1914/1917 Enfield continued
Plad, There is a company in New York--NUMRICH GUN PARTS CORPORATION that sells parts for about any gun you can name. They sell parts for the 1914/1917 rifles. I have bought parts from them for near 40 years now and they have always been able to help me. They can even supply parts from pictures and old broken parts sent to them. The telephone number for them is 845-679-2417 for orders or 845-679-4867 customer service. By the way, the Eddystone receiver were heat treated to a harder surface than Winchester or Remington marked receivers. They tend to be a little smoother operating because of this harder surface on the feed rails. All the barrels on the enfields(14 or 17) seem to be very tight to remove. For that reason the 2 local gunsmiths in our area will not rebarrel a 14 or 17 without having the receiver magnafluxed after removing the barrel on an Eddystone receiver. Both say they have known of the Eddystone receiver developing stress cracks because of the hardness(brittleness) when the barrel is removed. That is the reason most people who want a custom rifle on the 14 or 17 action usually would rather have a Winchester or Remington made receiver to rebarrel. I have owned several 1917 rifles but have never rebarreled one so I have no first hand knowledge of this happening but I do bow to the professionals when safety might be involved. By the way, Parker-Hale made some African rifles using the Remington and Winchester 1914-1917 actions--most in .375 H&H magnum. I had the good fortune to see one of these rifles and it was a real beauty. It was in the collection of a local businessman who died in the late 70's so I don't have any idea where it ended up. Hope this helps. Jim
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I've done several barrel removals on p17/14...never found it to be a big deal....mostly convert to .308Norma Mag....have also done .300Win and .300Wby all with very good success. Mostly use Eddystones as they are more common in Canada than Remington. 0 -
according to frank dehass, the cracking reffered to was only caused by the tightly fitted barrels and could be found on all mgf's p-17's. i've rebarreled many of these myself and barrel removal is easy as long as a releif cut is made just in front of the receiver. one recent poster made mention of heating the barrel cherry red... BIG NO-NO. 0 -
Mike, as I said previously, I've never had an occassion to re-barrel a P17 , so the re-barrelling troubles that I talked about were gathered from other sources of information(gunsmiths, books, magazines,etc.). I have read about the relief cut that you referred to but never had it explained to me. Would you be kind enough to educated me on it. Equipment needed, where and how, etc. Thanks, Jim 0 -
eayest way is to strip the rifle to the barrel and receiver, chuhe the barrel in the lathe and run a cutoff tool into the barrel about 1/4" deep just ahead of the receiver (or a hack saw cut in the same place). this releaves the locking effect the barrel and receiver shoulder have. the original barrel threads are almost like a tapered pipe thread, they actualy act like a wedge and split the receiver from the front back about 1/2" (all the cracked ones i have seen any way). 0 -
Thanks Mike for the information. I learned two things from your reply. Why some of the barrels are so tight(seems logical that they would crack when overly tightened with the threads that you described or when brute force is used to remove the barrel) and how to remove them with your relief cut. It's been a good day. I do appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. 0
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