What have I got pics and description

kjohn

kjohn

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Can the Enfield people tell me what I have here. It is obviously an Enfield M17 or?? I have tried to include the important stuff in the pics. The only writing is "Made in England". The barrel is 23 1/4" (exposed part) and it is 44 OAL. The serial number appears to have been added to a ground part on the right side of the receiver ring and to the underside of the bolt handle. There is some checkering on the grip. It has a ramp front sight and an el cheapo rear notched ramp rear sight. In the pic that has "three crossed rifles" printed in, there is a six-sided, double line sort of medallion or badge with three stacked rifles in it. This is situated on the rear bridge.
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I believe that is an M1917 sporterized by BSA (3 rifles symbol). At one time I owned one of these. They tend to be reasonably accurate ...
 
Yes, it is a commercially sported m1917. BSA did quite a number of these, perhaps in the '50s. As such things go, they are a pretty good conversion, with the receiver being nicely altered for a peep sight or scope mounts.
 
I've got one.

BSA rework of a US M17 30-06.

My buddy gave it to me as he got it in a trade for something else and didn't need another old 30-o6.

I had to have it re-crowned, and the scope mounting holes were out of line so my 'smith had to re-drill at least one hole.

Action was a little loose so a credit-card shim under the front action screw fixed that.

I have shot one bear with it.

I have my oldest scope on it right now and I don't really like it, but it still shoots minute of moose (2 1/2 ") groups at 100 yards with factory ammo.

The bore is near pristine so I think with a better scope and maybe another brand of ammo it would tighten up the groups.

If you don't know this, Remington made many of these originally and had many parts and the tooling of course left over after World War I so they continued making the rifle, only in a civilian configuration with a "sported" stock as the Remington Model 30.
 
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If you handload for one of these critters, you can often get them down to half-inch groups. Friend of mine has 3 of these right now, PLUS a Remington Model 30 Express (basically the same rifle) and they all shoot to beat the band, and that's with original War One barrels on all four rifles.

BSA also did a bunch of P-'14s at the same time, so you will find the same rifle in .303.
 
Thanks for all the good replies. This rifle belonged to my Dad nearly fifty years ago. I remembered it as having a lighter stock, but I think maybe it got "oiled" between then and now. This is the rifle I posted about a couple of weeks ago - "After fifty years". It is now back home and, get this, it will soon be stored back in the house my Dad built in 1949, probably about the same time he actually bought the rifle!! I now own that house and will be moving in to it in the next year or two. When I bought it back from the previous owner, I wasn't so sure that it was the right rifle. I remembered it was a BSA, and thought I could remember reading that on the rifle. My Dad told me it was a "BSA" when I was a kid, and I always thought it meant "British Small Arms". I think I later learned that it actually stood for Birmingham Small Arms, and over the years that sort of blurred into what I "thought", not what actually "was". Anyhow, it is home!! It will go to his only grandson, my sister's boy, who is a gunner to the bone, after I am no longer able to "have" it. For sure, it won't leave the family again, as he has a healthy young son who is pretty much a man now, and a gunner.:p:p:p:p:p:p:p
 
Tell you what,,, THAT AIN'T NO FREAKING BUBBA...Bubba is a TERM for RETARDS TRYING TO BE GUN SMITHS... I wish people out there would understand the difference. When Firms sporterized military surplus rifles back in the day because they were a dime a dozen IT AINT A BUBBA Very nice rifle dude. I was going through an old 1950's Hunting magazine the other day and you wouldn't believe the advertizments in it showing all the different companies that sporterized milsurps in a professional manner. I really like them and Accept them for what they are.. This is not 1950 anymore guys please stop #####ing about a milsurp that was sportered in those days. It was as common as the bloody word BUBBA is today....

KEEP IT WELL OILED AND PUT HER ON THE FRONT LINE...

CHEERS
 
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John Sukey said:
And ALL M1917's were made on this side of the pond, as well as ALL P14's
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Yep, England had a contract for those US built P-14 just prior to WWI I believe, but when war broke out they cancelled it and kept the SMLE.. I think that is when the US, eventually came into the fight, and needed rifles, had all these P-14's sitting around and added them to the arsenal, the P-17 was just a P-14 rebarraled to .30-06 was'nt it?

