A question about M1917s

[Gerry N.]

There's a guy locally trying to sell a Remington made M1917 that has been sporterized by altering and refinishing the stock. The action and barrel are untouched. I have an Eddystone M1917 with an unfired Johnson Arms replacement barrel in it. My rifle is unaltered full military.

Here's what I was thinking of doing. Buy the Rem. M1917. Put the barreled action into my stock, thus "creating" a full military Rem M1917. Then put my Eddystone M1917 into the altered Rem. stock "creating" a very nice shooter with the potential of restoration.

Does this sound doable and ethical? Yes, I am looking for confirmation, not information. It's one of those things that sounds good, but I'm having doubts.

Gerry N.

[Cherokee]

Sounds OK to me

[higgins]

If your intact Eddystone rifle is just as it came out of the military, I might rather have it intact, only because that's the way it was originally released even if it was a rebuild, but that's me. Once a rifle has mixed parts and has been non-permanently altered, I don't see anything wrong with putting more replacement parts on it. I've done that with a No4Mk1 Lee Enfield that had been through FTR (Factory Thorough Repair - what the Brits call a complete rebuild), then sporterized in civilian life in the U.S. by only cutting off the forearm. I just replaced the missing pieces and ended up with a very nice looking and good shooting Enfield. I might be splitting hairs, but I think it only becomes unethical if you present it for sale as "100% original parts". Even though they might all be Remington parts, they weren't original to the gun. You could present it as "restored to original condition" and be perfectly honest. Another consideration would be if your Eddystone shoots real well, then you got lucky and the stock, handguards, bands, etc. are all a good fit. When you start swapping stocks and handguards, sometimes parts don't go together just right, and neither rifle may shoot as well as before. I'm a shooter rather than a collector, so maybe collectors could better answer you question.

[4570guy]

I agree with higgins. Trying to re-match manufacture's parts just so you have an all R, E or W 1917 does not increase its value. Once the rifles went through the re-arsenal process all manner of parts were mixed and matched. The Army didn't care. I really have to question folks that claim to have "all matching" 1917s today and claim that they are "factory correct" and therefore more valuable. Who knows what some previous owner may have done to mix and match the parts. The only '17 rifles that stand a very good chance of being "factory correct" are those that are still in the blued condition (not parkerized) and with all matching parts. If the rifle is parkerized, it went through re-arsenal and is probably now a mix-master. I own one and it shoots just fine thank you!

[Gerry N.]

My Eddystone was owned by the State of Alaska for a while, no idea for how long, then hung on the wall in a saloon as a decoration. The rifle has parts on it with markings from Eddystone, Remington and Winchester. I had the barrel replaced about ten years ago with an in the wrap Johnson Automatics 2-groove replacement as the original was horribly pitted and patterned service ammunition 14" and worse at 100 yds. The work was done by a retired Marine Corps armorer. Since then I have only shot cast bullets in it. The man who installed and finish reamed the barrel reamed and rifled the old one to .35 Whelen.

No nefarious intentions here.

Gerry N.