Many rifles were built at a train factory, the Baldwin Locomotive Works at Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Production rates needed for industrial-scale warfare outstripped factory capacity, however, and necessitated that civilian factories build military weapons. ordered large quantities of the M1917, an American-built, British-designed weapon from those same companies. It was for these reasons of convenience that the U.S. 303 calibre, manufacture of which was contracted to three American firms Winchester, Remington, and Eddystone.

However, the design survived in the form of the Pattern 1914, in the standard British. The outbreak of war in 1914 stopped Britain's efforts to introduce this new. The final design, adopted as the Pattern 1913, had the best features of both, with the exception of a backwards step to a five round magazine instead of the ten of the SMLE. Like the M1903, it too borrowed from the Mauser, and indeed early prototypes were converted M1903s. It was for this reason that America turned to a British design not the Lee-Enfield, but a new design originating from the same factory. But the need to equip up to four million soldiers could not be met from existing stocks. The latter, based on the German Mauser, was powerful, accurate, and robust. soldiers in the First World War carried British Enfield rifles than their own M1903 Springfield design. The entry of the United States into the war was one of the major contributions to Allied victory.

1917 remington rifle