M1917 S&W vs COLT ?

[S&WIowegan]

I like 'em both...

and shoot them too. My first Colt doesn't like anything but hardball though which is pretty common. I know guys who are successful with lead but that must be a quirky bore. The New Service Colts are fun to shoot and I like big guns but I must say the NS Colts are really too big. It's hard for me to imagine how the smaller people of 100 yrs. ago managed.

All my NS guns have extremely stiff DA pulls compared to S&Ws of the same era. That probably didn't matter much as people were likely prone to shoot SA most of the time.

I would suggest that you remove those stocks and soak them in pure mineral oil ASAP. The fissures are charming now but can get worse.

Enjoy!

 

[sunday bill]

I have a war-time 1917 Colt and a Brazilian Model S&W. I prefer the Colt for single action dot shooting as long as I use .454 diameter, 200 grain bullets, cast quite hard, or standard .451 diameter jacketed bullets. In my hand, the double action nod may go to the Smith.

 

[JSR III]

Understand that those reproduction pouches are marked incorrectly. Not sure that it matters if you are buying a reproduction but just wanted to offer a heads up.

The description states that the pouches are marked "R.H. LONG" however in the picture, you can see that they are marked "R.L. LONG".

The company was based in Framingham, MA and was originally a shoe manufacturer. They got into other venues and subsequently manufactured automobiles. The company still exists today and they are a car dealership specializing in Cadillacs. FWIW

 

[Cocked & Locked]

1917 Colt -vs- 1917 S&W

I like'em both...after they've been messed up some.

 

[Muley Gil]

I carried a standard 1917 Colt as a police duty gun for a while. The DA was smooth, but heavy. I have smallish hands, but actually shot it quite well. For a while, the Alabama state qualification was a 60 round course of fire that was required yearly. I shot a 59/60 with that old Colt once. This revolver was issued to me by my department and I tried to buy it when I retired, but no go. I was told that it would probably be crushed or torched, since most officers wanted semiautos, not big old clunky wheelguns

One modification that I do to Colt revolvers is to place a small rod in between the leaves of the mainspring and then cock it. This puts a small arch in the spring and relieves the stacking that the old Colt action has. The largest rod that I use is a 1/4", for the New Service. Use smaller rods for the smaller framed Colts. If you reinstall the mainspring and have failure to fires, you can flatten the spring in a vise.

 

[Armyphotog]

I liked to have a S&W M1917 just to match my Colt, but if I could only have one, sorry, it would be the Colt.