Feeding a .300 WM into a M1917

You can modify the magazine for belt clearence by adding a slot to the rear left and right sides of the magazine. The slot should be a 1/4" wide and flush with the inside rear wall and oblong in shape The slot runs to withing 1/8" of the top of the magazine where a web of metal is left and runs parallel to the rear wall of the unit to a 1/2" from the bottom...The front of the magazine is cut off and a new "U" shaped piece is welded to the front to accomadate the  longer cartridges. Add a piece to the front of the follower to comform to the new inside profile. The Reciever has to have the bottom opening for the magazine opened up...How much is a trial and error process on the sides but the front has to be milled out to the new magazine length so that there is no overhanging lip. The sides can overhang a bit,but I would bevel the underside of the reciever to smooth out the feeding process. FWIW..this reciever is basically a copy of the Model 98 Mauser and I'm sure you can find a YouTube tutorial on lengthening the mauser mag and reciever to take a longer,fatter magnum. Any metal removed should be kept to a minimum. This process was quite common back after WWII when GI's brought back Mausers and Arisakas and converted these to magnum big game rifles......but beware of the Eddystones....there is also a lot of data out there on cracked recievers...and..there is a specific sequence that must be adhered to when replacing a barrel and bolt of any rifle..and step taken to insure the action is at its best(called TRUING the action) prior to conversion..........My thought is that,other than an exercise in gunsmithing, there is little to be gained by going from 30-06 to .300 WM..a few hundred feet of velocity, most of which could be gained with some reloading developing a "Pet load" for the rifle...and the action would not have been weakened any. You can get a 180 gr 30 caliber bullet moving at 3,000 FPS out of the WM,but you can get 2900 FPS out of the 30-06........

Thanks for the information this will help.

 

BTW:

I have finished the firearm except for the magazine feed, when I took off the barrel, I actually cut the old barrel shoulder to relieve the pressure off of the receiver and the barrel spun off by hand with no oil.

I only torque a 1/4 turn like I did on my other sporter conversions.

I checked the Eddystone for cracks and any problems, none were found, not one bit of rust was found and this Eddystone was well used and abused. The history on this Eddystone is the guy who owned it before me try-ed to fire a round without checking the barrel for obstructions. I can say this receiver is built like a Ford, it is heavy and it is well built. I was able to repair the stock and you cannot even tell where the damage was, now that is really what I was looking for.

In fact it is a better receiver than my other military receivers and they are not junk, one is a 98/22 .308 from 1923 and the other two are Remington's 03A3 .30-'08 sporter barrel and full length barrel from 1943/1944 all of them shoot excellent.

I do all the work on all of my firearms from long guns to hand guns, I have a phobia of gunsmiths when life and death matter for both myself and the game I am hunting. 

The .300 WM is for big game, it will do what the other two cannot do, I have many other rifles for hunting different game, so I can take full advantage of saving the meat with less damage to the animal.  

FWIW..there is a picture of the process i discribed for slotting the magazine wall for belted cartridge clearence in the Brownells Gunsmith Kinks II pages 341-342..but i still think that you nwill need to extend the magazine length and modify the reciever to get the full benifit of the .300 WM..particularily with heavier bullets seated out to gain max case cap for powder..otherwise you will be only getting the 308/30-06 ballistics..Some help at the Williams Gunsight Co. and their publications on upgrading military firearms to sporter use and I believe that both Brownells(www.brownells.com/) and Midway(www... sold longer followers and magazine boxes for this conversion......also..the NRA should have some archived articles from the American Rifleman making this change...www.nra.org

I dont mean to but in Zeke, but i think the modifications you are talking about are for the 1914 enfield which was the 303 brit @ 7.7x56. The 1917 @ 30-06 is the same length as the 300wm,the 1914 mag well must be modified or replaced with a 30-06 mag well as the 303 mag well is only 3.09 long vs 3.39  and .90 wide at the rear for stacking purposes on the model 1917.  If he uses his unmodified belly guard he can only stack 5rds instead of the usual 6 because of case diameter. My 2 cents in the edystone. These recievers had 3-5% nickle and never broke if not run over by a tank(not sure about that either) I think these stories were a carry over from the problems with the early model(s/n bellow 700k) 1903. Ive only ever heard of one showing cracks out of over 100 in control testing. True they were put on with excessive torque(around 300 ft/lbs) but if done properly,not clamping the reciever in a vice and unscrewing the barrel with a 24in pipe wrench, there should never be any problems. thanks and Merry Christmas Zeke.       Sam

