My cousin called me the day before yesterday and told me he had a S&W 1917 in what looks like matte finish nickel that he wanted to sell. So yesterday I went over to see what it looked like. Of course the nickel isn't factory on any 1917 S&W. Not a bad looking matte finish nickel plating job though it was obviously done decades ago judging by the looks of some old rust coming through around the grip strap edges. Old rust that you can tell took decades to get there. So the nickel plate has to be pretty old itself.

It's a U.S. military model, the barrel, cylinder and frame serial numbers all match. 5 digit serial number so it may have seen WW1 service. Missing the lanyard ring but I can easily get a lanyard ring off ebay, although most likely won't find a nickel plated one, so if anyone here has a nickel plated 1917 lanyard ring they want to get rid of, please let me know.


It appeared to have original wooden grips that only had a few small dings in their bottoms. Bore and rifling is excellent as is the whole revolver overall. Nice piece except for just a little rust coming through the nickel of the front and rear of the grip straps. Cousin gave me a good deal at $350.00 and it went home with me. Getting hard to find good deals like that on these, nice that my good deal came from a family member. No family history associated with the revolver though.

Cylinder lockup is tight with absolutely no play of any kind on hammer back or hammer down. This makes the fourth 1917 S&W I've owned (still have three), and surprisingly all of them even at their advanced ages have all had MUCH tighter cylinder lockup than any modern revolver I've ever examined. Just a little rust on the edges of the front and back grip strap. Otherwise it appears in excellent condition. I took the original wooden grips off it and put on a set of Jay Scott wide stag grips that fit my hands much better. Here's a few pics.











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Sounds like you got a great deal. Good cousin if you ask me!

Yep, my "cuz" did right by me.



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I like shiny guns too. Somebody hard chromed this gun and it looks great. Got a good deal too considering all the work that went into it.

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Hey Groucho, uh I mean Bill:

I believe that some Commercial M1917s were nickeled, and they are worth a premium. Of course, if yours is a WWI M1917. no question it would not have left the factory with a nickel finish.

If you want to verify the date of manufacture, enter the serial number on this site:
U.S. Military Dates of Manufacture

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You're shy a few manners.

Thanks for that link Jack. I inputted my matte nickel 1917's five digit serial number and it told me it was made in 1918.
So this nickel plating has to be after factory correct?

"So this nickel plating has to be after factory correct?"

That is correct; it was plated after it left Springfield MASS.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

That's good to know Muley Gil. Since my matte nickel one had the U.S. property marks on the barrel and U.S. Army mark on the butt, I thought it probably was an aftermarket plating, but good to know for sure. The link Jack posted was very handy. I inputted my snubby project 1917's five digit serial number in it too, and like my matte nickel one, it also said it was made in 1918. I also inputted my blue commercial model 1917's six digit serial number, but it came up saying...."The number entered is outside the range stored in our database (high)". At the firing line forum they have a sticky thread soley dedicated to S&W serial number searches, where folks who have books on this help others find out when their S&W's were made. I asked about my commercial model there and someone said it was made somewhere between 1929 and 1938. They said something about not being able to give the exact year sometimes because of the way the S&W production lots were done or something. I don't know. But at least I know two of mine were made in 1918 and the other one was sometime between 1929 & 1938.


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Bill,

Note that the link I gave you is a little odd in the way it presents the date. It will say the year (such as 1918) then a blank line, then a month (such as November). So you do get Month and Year, but a little bass ackwards.

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You're shy a few manners.

Thanks Jack. I saw that. My snubby barrel 1917 according to the link was made in Aug 1918 and my matte nickel 1917 was made in May 1918. Thanks again for that link Jack, I bookmarked it for future use. Very handy.


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S&W serial numbers are tricky critters. I have a commercial 1917, in the 1806xx range, that shipped in January 1936. Sometimes, these revlvers got shoved waaaay in the back at the factory before they were shipped out.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Yesterday I installed a Wolf reduced spring kit in my matte nickel 1917 S&W. The kit came with three reduced power trigger return springs (13lbs, 14lbs & 15lbs) to choose from and one reduced power mainspring for the hammer. I installed the 13lb trigger return spring and hammer mainspring. The difference it made in the trigger pull was dramatic. The action was already slick, but now it is even slicker and with much less force required for double action operation. I'm very pleased with the Wolf reduced power springs kit.


