You hear the one about the Old Lady...

A buddy of mine owns a small LGS. He always calls me when he takes in a S&W revolver to see if I'm interested. A couple of years ago he texted me and told me to stop by. His shop is around the corner from my office.

It turns out a 90 year old lady came into the shop with a LNIB pre-lock 317 8 shot snubby 9 oz 22lr. It seems she had bought it in the 90s. When she bought the gun she bought a 50 round plastic box of CCI Stingers, and a small range case/bag that holds the gun and some ammo.

When she bought it, she went right into the range and fired one cylinder, or 8 rounds of Stingers. The gun then went in the Range Case with the 42 remaining Stingers and it stayed in that condition until the morning she brought the gun to my friend's store to sell it to him. So basically untouched.

I gave my friend $400 and thanked him very much. I left with the pre-lock 317, 42 rounds of Stingers, and a small black Range Case for the gun and ammo.

I have maybe put 200 rounds through it over the last couple of years. I haven't shot it in over a year. I brought it out today.

I remember when I last shot it, I found the trigger to be quite heavy. In the 14lb neighborhood. While heavy, the pull is consistent, the trigger stages nicely, and let's off predictably and perfectly. If you don't stage the trigger, the gun moves around quite a bit with the 14 lbs of pulling going on. That said a mix of staging and a pulling consistently can give you decent results.

My accuracy results in the past have been mixed, especially with the high velocity copper plated stuff. I try not to run straight lead bullets through the tiny barrel in an effort to keep it clean.

Today I tried some of the Federal American Eagle 42gr Suppressor Ammo through it. I have lots of suppressed 22s and a lot of this ammo around. It has super clean propellants and a copper washed bullet. It doesn't foul the gun much at all. It also has virtually no recoil despite the fact that the gun weighs 9 ozs with its aluminum cylinder. It really doesn't recoil much with any ammo. It is NOT a snappy gun to shoot. It just slowly pushes your hands up a couple of inches, and falls right back on target.

I put 50 rounds of the AE Suppressor Ammo through it today. So far it seems to be the 22 ammo my little 317 likes the most. Groups like the one pictured below were typical today shot at 10 yards DA only. Other than that one flyer, that's like a 2" group.

(I ran out of targets and was fishing through the garbage for targets. You can see the larger holes. I had shot hundreds of rounds before getting to this little Smith.)


8 rounds 10 yards Double Action Only (all 14lbs of it):



It's a super sweet little gun. If it had a lighter trigger it would be an awesome little gun. But it is 22lr and requires a hard hitting heavy pulling trigger. Anyone I know who has messed with the trigger on these, now has an unreliable revolver. It does not go bang with every pull. So I'm just going to leave it as it is. I shoot it pretty well considering. I did change the grips to a pair of the modern rubber ones. It came with the old Uncle Mikes boot grip.