I need to go off on another tangent before I can get back to the LN problem. I don’t think that many people are aware that a large number of 1917’s blew up. I’ve never been able to locate the total number destroyed but it was high. It would not surprise me to find out more 1917’s were wrecked than 1903’s.
May I suggest you read “The Price of Carelessness” by S. Trask Arms and the Man May 4, 1918.
“Down in the Small Arms Section, Engineering Bureau, the Ordnance Department in Washington there is a pile of worthless junk that was but lately nearly a score of finely finished, strongly built United States rifles, Model of 1917.”
“With receivers demolished, ruptured barrels, split stocks, and damaged bolts, they are eloquent evidence of the price the United States Government has to pay, in addition to all the other cost of waging modern war, because the soldiers to whom these rifles were issued were either careless or ignorant.”