New to me P-17

smellie said:
Remington Arsenal at Eddystone, Pennsylvania, November, 1918.

They started cancelling the contracts on November 5, 1918 and all production had ceased by November 11. Your rifle was made in the very last week of the war, when they were turning out close to 4,000 rifles a day at that plant alone.... plus spare parts. Last few days, they stopped most work, just cleaned up what semi-manufactured parts which were already in progress, didn't even finish that off. Government made a buy-out of finished spares based on degree of completeness, trashed quite a lot of them.

Your rifle has a real story behind it. I have its mate here (same factory, same week) and it is a great shooter, even if it does look sort of like somebody landed a B-17 on top of it.

The American pull-out from Newfoundland wasn't as sudden as generally thought; they actually maintained some small bases (radar station by Tilting Hr, Fogo Island) until the middle 1950s and they kept a couple of big ones until the final sell-off in the late 1970s. But they left a LOT of neat stuff lying around....
Click to expand...

Your dead on. This rifle came from the collection of a doctor who passed away. He lived in Gander. My assumption is he got it from the base in Gander probably from the PX. I just got it back from the gunsmith who de-preserved it. He says it is definitely unfired as it had cosmoline everywhere including underneath the action. He says by the hardness of the cosmoline and the condition of the bore and bolt that the rifle is unfired. However it does have a few nicks and dents in the wood.
 
I can see it now, muzzle downcast and sights misty from sheer happiness at finding a new home where it is appreciated even more....

Makes me want to cry.....

Where's the rum jug, old sod?

Good-oh!
 
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