Is my US property 1917 S&W 45 junk?

[horsemen61]

Yeah Jim your gun along with Cocked and locked guns are junk if you send them to me ill take care of them for you

 

[jim in Anchorage]

You guys are a rock of support to me. So many willing to relive me of my burden and take the gun!
Heck with COTW. I will continue to shoot normal .45 ACP loads out of it till I see a reason not to do so.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Model 1917 S&W are good guns. The frame is suitable for standard pressure .44 Special, .455 Webley or .45ACP/AutoRim the revolvers were made for. I would not do a bunch of Elmer Keith magnumized handloads in one.

.45 AutoRim was developed because of civilian resistence to military clips and full metal jacket bullets. Revolvers had to have rimmed cartidges and lead bullets to be bought by most civilians in the 1920s. .Reloading data I have for .45 AutoRim powder charge and bullet weight is the same as .45 ACP, but folks do consider lead bullets easier on a revolver than jacketed.

 

[Dave T]

I don't really have much to add to what these other gentleman have said but I can't resist posting this picture of my own 1917.



Someone else cut the barrel down to about 3-3/8" and did a nice job of putting on a new-for-the-gun front sight. They then hard chromed the whole thing. I have since replaced the plastic stocks with a set of sheep horn Magnas by Grashorn.

Dave

 

[BigG]

The 1917 S&W revo was noted by McHenry & Roper to wear the barrel out smooth in 5000 rounds of jacketed ammo like the hardball 45ACP. With cast lead it would get many more rounds without wear. So that was a quote-unquote weakness because most revolvers shot lead bullets then. However, the gun itself was a offshoot of the New Century Triple lock which Elmer Keith used to develop the hot 44 Specials that gave Remington and S&W the idea for the 44 Magnum.

Here's my review of the McHenry & Roper book.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

Good to know that shooting my gun will smooth out the bore. It is a little rough.

 

[Monster Zero]

Someone else has already said it, but I'll say it again too just in case...

It's a hopeless piece of junk.

Just send it to me and I'll dispose of it for you free of charge.

(If you have any extra ammo or moon clips you might as well send those too since you won't be needing them.)

 

[Jim K]

The barrel issue is real. In the old days, revolvers were made to fire lead bullets, so barrels were fairly soft steel.* In fact, AFAIK the Model 1917's were the first revolvers ever made to fire FMJ bullets. Not only will the jacketed bullets be harder on the rifling, but the erosion from windage is also high.

All that is true of the barrels of the early military pistols also, but the military of all nations was set up to replace barrels when and if needed, plus military pistols were seldom fired very much except in training.

Jim

*The same is true of .22 LR barrels; one of the reasons it is not practical to convert .22 LR rifles or handguns to .22 WMR is that the hotter jacketed bullets will soon destroy the softer .22 LR barrels.

JK

 

[peacemaker45]

Somebody is mixing up his war time revolvers. The one that's weak and shouldn't really be fired with full military power 45 ACP is the British Webley, originally chambered in .455 Webley, but many of which were converted to fire the more common, but also a third to half again higher pressure .45 ACP.

The 1917s, however, were designed for full power military ball from the beginning, and are arguably equal or superior to anything S&W is building today.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jaymo]

I've always wanted a 1917 Colt or Smith.
You can send the Smith to me, and all will be right with the universe.
I wouldn't call either one of those revolvers weak.
Now, a top-break (almost said breaktop) revolver is appreciably weaker than a hand ejector.
I'd load and shoot it with standard pressure .45 ammo, any day of the week.
I prefer lead boolits, so not using ball doesn't bother me in the least.
I honestly wouldn't classify any old Colt or Smith and Wesson revolver as junk.
Not even Ugly Betty (that's my 1969 Smith 10-6, she's not pretty on the outside, but she's got it where it counts).

 

[Iggy]

This one served the US forces in WWI and the UK forces in WWII. Now it's back in the states. I shoot 45ACP in moon clips and 45AR. It's still doing just fine.

This an older cousin that started as a .455 HE MKII in the service of His Majesty in the UK in WWI.
It's back home now.
It has been converted to 45ACP/AR with an Argentine Model 1937 cylinder and a Canadian 45ACP barrel.
It's not ready to be junked just yet.

 

[BlindJustice]

S&W kept making the M1917 DA/SA Revolvers
up until the beginning of WWII. S&W ALMOST
stopped making the .45 ACP/AR version in the
last part of the 1930s/Great Depression.
The Registered Magnum was being ramped
up for higher production due to demand
for the 357 Mag by LEOs. Colt was fine, they
were making as many M1911A1s as they US Government was
ordering arms. The savior of the .45 ACP revolver
was the Brazilian order of 37,000 '1917s'
Brazilian contract guns show up here in the USA
and are easily identifiable with the big
Brazilian Crest stamped into the rear RH side of the frame rear of the
cylinder

Post WWII - S&W resumed making revolvers, and each one of them
was converted to the change in action to a
shorter DA stroke. The .45 ACP revolvers were the last of
the N frames to be modernized to the Post WWII design

AFAIK from my readings

The 1950 Army, 1950 Target and 1955 Target must be
designed more for jacketed bullets.

