Manufacturing the M1917 Bolt-Action Rifle - ORIGINAL FOOTAGE
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ค. 2021
- Watch the M1917 bolt-action rifle take shape, from raw forging to finished rifle, in this footage shot during the Spring of 1918.
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#M1917 #rifles
This was filmed at Winchester. Slush and Cosmoline are similar, but different enough that the military uses them for different applications and even has different standards and classifications for them.
Was the slush a wax based or oil based coating?
I just a week ago had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of cleaning a FULLY cosmoline rifle. It was soooo much fun I’ll never do it again!
Cosmoline is the gift that keeps on giving every time you shoot
The guy putting the receiver on doesn't look like he is over tightening it, but if you ever have to take one off, it's one of the hardest to remove.
@@2011woodlands yeah I was thinking to myself "THATS the guy to blame for all the hardships..."
My great grandfather was a machinist and worked at the Eddystone factory during the Great War. I have a copy of his draft card where he is listed as an “essential worker”
That's really cool! What an awesome piece of family history!
It's entirely possible that you great grandfathers fingerprints were once on something in my safe that has been in my family since new and I am the third generation owner of that I absolutely cherish.
Then I have a rifle he made and it still shoots great. be proud
I wonder if he made part of my rifle
I also have a 1917 Eddystone and live about 10 minutes from the original plant location
I purchased an Eddystone M1917 in m-i-n-t condition in the 1970s. The bore was like a mirror. The rifle must have spent years in an armoury as there were no dings or bruising on the wood work and the metal work was like new. Manufactured in November of 1917, it was exceptionally accurate out to 800 yards. Regret selling it a few years ago.
same for my Father, but, he bought his in the late fifties-early sixties....looked & shot like yours aswell, except some prick stole his from our home & he always missed that rifle till the day he died.
Nice gun. I regret a swede mauser myself
Never sell your guns!😫
😱
Many of these rifles were arsenal refurbished prior to and during WWII and then never issued. You can find old ads selling them post-war for just a few dollars. My Eddystone is the same. Mirror bore and accurate as all get out. Short of having to feed my kids, I'm never selling it, or my Winchester version.
My Winchester M1917 was made here, by men who are long since gone. I'm fortunate to own this piece of history.
The history really is quite impressive, isn't it?
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC indeed it is.
I have one of these rifles. I would never have guessed so many people were involved in hand-fitting it. Thanks for posting the video!
Thanks for watching!
I was just thinking about Andy Capp yesterday.
Those men did an outstanding job. They built those rifles to last.
They sure did!
I have a Winchester 1917 made in 1918. It’s in excellent condition. 107 years old and going strong!
I wish we could re-manufacture these old battle rifles. I really do.
They truly don't make them like they used to.
as nice as that would be, theres "enough" surplus to not have as big a demand as one would wish, and even if they did they wouldn't hold up like originals,, and they'd be retardedly expensive
these workmen did an outstanding job for their country, this rifle was known to be reliable and accurate. many are still in civilian use today.
Got a 1918 Winchester myself. Barrel stamp shows 7-18 on it. Production number 120369
I bought a sporterized Eddystone M1917 back in 1968 (with my father's help) for $40. It was manufactured in September of 1917. We redid the stock and barrel so that the rifle had a floating barrel. Can put 3 rounds into a Skoal can lid at 100 yards with this ol' girl. Have taken many deer, pronghorn, and elk with this rifle over the past 53 years. It's 104 years old and still performing like a champ. This rifle will still be able to do its job long after I'm gone!
@@wyomarine6341 The ol' boy who did the sporterization on mine didn't do a very good job and as such, it did not group well for him. All my dad and I did was pour a glass bedding in the stock for a floating barrel and bam, a decent shooting rifle!
These rifles shoot very well and vintage rifle matches are often won by the 1917 shooter. My 1918 winchester has the original barrel and will clean the target at 200 yards all 10's and x's.
Ps; we share same last name.
I've got a sporterised one here in Australia I built as a target rifle. Single taper Shilen barrel etc. I built bluing tanks and polished the rifle before bluing, you can shave in the blue finish, it looks like black chrome. The actions are high in nickel, so in the right light the action actually looks plum in colour, it looks great.
