M1917 American Enfield question.

[Hun Helmet]

What was the original idea for design of the American Enfield M1917 or as sometimes called the P17? Was this arm ever issued to British troops? What is the difference between this arm and what is known as the P14 rifle?

Mike

[Michael Johnson]

The P1917 was sent over in some numbers for the Home Guard in 1940. It was also used for training in Canada, and I think by the R.C.A.F. as well.

[Daniel Murphy]

Originally it was the Pattern 1913 and was designed to be chambered in .276 caliber. When the war came along, the arms manufacturers in Britain were occupied producing weapons at full capacity and to try to change production midstream in the middle of a war would have been disastrous. So they looked to the neutral U.S., who was not at war and had ample production capability, to produce them in .303 Mark VII caliber to supplement the SMLEs then in service. The P 14 was made, under contract, by Winchester, Remington and Eddystone, the last of which was a subsidiary of Remington I believe. Due to the tooling up time required when producing a new firearm, I doubt any P '14s got overseas and in the field until early 1915. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the U. S. government ordered the above companies to cease production for Britain and ordered the production of the rifle in 30-06 caliber. This was a minor alteration and it was adopted as the U.S. Rifle, model of 1917. As far as I know the rifles already produced in .303 and sitting in the warehouse waiting for shipment, were shipped out to Britain as scheduled. Once the change over was made the shipments to the U.K. stopped entirely.

Remington and Westinghouse (yes the electrical appliance guys) were also making Model 1891 Moisin-Nagant rifles for Imperial Russia. The earliest one I have seen is dated 1915. This is why I have given the same year for the P 14. I hope this helps

Dan Murphy

[JensF.]

I have got a question about the P14 rifle. I got a deactivated P14 in my collection, which was made by Eddystone (stamped "ERA") with the serial number 656529. I can't find a date on the rifle but is it possible to date it by its serial number?

[TonyE]

Originally it was the Pattern 1913 and was designed to be chambered in .276 caliber. When the war came along, the arms manufacturers in Britain were occupied producing weapons at full capacity and to try to change production midstream in the middle of a war would have been disastrous. So they looked to the neutral U.S., who was not at war and had ample production capability, to produce them in .303 Mark VII caliber to supplement the SMLEs then in service. The P 14 was made, under contract, by Winchester, Remington and Eddystone, the last of which was a subsidiary of Remington I believe. Due to the tooling up time required when producing a new firearm, I doubt any P '14s got overseas and in the field until early 1915. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the U. S. government ordered the above companies to cease production for Britain and ordered the production of the rifle in 30-06 caliber. This was a minor alteration and it was adopted as the U.S. Rifle, model of 1917. As far as I know the rifles already produced in .303 and sitting in the warehouse waiting for shipment, were shipped out to Britain as scheduled. Once the change over was made the shipments to the U.K. stopped entirely.

Remington and Westinghouse (yes the electrical appliance guys) were also making Model 1891 Moisin-Nagant rifles for Imperial Russia. The earliest one I have seen is dated 1915. This is why I have given the same year for the P 14. I hope this helps

Dan Murphy

Having just registered on the board I was looking through some old posts and came across this, and would like to add some additional information.

The production of the P.14 was seriously behind schedule and the first ten rifles from each factory were not accepted by British inspectors in the US until Feb/Mar 1916. They arrived in the UK and were tested and inspected by the Munitions Design Committee in May 1916, so it is unlikely that any were in the hands of troops in the UK until late summer 1916. The decision had already been made to send no P.14s to France due to the problem of interchangeability of spare parts.

By that time there were 3.6 million Pattern 14 rifles on order with the three companies and it was apparent that they would not be needed due to the late delivery and the fact that UK production of SMLEs was now sufficient. By August 1916 only 95,000 of the 1,433,300 rifles due to date had been delivered and it was decided to cancel a large part of the outstanding rifles. On 23 August J.P.Morgan (the British Purchasing Agents) cancelled 1.8 million rifles. The US Government had nothing to do with the decision and they did not order the production to end. The companies obviously objected to this and after negotiations it was agreed to amend the cancellations to 1.4 million rifles and approximately 1.2 million were finally delivered, the final production being in mid 1917. It was after that the production of the Model 1917 started.

Regards

TonyE