I know my 625 prefers Jacketed to Lead cast - it leads up

R-

 

[krupparms]

I got lucky & got a 1917 S&W back some years ago, it has little wear & tear and shoots like a dream! I am planning to leave it in original condition. I picked up a 1937 model and plan to cut it down so it has a 3" barrel & new F. sight . These are both excellent guns and had no problems shooting .45 acp. I just located some .45AR. loads for it. These are guns that have given a lot of service but are in great shape! I expect to get many more years of service out of them. Fragile? Any gun will tear up if you use hot loads all the time! Useing the right loads these guns will last for years! Have fun shooting it!

 

[tipoc]

Have owned it for better then 10 years now but fired it very little, 50-80 rounds hard ball in half moon clips. Always thought it was a quality gun but I read in one of the COTW books the barrel is soft, the cly is weak and that's why the low pressure, lead bullet .45 auto rim was developed.
Is this true? Do I just have a wall hanger?

The writers and editor of COTW in the entry for the 45 auto rim section do make some points here that they don't make in the 45 acp section. They also seem to confuse a point or two. They do not say that the 1917 revolvers either from Colt or S&W were junk though. It's unclear what guns they consider "fragile" and fragile in comparison to what? Make no mistake any revolver made 80 years or more ago is more fragile than wheelguns made more recently. If you want to go to the range and make like Jerry Miculik a 625 would be a better choice than the 1917.

It is true that 98 years ago few revolvers were made with the intention of using jacketed ammo in them and it has long been known that...

1.) Neither Colt nor S&W had a lot of experience at that point in heat treating revolver barrels and cylinders and the metal was softer then it would become later as they got better steels and alloys and heat treating. So the barrels are "soft" compared to later guns. (also true for the early 1911 frames.)

2) It's known that a steady diet of jacketed bullets wore out the barrels on the older guns more rapidly than with lead bullets.

COTW also quotes Bill Falin who for many years was chief ballistician for the powder maker Accurate Arms. Falin is a well respected shootist (google bill falin-accurate arms) and knowledgeable guy. He says that he was experimenting with the old revolvers with jacketed loads with a 230 gr. bullet at a true 950 fps from the muzzle. They say he noted significant muzzle wear after a while of this. Likely true. That's a hot load for the old guns.

COTW then makes the mistake of saying that the load Falin was experimenting with was the original load for the army ammo. But it wasn't. The 230 gr, load went between 825-850 fps from the 5" barrel. About the same from the 1911. That is what the army wanted.

The auto rim cartridge, as folks have said, was developed by the Peters company so folks would not have to mess with half moon clips. They sold it in boxes loaded with lead bullets. It was never loaded to lower pressures than standard 45acp in commercial form unless for target work.

tipoc

 

[Slamfire]

Modern metallurgy is better. Old WW1 era revolvers are made of plain carbon steels, many of those old revolvers were not even heat treated, so they have dead soft cylinders, barrels, frames.

So, are they junk? No!

But, don’t load hot ammunition in the things, use loads that are appropriate for the period.


You shoot it out of time you are going to have a difficult time finding parts and someone who will work on it.

 

[CAPTAIN JACK]

Heat treatment

According to the Neal & Jinks book on engineering changes, the first mention of hardening was after the notebook began recording them in 1919:

+ May 7, 1919; heat treat all .32 H.E. Winchester cylinders.

The text on the 2nd Model H.E. (pg. 206) says that cylinders were heat-treated beginning with #16,600 in Dec '21.

Early in the 3rd Model H.E. run, at #29,000, a hammer block was added.

(Why is there never any Rum?)

 

[tipoc]

Early in the 3rd Model H.E. run, at #29,000, a hammer block was added.

True, but it was not adequate. The SCSW 3rd edition by Supica and Nahas points out that an improved hammer block was developed in response to requests by the U.S. Navy in about 1944. This was after a "Victory" model M&P was dropped on the deck of a ship, discharged and killed a sailor. (Standard Catalog of Smith and Wesson, pg. 142.) Neal and Jinks also discuss the modification. S&W still uses them. Colt's guns had such a hammer block in them from earlier in the century.

According to the Neal & Jinks book on engineering changes, the first mention of hardening was after the notebook began recording them in 1919:

Yep the guns were heat treated. But S&W's heat treat would improve and change over the years. Don't expect a pre-war gun to have as good a heat treat as one from the decades following the war. Just my opinion.

tipoc