A fellow gun club member has recently acquired a Model 17-3 six inch non-target model. It has molded black rubber grips with a S&W logo on them. The grips cover the lower half of the back strap. The friend swears that the gun has a round butt and the grips are round-to-square conversions. However, every reference I can find, including my Supica and Nahas, say that the six inch 17-3s are all square butt guns.

This guy is a senior member of the club and it would be awkward to question him about it and ask him to pull the grip to be sure.

Has anyone heard of six inch 17-3s with round butts? This one is from the early 70s.

The reason I am interested is that I have bought a 17-3 (made in 1975) and it is on the way in the mail. Pictures of my gun clearly show target grips and a square butt. In fact I have already bought new grips for the gun, counting on it being a square butt K frame.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Round butts were not used on 17s,except for the 17-8.

I have a 4" 617 no dash that has a round butt........the gun smith that did it for me in the mid 80s said he'd done a few others...... mostly for individuals that had their 4 inch 66 or 686s roundbutted.

There were a couple of officers who wanted to put Pach. compact grips on their early 686/681s.... once they started showing up at local PPC matches others thought a 4" round butt 66 would be a good off duty carry gun (full ejector rod) and the 3" 66s were not yet avalible...

One of the draws was that you didn't have to refinish a stainless gun..no reason not to do a 17 if you were willing to pay to reblue.

It's possible that the M17 has been roundbutted. I have roundbutted a number of revolvers over the years-M13s, M15s, M19s, M66s, a M25-5, a M24-3. It's not that hard to do.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Thanks for the responses. I am going to tell the gun's owner that his gun may have been converted to a round butt and ask to see the frame to see if there are any tooling marks just to solve the mystery. I will update this thread after I see his butt. That didn't come out right did it?

OK, I finally got a chance to see the gun in question at the range today and the owner pulled the grips.

BAM-BAM and Muley Gil nailed it. The gun has been "round butted". It was obviously done by someone who knew what they were doing as it is very well done... but it is obvious that the butt was altered.

The owner didn't know the change was made so it was an education for him. As I mentioned before, it is now wearing a pair of round to square conversion grips.

Thanks for your help.

If you bought it I'm glad as you would like it as they are great shooters even with the conversion to round butt.

Actually it is a friend's gun that I was trying to find out more information about for him. I already have my own 17-3, and I agree, they are wonderful shooters.