I am a bit late to this thread. I have a very late production M1917 sporter. It is still in '06. It has the two groove barrel. Bubba did some really nice (NOT!) handy work to it.
I am currently doing a full blown restoration to correct Bubba's handy work. He put on the wrong size one piece scope mount as well leaving some nice hacksaw marks on the barrel. The saw marks have been corrected. I installed a Timney trigger. The stock is now completely stripped. The pigment is uneven. I'll need to bleach out the stock and start over. Bubba put on one of the fugliest plastic finishes I have ever seen on a gun, bar none. I'll be refinishing the stock with the spit coat/tung oil finish that I put on my milsurps.
I will convert the scope mounts to Weaver bases.
Before I tore the gun down, I ran some 165gr BT handloads through it. It shot patterns. When I switched to 180gr flat based bullets, things got accurate in a big hurry. Methinks the throat is a bit long.
My next gun will be a M70 375 H&H so there is no point in going to another boomer. If I can't get the gun to shoot the lighter bullets in 30-06, I'll be going old school. Probably go to a 26" barrel in 300 H&H or possibly 8mm Remington Magnum just to be different.
ZM