Cosmetic W bolt repair question

[FCPDAVE]

Hi, Still working on putting all W parts on my LL Canada M1917. Since starting, I read that the star in a circle on the receiver means that it did not go overseas in WW1 due to the interchangeability issues (#99,XXX). It went to the Prince of Wales rifles and then perhaps they sent it somewhere.

Anyway, it has a mismatched W bolt, though I had a gunsmith check the head space and it's good. But - the top of the bolt has small numbers 1059697 and "bomb" that were peened and the bottom has the same number nicely stamped, some numbers on both sides of the W - not peened.

I'm wondering if it's possible to polish or grind off at least the peened nos. on the top. I'm one of those people who is bugged by things like this (and spends too much money trying to fix them).

Thanks,

Dave

[pickax]

I too have an early star stamped LL Canadian winchester. In my research the commonly spread notion of the star stamp interchangeability issues don't hold true.
This thread wanders a bit but has a good summary towards the end. http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=11286&highlight=star+stamp
As far as the bolt, Canada received them separated from the rifles with some attempt to grind and re-serialise, but most were just headspaced and installed mismatched.
In my opinion this is part of the rifles history and would not grind any thing away, But it's your rifle.
I bought this just to round out my 1917 collection with a nice Winchester, but it sure has been fun researching the LL aspect. Great history lesson!

[FCPDAVE]

Thanks for the info. By any chance would your rifle have or had red paint and 30 06 on the front of the stock? Mine had traces of red paint but the stock has the Can. acceptance stamp, PWR and 12 on it. I thought only the Brit. LL rifles were painted. I read an article way back that said many of these rifles were imported w/o the bolts to save on duty fees and the bolts were shipped separately, later to be "matched" if possible. I have a bring back Arisaka Type 99 with a mismatched bolt and read an article stating that the bolts were removed and locked up on the ship back to the US and were just handed out. I fired it, but the only ammo I could find at the time was Norma with I think a 125 gr. bullet - HOT load. Slight bulge in the case, slight primer protrusion - wall hanger. Lots of "experts " out there - guess we can find most any story we want to believe. Cost me some $ over the years.
Dave

Dave

[pickax]

Mine has only traces of the red paint on the stock. Have read it was a Canadian practice to use the red stripe as well as the Brits. Most were scrubbed off by civilians later as undesirable. I would guess the PWR 12 would be unit markings. Try a search on Canadian veteran guard images and articles. Lots of random stuff out there.
I remember shooting Norma in a 99 in 1976 as a teen. Impressive flame and recoil. Still have it, lucked into all matching 1st series Nagoya.
Enjoy the search!
Brad

[FCPDAVE]

Thanks again. I think I'll repaint it sometime. PRW is Prince of Wales Rifles.
Dave

[Fred Pillot]

The reason for the bulge in the Arisaka rifles is that the chambers are larger that normal (diameter wise) and the extractor pushes the cartridge to the side during firing causing the bulge. Same thing in the British rifles.

[RC20]

Youi should not clean off the serial numbers.

Its part of its history. If it does not match the rifle serial then it got switched. Candida and Europeans bit on serial number on the bolts. Maybe because their were custom fit. US had better tolerances and most cross fit fine. Not all, you do have to watch it. I have a Danish return that got the wrong sn bolt in it, but again its part of its history.

[FCPDAVE]

OK - I'll leave it. Wonder why the serial # that was nicely stamped on the bottom of the bolt was not touched, while that same number was crudely marked on the top of the bolt and later peened.

[RC20]

there simply was nothing clean and cosmetic about how these rifles served.

I could easily be wrong but I don't think Canada did the serial numbers on the bolt, that is one (and I do mean just one) signature of a Danish issued 1917 from Canada.

Others would be serial number on the stock, imported by CDI or CAI (under barrel front, CDI is extremely tiny, have not seen a CAI so don't know about them, but the CDI is so unobtrusive as to be missed easily.

Despite standards, those sometimes were ignored, missed or inconsiantly applied.

It makes for a very interesting history

It should be added in, that a wide variety of Canadian forces were equipment with the 1917 and those did not necessary follow red band or any other procured.

Norway got 1917s latter on after WWII, Danes did and Free French forces were equipped with them in WWII (not exclusively but a lot)

China was given large numbers, huge numbers went to the Philippines and pictures of them being burned after (unknown why - maybe so deteriorated as to be a hazard) but in that case none ever reported back.

A couple of instances of 1917s being found in Vietnam and the source would almost certainly be China and they have shown up all over the middle East in singles.

[FCPDAVE]

I just saw a Danish front sight insert on Ebay or Gun Broker. The seller mentioned that there is some interesting info searching Danish M53/17. Interesting stories, some of which are probably true. I did not know about the Danish sight inserts (1 on my '17) or the 1917's with notched receivers from Norway or Denmark. Anyone have one or see one?

[RC20]

I have not seen one but the very famous Danish Sirius Patrol used a modified version of the 1917. Why I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I love the gun but the bolt is not very slick and seems an odd choice when a good M98 Mauser would have worked (my opinion) better.

Regardless they did modify the sights on them and used them until pretty recently (a check and it turns out they are still using them and plan on continue using them, so in a year they will be in the 100 years old vicinity)

They also mfg their own barrels (they received 38,000 from Canada during a post WWII rifle short and 13k from Norway.

Ferris thinks maybe 6 to 7000 came back to the US, I don't think they shipped anything other than standard ones back.