Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The 1917:

Didn't know it, but a friend owned one of these and let me take it out for a spin today:









Two cylinders. 10 yds.

Sweet. I've got one just like it, but made by S&W for the Brazilian Armed Forces. Fun to shoot. Don't even need the moon clips, you know. The Colts did, but not the S&Ws. Just need a pencil or something similar to knock them out one at a time.

I always wanted one, but then I found a 25-2 (target gun). Never have found one at an affordable price. That 25-2 shot like crap, it never did "act right" and I finally got rid of it.

I've never really had good luck with N-frame Smiths, excepting a M28 that shot well.

I've sworn off them now, but I'd still kinda like one of those 1917s.

Burnt a lot of Bullseye through one of those many moons ago. Put a set of Herrets grips on it, shot cast bullets unsized, wish I had it back.

The Colt here doesn't require moon clips to headspace....

That's really nice.

Looks like I was wrong in that later Colts were made to headspace without the clips, too. Earlier ones were straight walled.

Its a flat latch...

personally i like the smith better than the colt version. Having others shoot both the opinion was pretty much the same.
with a tuned action they are pretty sweet, fast to reload, and accurate.

I do like 1917's. I owned a Smith for quite a while, one of my cop nephews wound up with it.

The husband of one of my nieces has a Colt, it is one of the later ones which headspaces on the case mouth so at the range he usually just shoots it with ACPs without the moon clips. Works fine since he is in no hurry to reload.

The one I have is now a 45 Colt that I assume was done at the factory.

I've had this one for more than 20 years.

Dan, I've seen that pistol's picture a dozen times here. Every time I do, I still think that it is one of the coolest revolvers I have ever seen.

EdM has one that I feel the same way about, but if I owned that pistol, I'd carry it everywhere I went until I wore all the blue off it.

Excellent piece of hardware.

Those '17s still served all over the place once they were not standard issue any more. From the US Postal Service to Vietnam, where ones that we gave to the Free French during WWII showed up in the hands of our enemies as well as our "friends."

I never understood how most Vietnamese could handle the big grips, especially the Colt, but apparently, as in so many other things, they improvised.

Some US GIs preferred them to the 1911 in WWII, just as some preferred the Springfield to the M1 Garand.

As a side note, I enjoyed seeing the 1917 star in "FURY".

A friend of mine had a .44 Special done up almost identically to that one, although he'd dovetailed a sight blade in into the topstrap for a better sight picture.

Sweet old gun, that one was.

Is it marked as such on the right side of the frame? If it is, can you photograph the marking and email it to me? I just picked one up that I think was made for the Brazilian military as well in .45 ACP. Just picked it up last week.

All you need now is a hat and a bullwhip.

Those are F-ing off the charts cool!!!

My 45 Colt version that someone unfortunately nickel plated. I've since added the lanyard ring back to it. I've thought about having the nickel removed, we'll see.