New 17-2 owner

[rwoodcec]

New to the forum, thought i'd check in and say hi.

Couple of questions

Anyone able to help me narrow down what I believe to be an early 60's model 17-2, 6"
Serial # K661xxx

What is favorite/cleanest ammo as the gun is in good shape and I would like to keep it that way.

Any help much appreciated!

 

[bamabiker]

That looks like a nice one. Serial number dates to 1966. Let me add, welcome to the forum.

 

[brucev]

I have no means of helping you with the DOM of your 17. But I will offer some suggestions with regard to favorite/cleanest ammo. I have a nice M-18 that has worked superlatively with every .22LR ammo that I have ever tried in it. In terms of favorite, my favorite is whatever .22 LR I can find available for sale at anything other than scalper prices. As I live in a rural area, there are few places that sell ammo. So I buy what I can when I find it. In my area even Wal-Mart has not had very much .22 LR ammo available. In terms of cleanest ammo, I have generally found that the various types of copper washed or plated .22 LR ammo gave the cleanest results in my M-18. For extended shooting sessions I have found it helpful to bring a cleaning rod with a bronze brush, patches and jag and some bore cleaner in my range bag. At some point given that I fire a lot of rounds, I find it useful to brush/patch out the little bits of grease/powder fouling, etc. that build up in the chambers of the cylinder, under the extractor star and on the recoil shield around the firing pin hole. Especially when firing in double-action it makes the revolver operate more easily and allows me to get better on target results.

Your 17 is a fine example of some of the best that S&W has ever produced. You and your revolver are due to have many happy times at the range and in the woods. Sincerely. Brucev.

 

[Vulcan Bob]

Welcome to the forum. According to the big book of S&W's, I'd say yours was made in early 1966. Thats a fine revolver you have there. As for ammo all .22's are a law unto themselves, try different ammo and see what works. As for dirty, other than some really cheap offshore stuff it's all about the same. Enjoy!

 

[HAWKEYE10]

Welcome to the forum and congrats. on a new gun. Don

 

[jpwhel]

Welcome to the forum. Like brucev said, keep the chambers of the cylinders clean. My Mod 18 and 34 have very tight chambers and the spent casings are somewhat hard to extract after firing 50 rounds or so. Keep a bore brush handy to clean fouling out of chambers.

I have found that CCI and Federal creates less fouling than Remington or Aguila. CCI SV seems to be more accurate in my 22s.

 

[Beauetienne]

Welcome! Try CCI Green Tag for accuracy. Very consistent ammo but, not the cheapest.

 

[Falguy]

Does anyone know what the dashes mean on a Model 18?
Is a -1 a heavy barrel?

 

[Gun 4 Fun]

Dashes have to do with engineering changes made to the gun. For example, the change from a dash 2, to a dash 3 on a 17, indicates the change in location of the rear sights front screw mounting hole, to have it no longer line up with the BC gap.

 

[Gun 4 Fun]

rwoodcec-
welcome to the forum! That is a very nice old gun. You will enjoy it. As others have mentioned, try as many different types of ammo in it as possible to see what shoots best. I have found that outside of full fledged match ammo like Green Tag, Ely, etc., that Remington Cyclones seem to shoot extremely well in a variety of .22's that I own, and that goes for the ones I have with match grade chambers like my 17-3. You will need to keep it much cleaner than any old run of the mill .22, but the rewards are worth it.

 

[rwoodcec]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and the good advise. Looking forward to trying out some of the recommendations. What a great site and resource as well as what appears to be a great bunch of people.

 

[rwoodcec]

Question regarding grips for 17-2

Since y'all have been so kind, might I ask another question.

I have seen several posts where the owners have replaced the grips and put the originals away for safe keeping -
1. Any way to tell if they are original to that gun?
2. does it affect the value in any way, having them but not using them?
3. Period correct choices?

Thanks

 

[Gun 4 Fun]

Sometimes target style stocks were numbered to the gun, but not normally. Magnas were numbered to the gun though. Having grips that match serial numbers with the gun does increase the value somewhat. Your grips should have black washers on the inside for its vintage, and though I can't really tell from your thumbnails, you should have diamonds around the screw escutcheons as well. The diamonds were dropped in '68 from around the screws. You could order targets with your gun, but they normally came with magnas like you have. The 17-2 ran from 1961-1967, when the rear sight front mounting screw's location was moved, bringing on the dash 3.

 

[Hammerdown]

New to the forum, thought i'd check in and say hi.

Couple of questions

Anyone able to help me narrow down what I believe to be an early 60's model 17-2, 6"
Serial # K661xxx

What is favorite/cleanest ammo as the gun is in good shape and I would like to keep it that way.

Any help much appreciated!

Hello
Welcome to the forum. As Others have said your gun appears to be from 1966. I have a Model 17-2 that shipped in 1964 shown with a Red Ramp front sight blade and single action only. It came with the Rosewood diamond Target grips as well. I swapped with it's owner as he suspected it had internal action issues because it shot Single action only. I had heard of, and seen K-38's that were single action only, but this was the First K-22 I had seen like this. I swapped a 1947 M&P I had $300.00 in for it. I shoot only CCI Mini-Mags through it, and the Target shown was shot by me at the 20 Yard line off a sand bag. The group size is 7/16" shooting 6 shots. They have worked well in all my K-22's with the exception of my 1936 K-22 Outdoorsman that seems to like the slower CCI Target lead bullet ammo. I hope this helps, Hammerdown