I turned 45 this year and decided to get a .45 caliber handgun to celebrate. Since I already have a couple 1911's the logical choice was one of the variants of the S&W 1917/HE2. I'm a military small arms fan and my WWI collection is underrepresented. I'm also a Indiana Jones fan and this was Indy's gun in the first movie (with a cut down 4" barrel).
This is a military issue 1917 with most of it's original bluing. When the U.S. entered the war the military did not have enough handguns and couldn't make 1911's fast enough. Smith and Wesson was already making a N Frame revolver in .455 Eley for the Brits and it didn't take much work to convert the design to .45 ACP. In order to use the rimless .45 ACP rounds in a revolver the stamped sheet metal "half moon clip" was invented that held three rounds and allowed the cartridges to head space correctly. It also acted as a speedloader for more rapid loading.
Colt also converted the New Service for .45 ACP in a similiar manner so there are both Colt and Smith & Wesson 1917 revolvers.
Many, if not most, of the S&W's were Parkerized during arsenal rebuilds between the wars. I added the lanyard hardware, but could only find Parkerized hardware.
I was going to cut down the barrel to make a replica of Indy's revolver in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (which is a popular conversion among fans) but I've decided it's in too nice a shape so I'm leaving it as-is. I'm not a fan of swapping out barrels as these Smiths really weren't designed for barrel changes, only permament barrel replacement, so I won't be doing that either.
I may hunt up a second revolver sometime that's not as nice and do an Indy conversion on that gun. I'm keeping an eye out.
I've had it out to the range once, so far. I set up a plate rack at about 12 yards. First two runs were six for six, double action for all shots. I dropped a shot on the third run trying to hurry. It turns out the box of .45 ACP I grabbed was only about half full so it was an abbreviated test. Next time out I'll shoot for accuracy as well.
The action is a little stiff which I think is due to 90 years of dried up lube. I plan to flush out the guts by squirting some solvent in through the hammer and trigger recesses and then following up with a squire of some more modern lube. I don't want to take the sideplate off as I'm likely to bugger it up, so hopefully that will do it.
Later that same day I was giving some handgun instruction to a friend's 12 year old son. He did great with the .22 Ruger so I showed him the Smith at the end. He was amazed that I'd shoot a 95 year old gun and was impressed by the heft. I'll probably let him try it out at some future range session. (It was a little much for him right now, for his first pistol session).
Btw, if anyone wants to trade a set of 1917 military grips for my commercial S&W grips, please let me know.