I have a 1917 Eddystone. I found it in a gun store I was browsing through. It's in great shape. The first rifle I ever bought after I came home from Marines in 1975. I still have it.
Never sell it.
@@wyomarine6341 Greetings sir. Just found this video in my feed and was scrolling through the comments section to read peoples stories about their personal rifles and your comment struck me and decided to reply to you. I too have a very early sporterized Winchester all around that you would appreciate. Very well done wood work on it. Someone shaved off the top and bottom of the butt stock and added wood by dovetailing it to the original wood and turned it into a Monte Carlo. Amazing work sir. Was thinking of restoring it but whoever sporterized it did a fantastic job at it. I’ll keep it this way.
this is so cool, I bought one of these in the summer of 1968, mine was a Winchester and the barrel date was March 1918....I still own it and it is amazing.....thanks for posting
Glad you've still got it! Thanks for watching!
I have the same rifle barrel date May 1918
Have one too. 308 norma magnum. Fine weapon.
I believe the Winchester manufactured rifles are especially rare.
@@splean75 they made about 500,000 I believe, I have a Winchester.....U.S. Model of 1917
It’s amazing how things were made back in the day. Handle one of these rifles and you can tell it was made by a real craftsman
Thank you so much for this. I love my Eddystone. It’s amazingly accurate. I shoot it more than my modern rifles.
They're definitely great guns! Thanks for watching!
With just the origional Iron peep's Mine will put all 5 shot's in the black at 250 yard's with the elevation adjustment down!👍😳It is Stamped Winchester on almost every part.
I have an eddy stone too. Great gun.
Another eddystone here too. P14 in tree oh tree though.
Have Eddystone too, love to shoot and handle it. Had a Winchester 17 about 50 years ago.. miss it! Best from DK.
My Great Grandfather carried one in France and Belgium during the War.
I really find the test firing to be interesting. The indoor range then the 500 yard range. That was quite something. The rifle came already sighted in, all the soldiers had to do was clean off the slushing materials and test fire and off to the trenches they go.
Yeah, you expect them to be fired as a function check, but not to be tested out to 500 yards!
No, only a general sighting in so the soldier can hit paper. Every gun needs to be sighted in by the individual soldier. That’s why soldiers are issued the same weapon once they have it sighted in.
Was slushing done instead of packing them in cosmoline? (Or had it not been invented yet?)
@@christopherharmon2433 that's a good question I wonder if maybe slushing is just the what they call the process of putting the cosmoline on?
@@ricktaylor5744 Slushing appears to be some sort of preservative alright but I had no luck googling it. I have two M17's both customized and both great shooters.
One of the best rifles ever made.
It's amazing to see how different the manufacturing process was in some ways compared to now, and also how similar some others still are.
Today's HEALTH & SAFETY inspectors would have a fit seeing this
Some of them use necktie when operting lathe
I was thinking the same thing the entire time.
Steve Lewis, you forget…THIS IS WAR! 😎
What are you talking about, they've even put a chain over the pit of stock finishing oil
Responsible and aware workers .
My favorite military bolt action rifle! Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Good taste, sir. Next to the Lee-Enfield #3, one of the best military rifles ever. Absolutely the best .3006 Springfield rifles. And we got the design handed to us by the Brits.
Thanks a lot for sharing. I've got a Remington M17, barrel dated September 18. It went through the lend and lease programme during WWII and handled to the Canadian Army. After that it was sold to a some sort of National Guard in Denmark and at the end, it landed tere in Italy. Now it's a beloved part of my collection.
The Danes actually still have it in limited service with their arctic "Sirius patrol" The metallurgy is so good that it's still the best choice for shooting polar bears.
@@dennisp.2147 If I recall right the load they use is in the 180-220 grain weight range for polar bears.
Just amazing footage, laughed at how they straightened the barrels. Thanks.
It's the same procedure like today. 🤷♂️
I've seen a German news segment filmed at HK, and they had a guy straighten 416 barrels with an almost identical machine.
