Who counterbored Remington M 1917

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I have one, and the bluing is pretty good, the wood work looks good, the barrel is pretty rough, and counterbored. I am wondering if this was done by an army? Anyone know?
Thanks
 
Counterboring is a traditional way to fix a damaged crown, but is most commonly encountered on rifles like a Mosin Nagant. I don't think the States did counterboring, as I know they usually replaced a barrel when it got too bad.

The Philippines might be a good nation to look into, as I believe they had a significant amount of M1917s and it would be a cheaper solution than rebarreling a whole rifle. Two other good countries too look at would be South Vietnam and China.

These are just guesses, but even googling counterbored M1917, turned up results that indicate if it is counterbored it wasn't done by the States.
 
The South Koreans and Nationalist Chinese were also into counterboring to salvage a barrel with a worn/damaged muzzle. I have all of the US Army Ordnance repair manuals for M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, M1917 Enfields and M1903 Springfields. The only one that discusses counterboring is the one for the M1 Carbine.
 
can14 said:
Many 1903 springfield rifles were counter bored.
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Not a US Army repair technique for the M1903, so I think a lot of this was done by the Koreans and Chinese who had substantial numbers of these riles given to them. We saw quite a few M1903s coming in from these sources 25 yrs ago or so. Come to think of it Nationalist Chinese forces in WW2 were also issued with large quantities of M1917 Enfields so the possibilities are there as well.
 
Does your rifle have an "SA" in a box marking on the barrel ? If so then she would have been with the Finnish army and they are known for counterboring Mosins to improve accuracy.

Edit: I realized I am assuming you have a US made Mosin before I thought of a P17.
 
Could they have been counterbored when released from government stores as surplus, instead of using a new barrel that they probably didn't have?

Hatcher's Notebook did say that thousands of M1917 rifles were sold as surplus after WWII, and that M1917 production shut down in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was finally signed.
 
shredder said:
Could they have been counterbored when released from government stores as surplus, instead of using a new barrel that they probably didn't have?

Hatcher's Notebook did say that thousands of M1917 rifles were sold as surplus after WWII, and that M1917 production shut down in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was finally signed.
Click to expand...

They restarted making M1917 barrels in WWII, for example some were made by the Johnson Arms (also the same people that made the Johnson M1941 Automatic Rifle).

The only people that would have done this would be a foreign country from the US. Personally I would lean towards the China theory, but unless there is some distinct markings, we will never know.
 
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