1917 Enfield action

[Hunter-Habib]

Very strong , robust action . Can easily be made to chamber up to .500 Jeffery sized ammunition . It’s marginal for the big .505 Gibbs case though . You want to use a Pattern 14 Enfield action for that . I like the Remington ones the best , but heard that that the Eddystone ones have heat treatment issues . How true this is , is anybody’s guess .

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Very strong , robust action . Can easily be made to chamber up to .500 Jeffery sized ammunition . It’s marginal for the big .505 Gibbs case though . You want to use a Pattern 14 Enfield action for that . I like the Remington ones the best , but heard that that the Eddystone ones have heat treatment issues . How true this is , is anybody’s guess .

@Hunter-Habib
The only issue with the Eddystone Enfields and all Enfields fir that natter is the barrels ar put in using hydraulic wrenches as Nd sometimes they get over tightened. When the ar undo by someone that doesn't know this they use to much effort removing the barrel and end up cracking the receiver.
As to the P14 being a bigger action than the M17 someone is pulling your chain. They ar exactly the same size, the difference being the bolt face and feed rails.
Bob

 

[Hunter-Habib]

@Hunter-Habib
The only issue with the Eddystone Enfields and all Enfields fir that natter is the barrels ar put in using hydraulic wrenches as Nd sometimes they get over tightened. When the ar undo by someone that doesn't know this they use to much effort removing the barrel and end up cracking the receiver.
As to the P14 being a bigger action than the M17 someone is pulling your chain. They ar exactly the same size, the difference being the bolt face and feed rails.
Bob

My wording should have have been more proper . My mistake .

What I meant to say is : It's easier to get a Pattern 14 Enfield action to feed .505 Gibbs than an Enfield 1917 action ( comparatively speaking ) . Because the bolt face and bolt head on the former is bigger .

There is roughly a .007" variance either way in bolt face diameter : . 697 inches for Pattern 14 Enfield , as compared to the .690 for the Enfield 1917. Likewise the diameter at the bolt head including extractor is 1.002 inches for the Pattern 14 Enfield vs .995 for the Enfield 1917 .

 

[Jim Golden]

That stockis a product of the Reinhart Fajen custom shop, built to my specifications and designed to control recoil, which it did to the point that once I fired four shots into a running buffalo, while standing precariously on a ledge above him. Three of the four shots could have been covered with a playing card, all in the shoulder. The buffalo stopped so suddenly that his nose plowed up the ground.

Given the increasing popularity of the .416 Rigby and advent of the .416 Remington, the .416 MRE seemed not to have much appeal. The same was the case with the arrival of a host of .375 caliber cartridges. I found that I could shoot unmodified .510" bullets in my .505 with no signs of excess pressure, so the .500 SRE no longer made much sense. The .577 VSRE was pleasant to shoot with an overall weight of 12 pounds, compared to 8.75 pounds for the .505 SRE. However, the recoil, although not abrupt or painful, forced me to take two steps backward every time I fired it. I concluded that my experience in shooting from odd places, like the top of a termite mound, would not always allow me to take two steps to the rear, so I regrettfully retired it as well. All in all, an interesting exercise, however.

This is the buffalo in question, Kenya, 1974.

[/URL]

XA, I realize this is two years old....but if you're still out there and monitoring this...what is your secret stock design? I'm a big fan of the A-Square Coil Chek, and the biggest thing about it is the large butt area that shoves your entire body instead of just your shoulder hyperextending. It looks like your stock is very similar. I am an engineer myself and built a M1917 Enfield into a beast of a 375 Weatherby that is right there knocking on the door of the .378. But I want to build a .460 and was planning to use another copy of an A-Square Hannibal stock (that's what my .375 has). I'm curious as to how you came up with your design. It looks really nice.

 

[Rule 303]

As this thread has been brought back to life there is one thing I forgot to mention. If you need an extractor for the M17 and can't find one. Just use a Rugger M77 extractor. Direct copy of the M17. Just the length is shorter but they work fine.

 

[xausa]

I wish I could be of more help, but all I did was turn the project and the barreled action over to Fajen. I can't tell you how pleased I am with the result. On two different occasions I was standing precariously balanced on an unsteady surface when I loosed the shots (in the case of the buffalo I emptied the magazine, a total of four shots) with no ill effects on either me or the rifle.

As you can see from the photo, the stock has virtually no drop at the heel, which delivers the recoil energy more or less in a straight line, with little or no muzzle jump.

I am not sensitive to recoil. I once had my .458 WM double rifle double on me, which quadruples, rather than doubles the recoil energy, since recoil energy varies with the square of recoil velocity and in the case of a double rifle firing both barrels simultaneously, the recoil velocity is doubled. I was pushed backwards two steps and got my feet tangled up, causing me to take a seat rather suddenly, but emerged otherwise unscathed. I had the action thoroughly cleaned, and the phenomenon never repeated itself. The tso bullets struck the target only about an inch apart, proving that the phenomenon was a true double, not a case of the recoil from the first barrel somehow firing the second shot.

I also built a rimless version of the .577 Nitro Express. When loaded to NE velocity, the recoil of the 14 pound rifle was an irresistable push, which invariably caused me to step backward two paces to maintain my balance. I decided that this trait was impractical in a hunting rifle and never used it in the hunting field. It now belongs to Buckstix.