@@norwegianwiking That guy will be called the Laufrichter, it's a verified profession in Germany. 😉
Yep, and this causes a lot of confusion when people read about how a barrel maker checks their barrel blanks for "straightness" after they cut the rifling in one, that procedure is done with a tool called an Air Guage, and a better term to use for what they do at that point would be to say they're checking the bore for uniformity down it's length, ie the bore is the same diameter from one end to the other and doesn't have any points in it where it gets narrower or wider.
The way an Air Guage wirks is there's an insert that is put in the barrel that's a steel rod that goes down it's entire length that has a sleeve that you pull down it, an air hose hooks up to it that has a guage on it that's clear plastic that has a vertical hole in it with a little ball bearing inside the hole that floats up and down in it, when you pull the sleeve of the Air Guage down it's length and the bore of the gun barrel gets wider at any point down it let's more air past the sleeve of the Air Guage and the ball bearing in the the indicator rises, likewise if the bore of the barrel gets narrower at any point the ball bearing drops in the indicator.
These Air Guage's are incredibly accurate, they can measure a .0001" (one ten thousandths, that's one tenth of one thousands) variation in bore diameter.
A "Match Grade" barrel has no more than .0005" (one half of a thousandths) variation in it's diameter anywhere down it's length.
My friends dad who was a gunsmith and a very smart guy made his own barrel guage, what he did was make a steel rod to put down the length of a barrel with a sleeve to pull down it but he had it hooked up to the natural gas inside the house, when he turned a valve on the gas would come out the muzzle end of the barrel and he'd light it on fire, he had an adjustable regulator on it so he could adjust it so there was just a little flame at the end of the barrel when he pulled the sleeve through the barrel and it came to a wider point in the bore diameter the flame would get bigger, if the sleeve passed through a tighter point of the bore the flame would get smaller, it was very accurate.
There is more to it than they show.
There is a small paint brush that moves along the path of the barrel, and when the barrel billet is bent (!!!Alliteration!!!) the brush leaves a mark on the billet where it is bent. Each successive hammer-blow results in a slight deformation that will collectively allow the barrel billet to be declared basically completed. It won’t be perfectly straight, but it is straight-enough that drilling the bore and chamber won’t produce an uncentered hole at one end.
Now the process is similar, but we have machines that automate the process much more quickly. And, we have processes like the Cold-forging of Barrel and Bore simultaneously that eliminates the need for boring a barrel billet and banging on it with a hammer to straighten.
This is beautiful ! So much technology and work going into these pieces. And now generations later we can still enjoy them. It really makes me look at old guns in another way. I really want to buy a M1917 just because now lol
Absolutely!
It truly is an amazing sight to have a recording of how the 1917 was made from start to finish. Owning one of these rifles is an even greater honor! (Mine is stamped May 1918)
I love seeing the history of it all!
Wow, the quality and handwork is amazing. I have a couple of eddy stones and I love them and shoot them. Tough rifles.
Among those of us that have had the Springfield, Mauser 8mm and the 1917/ or P14,
It's amazing that the 1917 and P14 is on average the most accurate of the three. Especially when you see builder sighting barrels by eye and making correction in straightness with a 40 oz hammer! From a Battle field aspect the American Enfield US model 1917 and the British P14 are the most robust and resistant to damage of all the rifles. The battle ears on the front and rear sights are excellent at protecting the sights and the action so over built that it has been used to build African dangerous game rifles by numerous established Bespoke builders in calibers such as 458 Lott and 416 Rigby.
Companies such as Westley-Richards, A-Square Firearms and even Roy Weatherby in his early days sporadically used those 1917 and British P14 actions to build their custom ordered rifles.
Would love to have just one of those fresh off the line! Nice video!!
I'd love to have one too!
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC I’d rather have one (and do) that has seen some use. Been in the hands of a soldier, has some character.
What I like about this videos is how bolt action rifle of WW1 were made.
Springfield 1903
Gewehr 98
Mosin Nagant
Lebel 1886
No1 MK3
Steyr M95
Look how accurate they were at 500 yards after such a rough manufacturing process. I mean; the shank of the barrel wasn't even secured in the lathe when he cut the chamber! I love this video!
I suspect there may have been a bit of fudging involved.
Propaganda.
@@craigcooper8593 No propaganda; these rifles are still very accurate today even after being around for 120+ years. There's a video on the Forgotten Weapons channel of them taking a 1917 Enfield out to 1000 yards with hand loads.
