Originally Posted by teletech

Colts won't work without moon clips and are vastly harder to work on.
The Smiths will work without moon clips, you just have to pick the cases out.
In any case, buy a mooner-demooner tool. I like the BMT despite the cost.
The 1917 had very slight rifling, so it's common to see them basically a smoothbore by now. So if I were going to look at one to shoot, I'd check bore condition over most other criterion. In my experience because of the shallow rifling they shoot jacketed bullets much better than cast, of course the jacketed bullets also wear the comparatively soft and shallow rifling, so maybe don't expect a 1917 to be a great gun to shoot bullseye with.
I typically find the triggers to be heavy on the military guns, perhaps slightly better on the commercial and Brazilian guns.
I do think if you are going to get one to enjoy, the US-Property marked guns are just a lot more interesting as living history and for me that justifies the higher cost, but if you just want a shooter then save the money.
A 1917 was one of the Indiana Jones guns from the first movie, or rather a commercial one, so there's that angle as well.