I saw an ad for a customized Brazilian 1917 .45 that was just too good to pass up. The barrel was replaced with a modern underlug 3 1/2 inch barrel. An FDL Wondersight was installed and a front sight insert with a circle was added to the new front sight. The grips were replaced with Hogue grips and the whole thing was hard chromed. The lockwork must have been worked on because there is very little movement. The seller was a shop and they had no history or provenance of any kind for gun. When I test fired it it was very accurate, so somebody did some good work. Has anybody heard of anything similar, and/or have any idea who could have done this work? Hopefully this was a salvage of a formerly worn out gun.

I don't know, and I can see why you are curious. It sounds like you run into a heck of a nice shooter.

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NHI, 10-8.

Sure would be nice (helpful) to see a picture!

Dave

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RSVN '69-'71
PCSD (Ret)

Wow, sounds nice from your description.
a picture?............ pleeeeeeeez?

Please bear with me. My computer wouldn't take the pictures from my 10 year old camera. I'm trading in the camera on a much newer one and hopefully I'll be able to put in some pictures.

I have a camera I'll trade ya for the 45.


Charlie

Not a chance!

punxsutawneypete - I'll help you out...........here's an old, nickeled 1917 w/ shortened barrel that I use to own.
Maybe this will hold off the tribe til you can post pics

In spite of my lack of technical expertise, I finally obtained a camera that will work with my computer. In the interim, I installed a Tyler T-Grip and set of original grips from another Brazilian 1917 in order to make this one a little more compact. I'm hoping that somebody can tell me who did the good work on this gun, and that this brought back a worn gun to life and good service.

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Not sure who did the work, but darn it the gun looks good.

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Vaya con Dios

That is odd enough to be really cool!! Nice score..............

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Go big or stay home

I like it!!. Frank

Cool looking .45
How's it shoot?
Not a thing wrong with that.


Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

Now THAT's a pretty keen lookin .45!

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Isaiah 55:8-9
Phil. 4:13

Turn out the lights. That front side may suprise you. It's a Mepro lamp. These sorts of conversions were done in many places over a long period between when the first waves of Brazillians arrived around 1990 or so. Many of them were pretty beat so this sort of conversion could be forgiven.

Pretty cool. I dont think that barrel is as new as you think. I think it is an older ribbed barrel off some sort of N frame that has been cut to the ejector housing making it look like an underlug barrel.

Looks good. I'm doing the same to an old cut down 1917 I've had for 20yrs or so. Got a 3" new .45 barrel from Numrich. My local smith is doing mine.

As others have suggested, there is a long tradition of reworking old military revolvers to adapt them for civilian use. Many 1917s, both the original U.S. Army models and the later Brazilians, were snubbed and refinished as the years wore on. I doubt there is any way you could ID a particular shop or gunsmith that did this work. To me it appears to be a careful conversion that might have been done by somebody for his own purposes if he had the parts and tools to undertake the project.

Nice looking end result. I think the only thing that a dedicated custom shop might have done differently would be to remove a little more metal from the top of the barrel rib and then put a slightly greater radius on the resulting sharp corners. It's almost always a challenge to put a ribbed barrel on a gun that didn't have one in the first place, because the front-of-frame treatment is different.

A snubby 1917 is one of my "some day" projects. I have a short stainless barrel. I just need a suitable candidate for transplant.

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David Wilson

It shoots great. At 7 yards with 200 semi-wadcutters the rounds were cutting overlapping holes.

Actually, that rear sight is removable. It screws on at the top sideplate screw by the hammer.