The Colt M1911 was the US standard service pistol at the dawn of WW1, but existing stocks of these were inadequate when the US joined the war in Europe. Both Colt and Smith & Wesson were approached to produce versions of their large-frame revolvers in .45 ACP. Colt adapted the M1909 New Service and S&W made a version of their .44 Hand Ejector (2nd Model) chambered for the new cartridge. Both revolvers used 3-shot spring-steel clips to accommodate the rimless cartridge. These weapons were used in WW1 and WW2, and were even issued to support troops in the Korean War.

Between wars the guns were offered on the civilian market, and were popular both with individuals and law enforcement. Eventually a 6-round ‘full moon’ clip was offered, but these could be difficult to remove cartridges from so the were not universally preferred. These clips were also more prone to bending, which could interfere with cylinder rotation and could jam the revolver. Good-quality modern clips are much less prone to this issue.

The Brazilian Contracts

In 1937 Brazil contracted S&W for 25,000 commercial models for use by their military and some police units. These guns had the Brazilian government crest on the right side plate in place of the normal S&W logo. A small S&W logo was engraved on the left side of the frame. The contract was filled primarily with standard flat-top frames with a square-notch trough-style fixed rear sight with a square sight notch. The guns had a 5-1/2″ barrel and checkered wooden stocks.

A second order was placed in 1946 for some 11,000-12,000 guns. These were much more a mixed bag, with some using round-topped WW1-era frames with a U-notch rear sight. Some were provided with smooth wooden grips, and some had the later checkered grips. Serial numbers for these guns can be confusing, with the early-style frames actually having lower serial numbers than the guns from the 1937 contract and other guns having higher serial numbers.

When these gun were phased out in Brazil many were re-imported to the United States, and they are still available at a lower price than former US service guns or commercial models.

My 1917

I ran across a 1st-contract gun at Pinto’s Guns at a very decent price and snatched it up. It was a standard gun, missing the lanyard-ring and equipped with an aftermarket adjustable sight (more on that later.) It’s in pretty good shape, with a clean, shiny bore, tight and with a very good trigger. The finish is definitely showing it’s age but isn’t too bad. It’s equipped with the standard commercial checkered grips. Interestingly it has the old-style ‘mushroom-head’ ejector rod, which had been replaced on I and K-frames in 1928.

It’s a Wonder!

In the aftermath of WW2 a lot of S&W revolvers became available as surplus at bargain prices. These were all fixed-sight guns, mostly M&Ps and Model 1917s. In 1953 FDL introduced an adjustable sight that could be installed by anyone with a screwdriver. It worked on all 5-screw guns, I-frames, K-frames and N-frames. This allowed a lot of folks with surplus guns to make a target gun on the cheap, and while they do not offer as good a sight picture as a factory adjustable sight they worked and were affordable.

Elevation can be adjusted by loosening the mounting screw and sliding the body of the sight up and down, and windage is adjusted by a click-adjustable knob on the right side of the sight.

Shooting the Model 1917

Taking the gun and fifty rounds of my go-to reload for .45 ACP, a 200gr. RNFP lead bullet over 6.2gr. of Universal with a Winchester WLP primer, I grabbed some clips and headed to the range. The stock grips felt alright in my hand, and the gun is as accurate as one would expect. No rapid-fire groups this time, however; while recoil isn’t harsh it’s not trivial either, and with the stock grips the gun shifts in my hand with each shot.

Yeah, About Those Clips…

I mentioned that unloading clips is difficult? I may nave understated that;… it’s a proper pain-in-the-butt. It kind of has to be; they need to stay in place, not just in the cylinder but in a pouch or pocket as well. You can easily make a tool for unloading these however. You can use a simple metal tube with a 1/2″ inside diameter. I used a short section of .45 barrel reamed out to 1/2″. You cut one end back so there is a protruding flange, slip it over the cartridge with the flange extending past the clip on the outside and twist. Easy-peasy. The flange levers the cartridge right out.

Moon clips allow positive ejection and fast reloads, but you don’t want to go cheap; a bent clip will jam your revolver up in a hurry!

I Have Plans For You, My South-American Beauty!

I’ve already accomplished my first evil plan, which was to make a new set of grips to fit my hand. So what’s next? Bobbing the barrel? Turning it into a ‘Fitz Special? Mounting a telescopic night-sight? Uh, no.

I’ll need to make a holster or two, and I’d love to shoot some action shooting matches. If I get really crazy I might polish the grooves off the trigger-face, but that’s about the limit. With the new grips I like the gun just as it is, so I plan to leave it alone.

“Yeah, but what you plan and what takes place ain’t never but similar.”

Oh shut up.

Stay safe and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 8 October 2021

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When I published the first in this series back in June I had no idea it would be over three months before the next installment, but here we are. It’s not because I’m a lazy schmuck (though I am) but because I was waiting for the final (?) parts to arrive- the Bar-Sto Semi-Fitted bull barrel, heavy guide-rod and reverse recoil-plug which have finally arrived.

This is no slam against Bar Sto; it says right on their web-site that with one thing and another it might take 12 weeks to get your barrel. OK, it took 13, but I’m not going to carp over one week. At last my eagerly awaited components arrived and I was ready to start.

