, turn out more forgings, make more money and ............... well you know the rest.

Only problem is when they went to white the steel was burned and the granular structure was not rearranged correctly to give it maximum strength. This supervisor was continually having to go in and turn the furnace down on the third shift so no telling how many thousand they made.

I am also in possession of declassified British Ordnance notes from WW1 and I have a set of Remington receiver drawings for the Pattern 14. For you technical types the material callout on the bolt is for 3% nickel steel on the bolt and 3 1/2% nickel steel for the receiver. No heat treat callouts are listed. The bolt drawing number is RE-B-10 and the receiver drawings (called the "body" )is RE-B-8

There are numerous revisions (as the war progressed) relaxing tolerances here and there.

The declassified reports from the War Production Board identify a fairly large number of catastrophic failures in the barrels from all three manufacturers. Basically if you read what I have read you would be very leary of ever firing one of these. To give any doubting Thomases a better vision of what happens read on.
Seems the barrels ( all manufacturers) wanted to split starting at the muzzle and worked their way towards the receiver.

Apparently the barrel life was only expected to be 6000 rounds as that is as far as they were QA tested.

There is page after page of QA problems identfied from all vendors. From the notes their Ordnance Board wanted to cancel the contracts and the onsite Brit Army QA guys were inspecting to SMLE standards and rejecting (if memory serves me) a very large percentage of the rifles. The only reason they did not cancel the contract was they were afraid the US would get offended if US vendors were rejected and they wanted us in the war so they took them till we entered and then production shifted to 30.06 for us. There is no reason to assume anything changed when the customer changed.

Contrary to popular belief the guys that work in the arsenals are not direct blood descendents of John Browning, John Garand, or anyone else that ever made/designed a gun. Most of the guys in the arsenals (including guys I talked to at Colt, Smith & Wesson years ago) did not even know what they were making, they were just shown a job grinding, polishing this or that and they had to make so many to get so much money and anything they can get out the door is money in their pocket. My friend told me they drained the Water Shops pond at Springfield Armory years ago and found over 500 receivers in the mud that were screwed up during production and thrown out the window.
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As indicated above it is best to relieve the built up stresses by cutting a groove in front of the receiver on this design prior to barrel removal.
Under no circumstances are gov't 03/l917/P14 barrels to be rechambered for magnum calibers. That is unless you want to lose your fingers when the barrel fails. Barrels tend to fail at the 3 and 9 o'clock orientation. Occasionally one will fail in the 12/6 o'clock orientation. Imagine this!!!!

I have seen cracked receivers upon rebarreling. Some machinists want to force receivers onto threads. Best to be able to hand screw the action all the way onto the threads to relieve any internal radial stresses from oversize threads.

I have some P14 actions and l917 actions and the barrels have come off everything after stress relieving by cutting slot in front of receiver. The actions I prefer are Rem and Win. but also have some Eddystones. Haven't seen any problems yet but then again no longer do them up in magnums (after I read the reports).
Also be advised there were two diameter strikers used in l917s. Both sizes were issued in Armorer Field kits as replacements. All the P14s are the small diameter. I chuck them up, drill them out and replace with l917 strikers with very small clearance. Generally .001" larger diameter than the striker nose when possible. I have seen P14 with excessive striker protrusion as well and have seen several pierced primers.

The good news is l917 strikers are perfect replacement extractors for the pre 64 Model 70 Winchester. They just have to be fitted.
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The Eddystone heat treat process was sometimes not very carefully done, and some of the receivers are too hard. When the barrel was installed, and tightened excessively, as was supposedly the case, the receivers sometimes developed small cracks.

When the sporterizing of military rifles was common after WWII, this cracking was usually discovered at the time of rebarreling, and the cause was attributed to the working of the metal as the rebarreling was being done.

Many gunsmiths refused to work on Eddystone manufactured rifles, although there seems to be no record of catastrophic failures, as there was with the low numbered Springfield and Rock Island 03s.

Crack detection is common in the automotive engine rebuild industry, and I suspect that any engine shop with magnaflux or one of the other crack detection processes could perform it on your rifle, and I believe the expense is not great.