Model 1917 sells for $5,000.00+

[jmten]

I was bidding on an item at today's Rock Island auction and saw this. R.I. estimated the high bid at $1,300. It was in very nice condition and came with a factory letter. The letter said it was shipped to the Santa Fe railroad. Interesting but not worth $3,000. however, at the end of the letter it stated it was "specially chambered in the .45 Colt cartridge". Would that be the reason it went so high?

Link to page

Excellent Smith & Wesson Model 1917 Double Action Revolver, Documented to a Santa Fe Railroad Engineer

 

[VM]

Could be a buyer that collects nothing but Railroad memorabilia.
Ever gone to a train show? Bunch of old men with money enjoying toys!

 

[murphydog]

"...it was "specially chambered in the .45 Colt cartridge". Would that be the reason it went so high?"

Yes. Wouldn't be surprised if extra high-resolution photos show up here on a member's post (not me) .

 

[handejector]

The caliber is the item.
About the fourth I have ever heard of in 45 LC.

 

[DWalt]

That would certainly be unusual. Another thing is that the headspace between the cylinder face and the recoil shield as shown in the photo is clearly for the .45 AR/.45 ACP. One way to convert a .45 ACP chamber to accept .45 Colt is to chamber it a little short, so that the .45 Colt cartridge headspaces on the case mouth, i.e., the rim does not contact the cylinder, but sits back a bit. I think it would have been VERY unusual for S&W to have done that conversion at the factory. Maybe someone knows of S&W doing that, and if so, maybe that is the reason for the $5K price. I can think of no other reason.

 

[jmten]

After researching past posts and the above comments it look likes $5,000. may have been a very good buy if you have the money. One of the posts stated that two had sold a few years ago for over $10,0000 a piece. Wow.

 

[CptCurl]

That cylinder sure looks like a .45ACP, given the wide gap between the rear of the cylinder and the standing breech.

Wonder if it originally had two cylinders???? One .45 Colt, one .45ACP.

I read DWalt's post above indicating it might have been made to headspace on the case mount, but I don't know how this will pan out since the .45 Colt normally has a crimp.

Something fishy here. I bet you can't push a .45 Colt cartridge into that cylinder. Anybody?

Curl

 

[mikepriwer]

I bet you can't push a .45 Colt cartridge into that cylinder. Anybody?

I'll take that bet. The gun letters that way - meaning it was shipped that way from
the factory. You think the factory couldn't set up a 1917 for 45 Colt ? The letter doesn't
say anything about there being two cylinders.

This is like taking candy from a baby !

Regards, Mike Priwer

 

[JSR III]

In real estate it is location, location, location. With guns it is typically, rarity, rarity, rarity. Usually one of's or one of two, three, four or five will bring a premium. Of the thousands of this model made there were only a few in this caliber. Many collectors will pay a real premium for that.

 

[CptCurl]

I'll take that bet. The gun letters that way - meaning it was shipped that way from
the factory. You think the factory couldn't set up a 1917 for 45 Colt ? The letter doesn't
say anything about there being two cylinders.

This is like taking candy from a baby !

Regards, Mike Priwer

You might be right, and I'll give up my candy. But here's the photo from the RIA site. Look at the gap:

How are you going to shoot a .45 Colt in that cylinder setup?

I saw the letter. That doesn't mean the revolver is still set up like it was when it left the factory. And yeah, I see they say the cylinder s/n matches. If there were two cylinders it would be a match. The description doesn't say if the cylinder s/n is followed by a diamond, which it might be.

I just don't think a .45 Colt is going to fire in that cylinder. But heck, I'm just looking at a photo. I'll never have the gun in hand, so I'll never know. If you bought it, please let us know.

Curl

 

[jmten]

That cylinder sure looks like a .45ACP, given the wide gap between the rear of the cylinder and the standing breech.

Wonder if it originally had two cylinders???? One .45 Colt, one .45ACP.

I read DWalt's post above indicating it might have been made to headspace on the case mount, but I don't know how this will pan out since the .45 Colt normally has a crimp.

Something fishy here. I bet you can't push a .45 Colt cartridge into that cylinder. Anybody?

Curl

In the discription it says it "comes with two blued steel half-moon clips". Perhaps the .45 Colt clips into the half-moon clips in the same way as the .45ACP. That would explain the wide gap between cylinder and standing breech being necessary.

 

[DWalt]

If it were modified for .45 Colt as I earlier described, it could be used for .45 Colt, .45 AR, and .45 ACP with half-moon clips. I've never heard of using half-moon clips with .45 Colt ammunition.

