Who told you that?
The S&W Hand Ejector First Model, aka New Century, aka Triple lock, was introduced to the Army in the 45 S&W Special cartridge. Once the Army chose the Model 1911 in 45 ACP, S&W introduced the New Century to the public chambered for the 44 S&W Special. The British Army was a bit short of sidearms to fight WWI so they contracted with S&W to buy revolvers chambered for the 455 cartridge. Even before the first shipment of the Triplelock was delivered, the British Army complained it was too heavy and the complicated mechanism would jam in the mud of the trenches. S&W redesigned the revolver and produced the Second Model Hand Ejector, less the third locking mechanism, less the shrouded ejector rod. It was this revolver that was used to create the Model 1917 (or Government Model as it was called in the factory). Joseph Wesson realized the US would be dragged into WWI and in 1915 tasked a group of engineers to build a revolver that would fire AND eject the 45 ACP cartridge.
The 45 ACP Second Model Hand Ejector, aka Model 1917, was the result.
The barrel dimensions were specified by the Army. Did the barrels you measure have the Army acceptance stamps on them? