Quote:
Originally Posted by k22fan
U.S. 1917s were designed to headspace on the case mouth. The few S&W 1917s that I have fired and my 1937 Brazilian do not missfire without moon clips. Early Colt 1917s were bored straight through but the army made Colt change to reaming them so they'd headspace on the mouth.
During the early 1970s George Nonte's articles were regularly published in gun magazines and his books were well known. U.S. 1917s had been inexpensive surplus during the 1950s and 1960s. Nonte wrote about boring 1917s clear through to make them better snake shot revolvers. He made shot shells by shortening .30-06 brass to the length of the cylinder. He used an over shot cardboard wad retained with a .45 Colt seating die's roll crimp. Nonte' project S&W 1917s are the only ones I've read about that require moon clips for headspacing.
How deep do .45 ACP cartridges fall into the 1917 that you are considering? It smells fishy.
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I haven't checked to see exactly
how deep the 45 acp case will go into the cylinder, but I intend to. When I tried one I just saw that it went in well past the point of being flush with the rear face of the cylinder. After I removed the case I took a closer look at the chambers in the cylinder and noticed that they looked like they were bored most of the way through - the throats looked like they were only the last 1/4" or so of the cylinder.
Based on what I've seen so far and what Hondo44 says, I'm betting it has been reamed to accept 45 Colt cartridges too. I'll verify that later today. Personally I'd rather it were still able to headspace on the cartridge mouth of the 45 acp - because the 45 acp ammo is WAY cheaper than 45 Colt. For a "shooter" grade gun I'd rather have the convenience option of not using the moonclips with the cheaper ammo. Though I guess the versatility of using two different cartridges has its advantages too, as long as it will shoot both kinds of ammo with acceptable accuracy.