Got this from my gramps. Story is it was carried by my great grandfather when he served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. I don't know any details of his service but he returned home a ruined man - shell shocked into a haze.

My grandfather sporterized it himself. There used to be a scope of some sort on a kinematic mount but the parts have long since been lost (I've never seen it but my dad described it to me).

I'd really like to get some kind of sights on the piece because it needs to be shot!

Another pic of the forend

Does it still have a front sight?

1917s are great rifles! Be sure to check the headspace.

No front sight.

Choose whatever you want from brownells. No original sight is going to work.

The rear mount looks like the Bausch & Lomb (or Kuharsky Brothers) V-Mount for a Balvar type scope (the scope has no internal windage / elevation adjustments - the mount does all the adjusting).

Haven’t seen the mount style up front that resembles an upside down recoil lug.

I suspect that the horizontal slot cut into the front receiver ring (and the hole) may also be part of the mounting system.

http://www.bauschandlombscopemounts.freeservers.com/scopes.htm

My father-in-law has two 1917s that were sporterized I am keeping for him. One has a barrel that has been cut, the other has a barrel that has not. The rifle with the intact barrel will be returned to it's former glory.

I picked up a 1917 in good cosmetic shape, but the bolt closed on the No Go. Damn near closed on the Field. Had it rebarreled with a Criterion barrel, and it is one of my better old shooters. Great rifle

I'm marveling at the gunsmithing skills it took to make this scope mount.

Well, quite the saga coming close to epilogue.

I got a Balfour A and a Kuharsky Bros mount. Got everything lined up and a quick boresight dialed in. Grabbed a box of ammo and the bolt and headed out to the bench.

Bolt won't go in as it hits the eyepiece! With the scope and mount there is simply no means to adjust this in ... crap. And when I was fiddling with the scope my finger slipped and busted the fine brass wires of the reticle!

Found a Baltor A which is a 2.5x Bausch & Lomb which has a slightly smaller OD eyepiece - let's hope it works.

Went to remove the mount and Balfour and broke the tool off in the screw head - spent a couple days trying to get the screw/tool extracted. No go - fuck it.

Ordered a couple more mounts. Got them in today. After some modification and pulling parts from 3 different mounts I got the Baltor mounted, boresighted and bolt fits fine with about 0.020" clearence.

Will fine tune the sight in tomorrow.

After all this time looks like we are going to shoot an elk with this old beauty this season!

Wow! Hopefully you've finally got the right recipe....

Let us know!

Nice job. Let us know how it shoots.

My sporter P17 Winchester action but arsenal refurbished. Same old story.

Well. 3moa in hard gusty wind looks promising!

Made time to bed the action.

A follow up!

Was having a nostalgic moment and was digging through a box of old family photos. Danged if I didn't find a photo of the rifle and scope!



I'm guessing here but that looks to be a home built custom optic - gramps was a handy fellow!