Eddystone M1917 from Majspud

[Mountain]

Majspud decided to clear a few of the non-core rifles from his collection & with the green light from Mrs. Mountain I was lucky enough to grab the Eddystone M1917. Definitely luck to find a nice rifle and have the green light from my wife. I only dabble in collecting and only buy what I can shoot, so off to the range this AM.

I had no familiarity with the sights, so burned up just a few mixed HXP's from my leftover bag to get to center target. Two shots together at 3:00 were my last with HXP. Before that, there were a couple shots in one bug hole at 12:00 off paper. The five at 12:00 high are my last shots, with SMK Varget reloads this time. I didn't feel like adjusting any more and just shot for the group.

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Wow, those rear apertures are BIG on the 1917. Couple that with a dark lighting when I shot this & probably most of the spread is me, not the gun. Regardless, should be a no-brainer to keep 10-ring if I do my part. Pristine arsenal re-barrel (Winchester) probably the main reason for the accuracy. Kick is even less than a Garand, IMO. Pretty happy with it and kudos to majspud for listing it on NES. I think he has a couple rifles still listed, though most sold quickly and are already gone.

Only things I'd like to improve is to get a replacement rear sight slide and reduce the aperture (a lot!), and lighten up the trigger a little. Should do that with replacement parts and bank the originals.

 

[majspud]

Glad you had fun!

t

 

[dw617]

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[Picton]

Love the Patt 14/M1917. That's a nice one.

 

[Mountain]

Welcome to the 1917 club; rifle couldn't have gone to a better owner.

Edit, Franco says not much can be done with these triggers. Mine has a first stage about a mile long.

Thought yours was pretty awesome & my other vintage CMP eligible rifles are good but not great shooters, at least not yet. This one is good to go as is.

Yeah, first stage a little long but OK for me. Pull is a little stout, with a little creep before breaking. Consistent, however, and easy to judge when it will break.

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Love the Patt 14/M1917. That's a nice one.

Thanks, majspud knows his stuff, to my benefit.

 

[Rockrivr1]

I was looking at one of these the other day. What is the significance of the dial up front with numbers that seem to go up to 25 or so?

 

[Picton]

It's the remains of a front volley sight, used for area engagements out to 2500 yards or so.

You were looking at a Pattern 14 stock, with a Weedon repair. Did it have a little rotating arm on top of the plate?

 

[mac1911]

Take a good long look at the trigger.
I tried to get my friends trigger "better"
Now I'm no trigger man and can only go by what I see and how I do things.
1. Buy some extra trigger parts.
2. New snug pins go a long way to help with feel
3. The trigger is hard to really work over with out making it a single stage.
What I ended up doing.
1. Replaced all pins with nice snug pins.
2. Polished every contact point. I don't mess with angles or remove metal just clean up the points.

Once you dig into the trigger and how it works you will see where some places need cleaning up.
Before you go changing apertures you might want to see if any rules apply for vintage?
Timney makes a drop in trigger also.

 

[dw617]

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[Mountain]

Maybe what I'll do is as Mac says, install some snug pins and polish contact points. Maybe take out a little grit with some metal polish- basically surface improvement with no changes to dimensions.

Timney's rock, too bad we can't use one. Installed on on Dad's post '64 Win 7mm Mag and it's fantastic. That, some other minor tweaks, and match reloads took that 7mm Mag from ~1.7 MOA to .8 MOA.