Graham M wrote:
Badger's plan is not original. A considerable number of M1917s were refurbished and rebarreled to 8X57mm during WW2 and supplied to Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalist Chinese forces as part of US support to this group in the war against Japan.
OOOh ! Do you have any more info on this ?
Badger
CEO (Chief Excavatin' Officer)
Badger Korporashun
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
No, I've read it in various places over the years but there were never any details provided. I suspect I first saw this in Hatcher's Notebook, but can't find my copy. Wikipedia only says M1917s were provided to nationalist Chinese forces alongside those that came here under Lend-Lease, but that implies they remained in .30-06. 7.92mm conversion makes sense as the primary Chinese pre-WW2 infantry rifles were contract Mausers in 7.92mm calibre. I suspect the Americans also supplied .30-06 rifles and ammo though either during the war or afterwards when the nationalists decamped to Taiwan. My first ever fullbore rifle was an M1903 Springfield with a '42 dated SA barrel, so presumably refurbished during WW2, and which bore Chinese ideographs impressed into the Buttstock. It had to have come from Taiwan as this was long before the Chinese opened up to the international surplus market.
Wikipedia says arms dealers bought surplus M1917s from US sources during the Spanish civil war and supplied them as 7.92X57mm to combatants there without giving details or specifying which side in that war. That's odd though as 7X57mm would be seem to be more appropriate to these customers. Also according to Wikipedia, some 3,000 were manufactured as 7mm rifles for Honduras, something I'd never previously read, and that would be 7X57mm of course.
Laurie wrote:
Badger's plan is not original. A considerable number of M1917s were refurbished and rebarreled to 8X57mm during WW2 and supplied to Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalist Chinese forces as part of US support to this group in the war against Japan.
No, not the Remington 30. In its initial form this was in effect what many gunsmiths, both amateur and professional, did to the M1917 to turn a heavy, 'homely' military rifle into a much lighter, trimmer sporting model.
However, the fact that Remington built Model 30s in various calibres prior to WW2, would suggest that any 7.92mm conversion carried out for the nationalist Chinese forces could have been easily accomplished by this company if requested by the US government. Bear in mind too that Remington Arms refurbished M1917s and M1903s, restarted M1903 Springfield manufacture from scratch, and redesigned this model into the A3 version in the couple of years after US entry into the war.
Laurie wrote:No, not the Remington 30. In its initial form this was in effect what many gunsmiths, both amateur and professional, did to the M1917 to turn a heavy, 'homely' military rifle into a much lighter, trimmer sporting model.
However, the fact that Remington built Model 30s in various calibres prior to WW2, would suggest that any 7.92mm conversion carried out for the nationalist Chinese forces could have been easily accomplished by this company if requested by the US government. Bear in mind too that Remington Arms refurbished M1917s and M1903s, restarted M1903 Springfield manufacture from scratch, and redesigned this model into the A3 version in the couple of years after US entry into the war.
Same difference IMHO.
Rifles of the World says this in relation to the Model 30-
Remington made such vast numbers of P/1914 and M1917 Enfield rifles during the First World War that an entire warehouse full of parts remained when military production finally ceased. The Model 30 rifle was conceived to make use of them.
Also, it has no references to any P/1914 and M1917 Enfield rifles being converted to 8x57mm for Chang Kai Shek's forces, however, I'm not going to assume this is definitive information.
“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”
Researching it further, it looks like the US supplied M1917s remained in their original .30-06 form, either as a straight refurbishment, or in some examples cut down by four inches to suit the recipients' stature.
However, there is a suggestion - no evidence provided - that the Chinese nationalists rebarrelled some US supplied rifles to 7.92 as the US couldn't or wouldn't provide enough .30-06 ammo whenever Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and US General Joe Stilwell fell out, which was pretty frequently. It's well known that the US government and military frequently felt that Chiang was more interested in fighting other Chinese factions, especially the communists, than the Japanese, and it's said that the main way of pressuring the Generalissimo was to reduce or cut off supplies until he came back into line.
What is also interesting is how many US weapons ended up in various Asian countries during this period. As well as military aid supplies, the Japanese captured a large number of weapons in the Philipines and spread them around various countries to militias and second-line units. The Free French received a lot of US rifles during WW2 and then the French state likewise afterwards before it restarted its own arms industries. Some of these rifles ended up in French Indo China (Vietnam) and from there were captured by the Viet-Minh.
No doubt many saw unusual repairs or conversions given the situation they ended up in, not to mention Asian people's well known sense of innovation / motivation and small workshop expertise.