Very true BUT at least with mine that process shows its self, doesn't close on a field guage but its not far off probably in the 80-85% range of a bolt throw or more, also at least with the current bolt in it the action isn't true due to bulges at the case head. Rifle will be seeing a gunsmith within the next few months. Bolt is eddystone as well as the rifle and im currently looking at bolts to try closing up the headspace a little. Sights, trigger are awesome! And interestingly I have a weird follower in mine that acts like a single feed, its just a round follower versus the more traditional style followers you see in almost every other military bolt action rifle out there.
Best way to describe how it works is instead of feeding a round into the box magazine where ya hear the click when its in, this follower you just place the round on it and push the bolt home, as a result you won't know your rifle is empty either till you hear a click since the follower won't hold the bolt back when empty.
I love my Eddystone.
I know it is speeded up but I love the speed at which workers work when being filmed, immposible to keep up over an 8 hour shift.!
Chick Donnelly the barrel maker was a mentor and neighbor and I used his barrels building rifles for customers. I stopped by one day to see him and he was using a hand wheel barrel straightener to straighten some barrels he had made. I said Douglas says they don't straighten barrels. He stopped and looked me straight in the eye and said "you really don't believe that BS do you?" I said no!! he said good because I was worried about you for a minute there.
Those hand straighteners sure were cool.
America was so beautiful then. Wish it was like that now .
My rifle has an 11-17 barrel stamp. I LOVE shooting my WW1 M-1917!
Nice to have that original barrel! Thanks for watching!
Mine does too! 11-17! 4 digit serial number, bluing is still fantastic! Mine is a Remington.
Very nice. Mine was rebarreled in ‘32.
Probably my favorite video on the internet. Amazing rifles. They’re still in use by Danish Sled Dog army units that patrol Greenland. They’re superior to anything modern because of their reliability in extreme cold weather conditions. They use them for defense against polar bears.
FWIW, the realistic playback speed for various scenes varies from about 40% to 66% of the speed this video runs at. If you play it back at the 50% that TH-cam allows the actions are just slightly slow in most scenes (still fast in others), but MUCH more realistic than the standard playback speed.
Awesome rifle. I have the Winchester model manufactured in May 1918
Nice! There were 202,376 made that month.
That is when my Winchester was made too.
Best shooting rifle of The Great War. IMHO. I wonder which plant this was.
This was at Winchester.
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC that's where mine is from! Has a barrel date of 2-18
These dude worked at light speed lol. Not one pair of safety glasses or gloves. Awesome footage, thank for putting it up!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I have an eddystone armory rifle that is in very good condition. It shoots like a dream. Thanks for the historical view into its manufacturing.
simply amazing how quickly they turned out rifles!!!
AWESOME video, Hats off to those who shared !!! - Thank You !!
Glad you enjoyed it!
1917 Winchester, best shooting rifle i ever owned. Got it in 1964, still one holes them.
Wonderful video, thanks. Fascinating to see the manufacturing.
Thanks for watching!
Omg awesome thanks for sharing this video !!!!
Thanks for watching!
I have a non re-import Eddystone M1917..In great condition. Barrel date 12- 17'
Amazing to watch. Great gun.
What an excellent video. Amazing mechanization. Thanks for sharing this.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!
Very cool. I recently was given a Winchester M1917 from my grandmother that belonged to my late grandfather. I've enjoyed learning all I can about this rifle!
That's awesome that you now have the family heirloom! Thanks for watching!
Boy can these guys move fast. I wish i could lay bricks as fast as these guys work.😅
If you were one of Bidens asylum seekers you could 😂😂😂
probably the brawniest of all the military bolt actions, and really, every bit as modern as the original Winchester model 70. great to build custom guns on.
Love to find a crate of those.
Me too!
Thanks for posting. I love my M1917
Thanks for watching!
02:13 how they able to create a nice 800yrd accuracy rifle with just looking and spinning wheels like that especially when there are no computer that able to verify their work accuracy, what serious proffesional gentlement.
its amazing how much was done by hand must be why they are such great weapons and still shoot great
The world was a very different place in 1918.
