17 vs. 617
- Thread starter lineman23
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stevieboy
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I've owned 17s and 617s and I think that the triggers are about the same on these guns. Obviously, there are individual guns with nicer triggers and some whose triggers are not so nice. But, as a group, they all seem to have similar double action pulls.
Which is to say, in my opinion, slightly heavier than for Smith's centerfire revolvers. Not so heavy as to be unpleasant but still, just a tad more resistance. I spoke to someone from Smith about that once and he told me that they do that deliberately because rimfire ammo is notoriously inconsistent and they wanted to make sure they didn't get light strikes. I have a 617 with a very light trigger, the product, I think of someone's trigger job done before I bought the gun. The trigger was a delight and I got a light strike about one out of every 6 rounds. I just replaced the main spring with a heavier spring and I'm going to the range this afternoon to see if that resolved the problem.
Which is to say, in my opinion, slightly heavier than for Smith's centerfire revolvers. Not so heavy as to be unpleasant but still, just a tad more resistance. I spoke to someone from Smith about that once and he told me that they do that deliberately because rimfire ammo is notoriously inconsistent and they wanted to make sure they didn't get light strikes. I have a 617 with a very light trigger, the product, I think of someone's trigger job done before I bought the gun. The trigger was a delight and I got a light strike about one out of every 6 rounds. I just replaced the main spring with a heavier spring and I'm going to the range this afternoon to see if that resolved the problem.
I've shot them both, and they are both great guns. That said, I have yet to shoot one that comes even close to having as good a trigger as my 17-3. It has the single best trigger of any S&W I've owned, and that has been quite a large number of them.
I had a 17 4" that I purchased back in the mid-70s and it had the nicest single-action pull I've ever experienced on any gun, bar none. Regrettably, I sold it long ago. I now have a 617 in 6" version, and the trigger is decent, but nothing like the 'old' one.