Bar St says the semi-fitted barrel will require some fitting, and of course it did, but it took surprisingly little. I’ll say it with pictures-

This led to the actual first-step, which was assembling the gun with the barrel to see what needed to be done. This was pain-free, as the barrel came with an appropriate link already attached. The barrel-hood did not fit the cut-out in the slide, which required a few minutes careful filing. on the right-side of the lug. This is done with the barrel in a padded vice, cutting only on the push-stroke; if you saw the file back-and-forth you will inevitably go off-square and you’ll dull the file. Once the hood was filed-to-fit the gun almost went into battery. I consulted the sharpy marked section and there was one tiny mark in the ink at the bottom of the space between the lugs on the left-hand side. I kissed it with the file and the gun locked up proper. I remarked the lugs etc. and cycled the gun vigorously several times, and the fit is tight but it cycled without producing much in the way of wear marks. Moving on…

…and this is where things went a bit sideways, and it was entirely my fault. For some reason- I’m going to go with stupid here- I utterly failed to note the outside diameter of the recoil plug. Had I done so I would have noticed that it’s significantly smaller than the slide-stirrup. My only experience with reverse-recoil plugs is from Detonics, which was several decades ago. They cut the stirrup to fit the recoil plug, which had a rim that matched the stirrup. The Bar-Sto unit is designed to be sleeved into the stirrup. Read on for the results…

Feeling quite pleased with myself I assembled the gun for the first time in it’s final for and… oh. That’s not right.

OK, I screwed up. This is where I realized the recoil-plug was supposed to fit inside the reamed-out stirrup, not have the stirrup cut away. Bugger. Nothing for it now, I supposed, so I loaded a magazine and cycled the action… and the gun wouldn’t go into battery. Removing the barrel and checking I discovered the cartridges were about 1mm short of seating in the chamber. I pulled out a .45 ACP finishing reamer and carefully reamed the chamber by hand until the cartridge seated perfectly.

I’m not certain, but I seem to recall reading that the chambers of match barrels are deliberately cut short so that they can be cut precisely once the barrel is fitted. maybe so, maybe not, but after that the gun hand-cycled cartridges from the magazine just fine.

Of course there’s still that unsightly gap, and while I test-fired the gun in this state it didn’t stay that way. For convenience I’ll describe the work now and discuss the test firing below.

After consulting a couple of 1911 boffins the solution was to make a recoil-plug with a rim of the proper diameter. I have a lathe and had some O-1 tool-steel rod on hand, so this was accomplished pretty quickly.

With that accomplished there was one thing on the gun that I did not like- the beavertail grip safety. I mean, I’m a fan of the concept, but this one made me nervous. something about it’s shape always made me feel like I might not activate it at a crucial time. I have always kept my thumb on the safety while firing, and this grip-safety did not work well with that. It wasn’t comfortable, and on one or two occasions my grip failed to deactivate is. Can’t have that of course, so I considered replacing it. Pulling it out and looking it over I determined that I could probably modify it to suit, and I did so.

The new profile allows a higher, more comfortable grip, and more importantly I now cannot grip the gun in a firing position without deactivating the grip-safety.

Test Firing

The first trip to the range was with the original too-small recoil-plug. The load used was a mid-range one; a 200gr. LRNFP over 6.2gr. of Universal with a Winchester WLP primer. I fired a hundred rounds, and the only issue was some light primer strikes. That was a bit baffling; the gun had never done this before and I had not messed with that part of the mechanism. OK then. I cleaned the firing pin hole and firing pin, then installed a stiffer mainspring. Problem solved.

By the second trip I had fitted the new recoil-plug, and fifty rounds of the reload listed above and a couple magazines of my 200gr. Speer ‘Flying Ashtray’ JHP load went downrange without issue. I was starting to get a feel for the gun, and liking it. A lot.

The third trip was thing morning. Another fifty rounds of my handloads, and I decided to try some factory ammo. Ggasping from sticker-shock, I bought a box of Selior & Bellot 230gr Ball ammo and tried them out. Now, I have not always had the best of luck with S&B ammo, but it’s what they had on hand. I didn’t have the best luck this time either; on initial loading the gun failed to go into battery. A slight tap remedied this. Out of fifty rounds I experienced maybe a half-dozed failures of this sort. No feed issues, mind you, or any other mishaps.

Not awfully surprising that there have been no feed issues; you can hand-cycle a full magazine of empty cases from the magazine! Curious about the failures to go into battery, I measured the loaded S&B ammo, and at the case’s throat they are .470″. This is well within spec for .45 ACP ammunition. Next I measured my handloads, and they came out at .465″. That’s only five thousandths of an inch smaller, but apparently it is juuuust enough to occasionally impede it from going into battery. Huh.

I considering whether to re-ream the chamber; it’s pretty tight obviously. On the other hand for my purposes being iffy with factory ammo is not a huge concern; I don’t normally shoot factory ammo. We’ll see.

Next…?

I think all the major work is done; I’d like to refinish the slide, and might replace some springs etc. simply as maintenance items, but the gun is pretty much finished as-is. It’s tight, reliable and accurate with the loads I intend to use in it. I’ll need to make a holster or two, as I never made one for this gun.

Hopefully as things get back towards normal, whatever that is, I’ll shoot some Action Shooting International matches and generally have fun with this gun. I think the friend that gave me this gun would be pleased with how it’s turned out.

Stay safe, and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 2 October 2021

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