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I received all three of my S&W 1917's without their lanyard rings. As you can see in the pics in my very first post in this thread, my matte nickel 1917 didn't have the lanyard ring. There are some aftermarket, recently made, lanyard rings out there on e bay that are currently being made. But I was able to get three original factory lanyard rings for my 1917's and I installed them.

It is next to impossible to find a S&W 1917 factory lanyard ring in nickel. So when I got this one for my matte nickel 1917, it came in blue. So that it would closely match the rest of the revolver, I buffed all the blue off it and then sprayed it with clear polyurethane and baked it in my shop oven til the coating was very hard. Came out pretty good. It's a bit shinier than the rest of the matte nickel finish revolver, but matches pretty well. Here's a couple of pics of it installed.....





I like my 1917's a lot so I take pains with wanting them to have their lanyard rings and grips that fit my hands properly and lightened hammer main springs and lightened trigger return springs so they will operate at their maximum optimum.

On my commercial blue model 1917 I installed a #17 Ace trigger shoe and find that the ridges on the trigger shoe dig into the pad of my trigger finger and prevent my finger pad from moving sideways on the trigger, which insures that my trigger finger stays in the same position all the way through my functioning the trigger. Here's a pic of the #17 Ace trigger shoe I bought....


and a pic of the trigger shoe installed on my blue commercial 1917. You can also see the lanyard ring I bought and installed too....


The Ace trigger shoe is especially helpful on double action trigger functioning where it keeps my finger consistently in the same position on the trigger without my finger sliding its position sideways on the trigger as it is functioned. Not only does the trigger shoe spread out the load on the finger so there is less felt trigger load, but it makes my functioning the trigger consistent each and every time without my finger pad sliding sideways on the trigger as I function it and I believe will aid accuracy. Consistency is the key to accuracy. So I plan to pick up two more #17 Ace trigger shoes to put on my two other 1917's.



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Bill, those turned out great. Are they the ones you were sporting in your double shoulder rig?

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Always bet on stupidity.

Thanks Deacon. Yes those were the ones in the pics of my double holster shoulder rig.

Now I need to get a single shorty crossdraw holster for the front of my double holster waist rig (holding my 1911's), to carry my snubby barrel, project 1917, so I can carry five .45's at the same time.

If I get anymore I'll have to attach them at the rear of my waist belt or on the top of my boots. Come to think of it, I do have angled holsters for my two .45 colt cartridge, 4 & 1/2 inch barreled Uberti's that I could put on the rear of my waist belt. But that would interfere with my sitting down and not be the same caliber as the other .45 acp's.

When I was a boy, one of my comic book favorites was "Gunmaster" with "Bullet the gun boy". Gunmaster carried a cut down Winchester and a fictional top magazine fed handgun and had guns hanging all over him and strapped onto both his boots too. Never saw anyone else do that before except the other comic book character "The Rawhide Kid" (who was my inspiration for building my double shoulder/chest rig). But even "The Rawhide Kid" only carried four whereas the Gunmaster carried more. So I figured hey, if I can carry them, why not do it and have fun with it?

Another spot to carry a handgun on the body on, that would be easy to access, would be the upper outside of the shoulder. It could be attached to my existing double holster shoulder/chest rig and made to hang on the outside of the shoulder rather than under the shoulder or on the chest. I've never seen that spot explored yet as a spot to carry. Even the "Gunmaster" didn't utilize that spot.







In this below issue, if you read the small print next to the guns shown on the left of the cover, you see the ideas the writers had that influenced me as a boy. A top feeding magazine automatic, fictionally billed as "the first automatic invented". A cut down, magazine fed (ala M1 carbine) Winchester, for "long range power" Lol . A derringer looking boot gun for shooting flares and small mortar rounds, (actually not that far out, reminds me of a boat's flare gun), and a fast draw .38. Some of it fictional comic book guns for sure, but those ideas influenced me as a boy. That's why when I found these old "Gunmaster" comic covers online I saved them out of nostalgia and fond memories. Amazingly I actually remember having the issues of "Get that Gold" and "The Crossbow War". That's how much that comic book character influenced me to stick in my mind some 50 years later. He was the "Captain America" or "Batman" of the old west shooting comic book world. He even had Captain America's "Bucky" or Batman's "Robin" in the form of "Bullet the gun boy". His guns and accouterments were to him what the "utility belt" was to "Batman". Sure some of the guns were fictional, but they gave me ideas that some of those guns or some of their attributes could actually be built. Anyway, it helped to influence me as a boy to think outside of the box.








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