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Model 1917s and U.S. Krags were once very plentiful and cheap, so many became the gun of choice for drill teams, color guards and the like. Some were chrome (or, rarely, nickel) plated for show, and usually deactivated to a greater or lesser extent, everything from cutting the firing pin to welding everything movable.
The good news is that the plating can usually be removed. The bad news is that the rifle may be junk underneath because the plater used a big belt sander and wire brushes to get down to base metal for plating. (You can't plate over bluing or Parkerizing.)
Another common practice was to paint the rifles in school colors, and some of those crop up from time to time. (Today, the very idea of giving a real gun, even deactivated, to a high school or college color guard would cause the nut-case liberals to have heart attacks, but those were different times.)
Jim
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