Hey RC20,
My old "Enfield" '06 says this right on the receiver, and right about where the cartridge headstamp would be on a loaded round with the bolt closed:
U.S.
Model of 1917
Eddystone
S#......
My particular M1917 was mfg. in August of 1918. From my understanding on the rifle, the Eddystone name on the receiver meant that it was mfg'd at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of Remington(Remington of Delaware Corp.). I understand, too, about the Brit P-14s and the .303 business and arms being in dire need for the Great War.
I've had this rifle for more than 20 years, and always enjoy showing it off to hunting cohort buddies. Whoever "sporterized" the old rifle did a fine job on it.
Anyway, I have a paper I printed off a long time ago, and I thought I might add a comment from it to go with this:
"Confusion in Rifle Nomenclature"
"Modern collectors and purists are quick to point out that referring to the M-1917 Rifle as a P-17 or an Enfield is incorrect. British .303s were referred to as P-14s, but they then point out that this is "British-Speak" not U.S. nomenclature. To this I must answer, "Well, yeah, but..." How the confusion and intermixing of terms came about is perfectly understandable if you know how the rifles came by their names."
From: Dick Culver, "The U.S. Rifle, caliber .30, M1917" (2003)
I'm certainly open to any corrections you may have on my old '06, and where it came from. Here's the Dick Culver article I referenced:
www.odcmp.org/503/rifle.pdf
reinert
One other thing to your comment on "The relationship to Remington was pretty odd." I'll just add this from the Culver article that probably made my misunderstanding of what Remington outfit it was that helped with the war effort:
"The P-13 was redesigned to handle the .303 cartridge, and re-designated the P-14 Enfield Rifle. Rather than tool up to produce the new rifle themselves, England contracted with Remington and Winchester to build the P-14 for them in the United States. Remington even formed another corporation, "Remington of Delaware," to speed up the process..." At Eddystone, Pennsylvania. So, was the "Remington" company in the article not the Remington Arms Co.? Help me out here, I'd like to get that cleared up. I also understand (according to Culver) the P-13 was an experimental rifle in .276 cal., redesigned to handle the .303.