Great craftsman and good music to go along with the vidio.
I own several rifles from that era. I wish they could talk .
Right there with ya!
I'd imagine the shouting matches in your cabinet would be epic. German and English while the Austrian and French ones glare at each other.
Thanks!
Thanks very much, Robert!
People busting their ass for an honest days wage. Can't find that anymore. I also love all of the open machinery. Safety was up to you. Watch where you put your hands if you want to keep them.
thankful valuable film
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it!
Wow cool video and history of a great rifle.
Thanks for watching!
Thanx for including Semper Fidelis by Sousa in the video.
Absolutely! Thanks for watching!
I have a very nice Eddystone 1917 that was passed down from my grandfather to me. He bought in back in the 50's and wanted it because that's the rifle he trained with in basic training during WW2. I have used it deer hunting and still target shoot with it to this day.
Nice!
Would love to get my hands on one of these. Great rifle.
Found one at a gun show in 2015 for 400, it’s one of my favorite rifles
Great over 100 (!) year old motion picture about incredible machining and craftmanship! But at what point happened the rifling process of the barrel?
After the reaming operation
I love the old school turret lathe and what looks like maybe an OD grinder. I'm sure all the coolant they were using was made from lard or some such animal fat. I'd hate to get that in a cut
Yeah, definitely a tough place to work, despite the factory being state of the art for its day.
they also used soda water, kerosene, and other wild things, I have machinists books from the era with recommendations on different coolant/lubricants....
@@ypaulbrown that would be pretty a interesting book to take a look at
I've setup and ran quite a few #3 Warner Swazie turret lathes in my day....kinda fun actually.
Wow, they work so fast.
Pretty cool
No CNC equipment, no dial test indicators, simple end to end lathe operations. Barrel straightening by eye. And they still shot amazing.
Glad you enjoyed the glimpse into the past!
Some companies still use the same straightening techniques . It works , similar system used to align lenses in optical systems .
Looking at the old belt driven machines is is a miracle that these craftsmen produced such an accurate firearm!! Wish I had bought one when they were more readily available!!!
I picked up a mint Eddystone for about $275 15 years ago. Obviously those days are gone, but you can still find them for sub $500.
Nothing inherently inaccurate about belt-driven machines. A buddy has one that still gets use in his shop.
I noticed no ear and eye protection in the factory, but all the guys were wearing hats!
To hell with OSHA, a man's gotta look good!
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC Right, times have changed.
I have three 1917s all of them were chopped when I got them. However, I have one intact Winchester P14, and it shoots great. This design is one of the best to ever come along.
Such a cool video! I own of these rifles, to think this is how they made her 115 years ago. Thank you!
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it!
I had a winchester M1917 made may of 1918. Payed 75 bucks for it. It was in great condition only bad part was it was a sporterized stock.
Just bought a Winchester 1917 in the 16,000 serial range complete with bayonet. Bore looks great and stock has some great character with its' wear.
Back when a firearm was viewed as an inanimate object.
My Winchester 1917 (made in 1918) had an Elmer Kieth inspection mark, gotten when he did such work at the Ogden Arsenal.
Very cool!
I have two P14 Winchesters, they would have been made in exactly the same way
Yes, most likely!
Ooh, I have one of those, an Eddystone. Damn good rifle, interesting video, thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Neat!
0:45 They straightened the barrels with a hammer😂 Amazing accuracy for such a crude manufacturing process.
It's not stupid if it works!
my rem m1917 was made in feb 1918!
I have a mint eddystone p17
Very nice to see how they made them back then. Built to last rifle!
They're great guns!
This would be an incredible film for someone to clean up and speed correct and colorize. Awesome video!
Totally agree! If I had the ability to do the cleaning and coloring I would, but alas, I don't. Thanks for watching!
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC I can’t remember the name he channel. I will look up all the channels I am subscribed to. But he is the one that cleans up films from 1890’s-1920’s puts very good color on them and corrects the speed. Again, I will try to find him. Wonder who has the rights to this video, if anyone by now?
@@Flatline74 It's in the public domain.
Great video of a great rifle. Would like to see the counterpart of the Mauser and Enfield.
I've never encountered footage of Mauser or Enfield in my searches, but it definitely would be cool! Thanks for watching!
