M1917 revolver
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| M1917 Revolver | |
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 Colt M1917 |
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| Type | Revolver |
| Place of origin |  United States |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1917–c. 1954 |
| Used by | United States, Brazil |
| Wars | World War I, World War II,Korean War and Vietnam War (reportedly) |
| Production history | |
| Designer | 1917 |
| Produced | 1917–1920 |
| Number built | c. 300,000 total (c. 150,000 per manufacturer) |
| Variants | Slightly differing versions of the M1917 were made by Colt (shown above) and Smith & Wesson |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 2.5 lb (1.1 kg) (Colt) 2.25 lb (1 kg) (S&W) |
| Length | 10.8 in (274 mm) |
| Barrel length | 5.5 in (140 mm) |
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| Cartridge | .45 ACP |
| Action | double action, solid frame with swing-out cylinder |
| Feed system | six-round cylinder, loaded singly or with two three-round half-moon clips |
| Sights | blade front sight, notched rear sight |
The M1917 Revolver (formally United States Revolver, Caliber .45, M1917) was a U.S. six-shot revolver of .45 ACP caliber. It was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1917 to supplement the standard M1911 .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol during WWI. Afterwards, it was primarily used by secondary and non-deployed troops. There were two variations of the M1917, one from Colt and one from S&W.
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[edit] Background
U.S. civilians arms companies of Colt and Remington as well as other companies were producing M1911 pistols under contract for the U.S. Army, but even with the additional production there existed a shortage of M1911s. The interim solution was to ask the two major American producers of revolvers to adapt their heavy-frame civilian revolvers to the standard .45 ACP pistol cartridge.
[edit] Colt M1917 revolver
Colt had until recently produced a revolver for the U.S. Army called the M1909, a version of their heavy-frame, .45-caliber, New Service model in .45 Long Colt to supplement and replace a range of 1890s-era .38 caliber Colt and Smith & Wesson revolvers that had demonstrated inadequate stopping power during the Philippine-American War. The Colt M1917 Revolver was essentially the same as the M1909 with a cylinder bored to take the .45 ACP cartridge and the half-moon clips to hold the rimless autopistol rounds in position. In the early Colt production revolvers, attempting to fire the .45 ACP without the half-moon clips was unreliable at best, as the cartridge could slip forward into the cylinder and away from the firing pin. The later production Colt M1917 revolvers had headspacing machined into the cylinder chambers, just as the Smith & Wesson M1917 revolvers had from the start. The later versions of the Colt production could be fired without the half-moon clips, but the empty cartridge cases had to be ejected with a device such as a cleaning rod or pencil, as the cylinder extractor and ejector would pass over the rims of the rimless cartridges.
[edit] Smith & Wesson M1917 revolver
The Smith & Wesson Model 1917 was essentially an adaptation of that company's Second Model .44 Hand Ejector, chambered instead for .45 ACP, employing a shortened cylinder allowing for use of half-moon clips, and a lanyard ring on the butt of the frame. Smith & Wesson had recently (c. 1915-16) produced the Hand Ejector, which uses their heavy .44 caliber frame, for the British Army in .455 Webley caliber due to shortages in British production facilities of standard-issue Webley Mk VI top-break revolvers.
The S&W M1917 is distinguishable from the Colt M1917 in that the S&W cylinder had a shoulder machined into it to permit rimless .45 ACP cartridges to headspace on the case mouth (as with automatic pistols). The S&W M1917 could thus be used without the half-moon clips, though the empty cases would have to be poked-out manually through the cylinder face, since the extractor star cannot engage the rimless cases.
While these revolvers were originally blued, S&W M1917 revolvers rebuilt during and after World War II may have been parkerized during arsenal rebuild or under a refurbish contract with S&W.
[edit] Later Use
After the First World War, M1917s became popular on the civilian market. Some were military surplus. Others were newly manufactured. Smith and Wesson kept their version in production, for civilian sales, until they replaced it with their Model 1950 Target.
Many civilian shooters disliked using half-moon clips. Loading and unloading the clips is tedious and obviates refilling the chamber with single rounds. Bent clips can cushion the firing pin strike and cause ignition problems (Skelton 1873} For these reasons, in 1920, the Peters ammunition company introduced a rimmed variation of the .45 ACP cartridge under the name .45 Auto Rim. It allowed both versions of the Model 1917 revolver to fire reliably without the clips. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Colt and Smith & Wesson 1917 were available through mail order companies at bargain prices. The general availability gave rise to the practice of loading heavy charges of Hercules Unique and 2400 until the heavy Keith bullets emitted a "crack" as they exceeded the speed of sound. Gun writers promoted the revolvers as "The Poor Man's Magnum" for several years to come and the heavy loads appeared in some of the handloading manuals. The Speer Reloading Manual Number 3, listed loads that propelled the Keith type solid and hollow point bullets at over 1100 feet per second (Speer 1959).
The practice declined after 1973 when Charles A. (Skeeter) Skelton mentioned that a revolver he had loaded in this manner developed a ruptured cylinder. Occasionally gunwriters will rediscover the old loads and reprint them but the 1917s are safe only with standard pressure loads (Skelton 1973)
1917 Smith & Wesson Factory Loads/>
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The military service of the M1917 did not end with the First World War. In the mid-1930s, Brazil ordered many thousands of M1917s for their military. Now out of service and sold as surplus, Brazilian M1917s are sometimes seen in gun stores in the United States. They can be identified by the large Brazilian crest stamped on their sideplates. They are sometimes referred to as the M1937 or the Brazilian-contract M1917.
Unlike the current Smith & Wesson revolvers chambered for 45 ACP with moon clips or the Auto Rim cartridge, the 1917s are not noted as being particularly accurate (Venturino 2007). For practical purposes, they do perform about as well as most current service pistols
The M1917 also remained in US service through WWII and was still in use with some reserve units as late as the Vietnam War[citation needed].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Skelton, Skeeter "The Best 45 Autos are Sixguns" Shooting Times Magazine June 1973 page30,Peoria, Ill, Primedia 1973*
- Smith, W.H.B: "1943 Basic Manual of Military Small Arms" (Facsimile). Stackpole Books, Harrisburg PA (USA), 1979. ISBN 0-8117-1699-6
- Field Manual 23-35 Pistols and Revolvers, 26 February 1953
- Speer Reloading Manual Number 3, Lewiston, ID Speer Products Inc 1959
- Taylor, Chuck: "The .45 Auto Rim," Guns Magazine, September 2000
- Venturino, Mike " WWI Classic Returns", Guns Magazine December 2007,San Diego, Publishers Development Corp. 2007
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