I thought I heard or maybe read that rebarreling a 1917 enfield with a barrel of the same vintage will yield correct headspace with no machining required, providing the index marks on the barrel and on the receiver line up. The skeptic in me says no way. But, I have a sporterized 1917 with a badly neglected barrel (2-groove rifling almost indiscernable near bore due to pitting), and the receiver and barrel have index marks. I've also heard the receiver and barrel have a funky thread.

Question is, if I run across the right barrel, will it go on and headspace correctly (30-06) if the smith aligns the marks?

Thanks,
Jerry

Vek--

That's true. Since the 1903 Springfield all US military arms have "indexed receiver threads". That means every receiver's threads start in exactly the same place. That means barrels can be chambered to fit one reciever and know it'll fit them all. (some better than others)

The P-14/17 has an oversized barrel shank and it's threaded 10 pitch equal square. Not all gunsmiths are comfortable doing them.

Being the nasty, suspicious sort, I would check the headspace you have before I went to swapping barrels. Been a lot of years since 1917. If your headspace is a little long now, you sure would not want to risk increasing it by putting on a barrel that, as JBelk put it, does not fit "as well as others".

But if you can find a decent takeoff issue barrel, it's a good idea. Might be hard to do since there was a time that a lot of smiths used surplus 1917 barrels as blanks. That big shank that JBelk mentioned could be turned down and rethreaded to fit most anything.

leftoverdj---

quote:

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That big shank that JBelk mentioned could be turned down and rethreaded to fit most anything.

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......and they were FOUR brand new ones for TEN bucks, plus $1.50 shipping!!!