The birth of my 'ol sticky bolt Eddystone!
Wow tough men, no gloves, eye protection, no EPA. Awsome
Yeah, they were tough SOBs.
Or women, anywhere.
OSHA wasn't even the horizon back then.
Always slush your rifle before shipping! Lol.
Amazing video.
I wonder what factory this was? It's not Remington Eddystone for sure. They used an Air machine to screw in the barrels which is why it's so hard to get them out without either cutting a ring relief in the barrel or cracking the receiver. Those barrels were all hand fitted to the receivers.
This was filmed at Winchester.
@@HighCaliberHistoryLLC Thank you. I knew where it wasn't just not where it was!
Have both the P14 and P17 the 17 is eddystone still enjoy shooting it.
Still got mine
From my understanding, Savage still uses the same or similar technique to straighten barrels. Great video!
Thanks for watching!
The 1917's have one hella tight barrel to receiver fit, and I understood they were "Hot fitted", but that guy twirling the receiver to those barrels wasnt torquing them that tight. Must have been a fitter, and a final crank on it would come next?
I earn a Eddystone 1917 rifle built in may 1918 . I love that gun and i use it at the range or for wild hogs hunting ...
Crazy how technology has come along. That lathe machine looks terrifying 😂
Those turret lathes worked very well. Multiple functions all in sequence but the machine has to have plenty of mass for rigidity so you don't see them in small shops but there's plenty of machinists that would love one of those monsters in their shop.
I had an Eddystone years ago. I wish I had kept it.
I have a Eddystone dated 11-18. Shoot it at the range every year on Veterans Day.
That is a fascinating look at the process at the time. However, the work looked pretty miserable. It was neat to see the overhead power belts that were used to run machinery. I've seen photos of similar set-ups in old Colt factory photos. I'm curious what the 'slushing' process is that they showed toward the end of the video.
Slush is a liquid corrosion preventive compound applied hot which provides a barrier against atmospheric corrosion. It actually still exists today.
In that year, I'd rather be there in a hot factory than in France. But that work does looks entirely mindless and soul crushing
The slushing crew were the only blacks I noticed in the film.
@@dabisnit Yep - I'll take a hot factory over a muddy trench any day!
@@thadrobinson8343 They also did the oil treating on the stocks, loading into crates, and moving crates off to be shipped.
I think I remember this video from C&Arsenal when they explain what all the tools are. Or it was another factory building 1917s.
I’d love to have one of those boxes. 😎
Me too!
That would have been an interesting part of the tour itself- the crating woodshop.
I have a 79,000 ser range eddystone that was used around 1945 to 47 for funerals of soldiers being brought back after the war to be returned! My dad and uncle were part of the honor guard of thier local VFW! They both served in ww2! She was rebuilt and parkerized for ww2 as she has AA stamped on stock! Pretty sure that means Augusta Arsonal in Augusta Ga!
I love my country, and it's guns! Nice to see a few black men working as gunsmiths back then too!
Wonderful documentation! Not just from an old weapons manufacturing standpoint. Interesting to see the working conditions of yester years. The lack eye or ear (or anything else) protections. Wonder how they felt after a shift. Half deaf, aching all over.
Also Dermatitis from hands covered in oil all day.Dust from the sanding etc.
No wonder they drank so much. Right?
@@ChallisVenstra reminds me of talk I heard among the older machinists at Wagner Mining winter of 1988 - mention of after-work “Long Island Teas” and such. Was working Swing, then - 3:30 -12:00 midnight. Bars closed at 2:30 AM, I think.
I never went to those places. I was usually too tired at the end of my shift - far more disabled than I knew at the time. Would stop at a grocery store on the way home, quart of buttermilk, loaf of French bread. It seemed to help.
It looked like the indoor range test firing guys had ear plugs but other than that, yeah, the lack of protective equipment is striking. In Hatcher's Notebook, Gen. Hatcher (who was heavily involved in small arms procurement and development for the US Army around the time this was filmed) highly recommends eye protection when firing rifles. He was writing in 1946, though, so I don't know if he recommended it in 1918 yet.
They were wearing the greatest protection of the time, the leather apron.