My Bad!  The OAL of the 06 and the 300WM is the same...it is the case diameter that differs...the OAL caution comes from my reloading notes of some 30 years ago or so where I played around with the 250 gr Barnes bullets and ran into some length issues when trying to duplicate the advertised ballistics in a 1917 that had been sporterized and the magazine belly flattened out.......as for the cracked reciever caution...from the NRA publication...An American Rifleman reprint  MILITARY RIFLES...on page 4 the Eddystone Enfields are discussed and this staement is made...." Model 1917 rifles were well made,and those on the market are generally in better condition than th British No. 3 Enfields. However,many specimans have neglected bores(why I suspect our questioner rebarreled)and some,ESPECIALLY THOSE MADE BY EDDYSTONE, have cracked reciever rings. These cracks are often easily detected(also meaning that some are not) and specimans with this fault should not be fired.  The caps were added by me and FWIW...I have also come across this statement on several other web pages dedicated to military firearms and those dedicated to "sporterizing" them..It is a simple caution....my apologies for the OAL of the two cartidges....Thanks or the heads up

Im sure you are correct Zeke, my old memory fails me a lot. I think i was quoting from something years ago from Julian Black who did the research that i read in the 60s or 70s which is why I started fooling with the mod 14&17 enfield instead of the 03. I appoligize if im mistaken(once again)

Im sure you are correct Zeke, i was relying on my old and poor memory from research from something i read from Julian Hatcher back in the 60s or 70s who did the research, which is why i started doing 14&17 conversions instead of 03s. I guess ive been lucky as i havent had any problems yet.  But im like you, stick with the 30-06 and load up from there if you want more.

My Eddystone receiver is not cracked, after learning on the internet about the torque problems and all that stuff I just cut the barrel shoulder off and the receiver just unscrewed off by hand. No harm came to the receiver. I then checked the receiver for cracks and found none.

I purchased a new M1917  barrel and re-chambered it to a .300WM. I have used a P14 bolt and extractor since the 30-06 is smaller and I do not want to modify anything just use the parts that will work.  My Eddystone is complete and all the parts I have exchanged I have kept so if down the road it can be restored to a 30-06 no harm no foul.

I stlll need some imput of feeding, I ordered a book on the sporterized M1917 just to get a idea what they did to feed the ammo. I am not going to file anything on the receiver since it is has never been modified. The receiver is in prime condition and I am going to leave it that way.

So any more imput on feeding will help me finish this firearm. Thanks

I am still working on feeding the M1917 with a .300 WM, I

have looked up the internet for help in feeding into the chamber and really

have not got anything.

Anyone have any ideas about feeding the M1917 or a book that

would help me understand the feeding of this M1917, would really help me in completing

this M1917 project rifle. 

FWIW, The feeding cycle of the Model 1917 Enfield is the same as the Model 98 Mauser(and the earlier 93-95-96) the the plethoras of  bolt action centerfire rifles that followed..both the 1917 and the 1903/1903A3 Springfiedls are new and improved model 98 Mausers as are the pre-64 Model 70 Winchester and rifles like the Model 700 Remington...and there is a direct copy commercial version of the 1917 by Remington. Check out the Remingtom Model 30 which is nothing more than a modified Model 1917 Enfield. It went thru several Improvements and model designations over its commercial life including the cock on opening modification in 1926. This was called the Express rifle in addition to the 30-06 it was sold in calibers .25,.30.32 and .35 Remington. In 1930 the Model 30 S was introduced a Special grade in 30-06 and in 7x57 mauser and the .257 robts was also added later. Take note that all the commercial chambering from the factory were based on the 30-06 sized case or Smaller diameters. The rifle was dropped in 1930 and replaced by the remington Model 720 and followed by the models 721 and 722. These firearms were the parent of the now popular Model 700. These rifles were  developed to deal with some of the short comings of the Model 1917 including many that were simply for the ease of manufacturing. The Models 721 and 722 were offered in the 300 H&H Magnum...some of the engineering used in those rifles to allow the use of the larger magnum round may be of some help to you........

185D..FWIW  Remington made a commercial version of the Model 1917 Enfield called the Remington Model 30..maybe something on that may help..Ask ABBY at www.cornellpubs.com if she has anything that would help...a publication or a gunsmith that did  that work...