It would be interesting to examine the revolver in-hand. Seems to me S&W would probably have marked it somewhere as having been modified to accept .45 Colt if they did the modification.

 

[CptCurl]

In the discription it says it "comes with two blued steel half-moon clips". Perhaps the .45 Colt clips into the half-moon clips in the same way as the .45ACP. That would explain the wide gap between cylinder and standing breech being necessary.

More candy on the table.

I've never heard of using half-moon clips with any rimmed cartridge. No purpose for it. The clip makes up for the lack of a rim.

Curl

 

[wordsmith]

Over the years we've bought and sold 4 of the several known original .45 Colt caliber M-1917's, none of them had the wide headspace this gun appears to have. I'm leaning toward the cylinder seen in the auction photos having been added / changed out at some point. Hard for me to believe it's a .45 Colt.

Hopefully, a Forum member bought it and we'll learn later what 'the rest of the story' is....

David

 

[Skeetr57]

The .45 Colt cartridge has a smaller than normal rim, as it was not designed to be ejected by a star type ejector, so it is one revolver cartridge that could benefit from the use of a clip, like the .45 ACP. Having said that, the cylinder stop stud in the frame would tell which cartridge it was meant for. One fitted for the .45ACP will not allow a .45 Colt cylinder to open unless the cylinder has a rebate cut around the back edge of the cylinder.I recently bought a cylinder that was apparently made by the factory to fit a .45ACP gun, and it had a very shallow rebate, which I had to cut deeper to work in my 1950 Target.

 

[DWalt]

"The .45 Colt cartridge has a smaller than normal rim, as it was not designed to be ejected by a star type ejector, so it is one revolver cartridge that could benefit from the use of a clip, like the .45 ACP."
True, but the .45 Colt cartridge will eject more or less OK from a solid frame revolver. I have a Colt M1909 revolver (essentially the Colt New Service), originally intended for use with the M1909 .45 cartridge, which is essentially a .45 Colt with a slightly larger rim diameter. As those are not available, I use the .45 Colt cartridge. I have had a few instances of jamming on extraction, but for the most part, it works OK with the .45 Colt case. I have no idea how one would make a suitable clip to work with the .45 Colt case due to the head design. It has no extractor groove, as does the .45 ACP case.

I also have concerns about this revolver, even despite what the factory letter says, mainly because I doubt that S&W would do a conversion like this on a stock M1917 .45 ACP cylinder. They would probably have made up a correct .45 Colt cylinder for it, and marked it as such.

 

[Bill Bates]

Hmmmm. It is an odd one. I have a Factory converted .45 Colt Ctg. Commercial 1917 and it has a longer cylinder to properly head space a .45 Colt Cartridge. It is not marked with the caliber. The barrel, cylinder and ejector star are serial numbered and diamond stamped as replacement parts. To bad mine is kind of rough condition but it sure fun to shoot.

Here is a question for the experts. The letters I have are embossed on the signature. It appears from the photos this revolvers letter doesn't show any embossing. Were letters always embossed or is that something that has changed over the years?

My letter.

letter on gun in question.

 

[neorebel]

"bute records from the 1910s"

What are BUTE records?

I swear does anyone do spell check or grammar check?

That is a cool gun though, bute not for $5,000.00.

 

[Skeetr57]

DWalt: I also have a Colt M1909, as well as a New Service in .45 Colt, and have used them with current manufacture ammo, with little problem, but fired cases can fall behind the ejector if the guns are not held muzzle up when ejecting. The S&W cylinder that I mentioned above is indeed marked as a .45 Colt. Behind the the ejector star, the cylinder is stamped "W<>D, 6-77, 45 Colt" with the <> mark being a diamond. The cylinder is 1.565" long and a .45ACP cylinder is 1.535" long. The longer cylinder required a rebate 0.035" deep by 0.030" long to be cut into the cylinder for it to work in my 1950 .45ACP Target. The cylinder had a shorter rebate when I bought it, but that can be expected from the original hand fitting of the stud. It would have been simple for S&W to make up a .45 Colt gun i the time frame of the OP's gun by using a 2nd model .455 cylinder and merely extending the chambers for the .45 Colt, and slightly shortening the cylinder for the thicker Colt rims.

 

[Göring's S&W]

For the Rock Island gun, if you click the link, then look at the detail table, under "LOT SOLD" for "gauge:" it does say "45 acp" instead of "45 Colt." Perhaps the gun's cylinder was replaced with a 45 acp cylinder.