The rifle in this thread, does have Brit marks on it? I've seen similar mixes.. for example a 9x57mm not 9.3x57 either, with a Mauser 98 action, and a British proofed barrel, and some American company name on it.. It was some kind of custom built for some gentleman back in the day.. this THREAD rifle sort of reminds me of that.
 
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K98ACTION: I appreciate your posts regarding this old rifle. No doubt, it is a military surplus rifle. No doubt it is no longer in its original, factory configuration. No doubt it has been well used since I last saw it. It was disappointing to see "bubba'd" etc when referring to this particular rifle. Thanks for sticking up for the BSA in this thread. It is, indeed, a special old rifle. My Dad was born in 1900, just north of Grenfell. He was a farmer at heart, and ended up being successful at his beloved profession. He went through some really tough financial times in the "Dirty Thirties". He worked down at Port Arthur in the lumber/pulp camps. He also worked on the West Coast, in Victoria, helping to convert the Queen Mary into a "troop ship". He had some very interesting little stories to tell about his younger days. He was in his early forties when he married my Mom. In fact, because he was hailed out on his farm, they had to postpone their marriage for a whole year!! Having come through the tough times, and being used to having very little extras for himself, he was able to see his way to trade the BSA in to the local hardware man for the family's first black & white TV. Dad's family came above all else, especially his own frills. We certainly enjoyed the TV, but once I was old enough to appreciate "guns", I thought about the BSA. He still had his old Tobin double 12, which I still have. He bought me a Cooey Model 39. We were going out "chicken huntin'" one afternoon and he told me we had to stop in at the hardware (a different one than the BSA's home) to "pick something up". There he asked the hardware man if he had any .22's. Well, out comes this brand new Cooey!! Dad laid down the $12 cash and away we went!! I lost that little rifle with a car theft. There wasn't any other gift in my life up until then that served to fire my imagination and enthusiasm as that little .22. I have that old BSA beside me as I type this, and it is almost as if my Dad is here too!! Thanks everybody for the good remarks, especially K98ACTION
 
You're a lucky man.
My grandfather came to this country before War One, worked as a fur grader/trader in a tiny settlement out in the northwest called Fort Edmonton. Maybe you've heard of it; it's got a bit bigger.
Anyway, Grandpa had a .22, a shotgun and a CF rifle..... and a wife who couldn't stand guns. You KNOW the result.
So, here I am, almost a hundred years later....... and I'd give ANYTHING to have one of my Grandpa's guns.
 
The British were going to convert to the new rifle (Pattern 1913 in .276"), but WWI messed up the procurement program. They designed a conversion of the P-'13 to the .303" round and called it the Pattern 1914 (P-'14); this is the rifle which was built by Winchester, Remington and Remington Eddystone in large numbers, pushing 2 million units total. The idea was that a P-'14 could be converted to a P-'13 simply by replacing the barrel and the rearsight leaf.

All P-'14 construction was done in North America.

The British were able to get their own factories running better and to build new plants to build the SMLE. Late 1916/early 1917, they started in cancelling the construction contracts for the P-'14, supposedly because they did not need any more rifles. Actually, they were running out of volunteers but, if you don't got manpower, you don't need rifles, and the existing factories could suuply what was needed.

The US got involved as a result of the Zimmerman Note, declared war on Germany and needed a whole whack of rifles, so they redesigned the P-'14 to handle the .30-'06 round, called it the US Rifle Model of 1917. It was the best rifle of the Great War.
Winchester made about half a million, as did Remington. Eddystone built just over 1.3 million, turning out as many as 4000 rifles a day from their plant (imagine that! a BRIGADE a day, from one plant!!!!!). Winchester did all thetoolroom work for all 3 plants, for P-'14 and M1917 both.

Note that the US rifles were NOT converted P-'14s: they were NEW production and contained several parts which did NOT interchange with P-'14 parts.

Many M1917 rifles were given/sold/whatever/thankyouverymuchforthehelp to Canada and Great Britain during War Two. We called them the P-'17, even though that terminology is technically incorrect. The RCAF referred to them as Eddystone Rifles.

No matter, they were still the best rifle of the Great War, they were made into great sporters, and they can STILL shoot the arse off a fly at 100 yards if you can hold them. Great rifles, no matter what they were called.
 
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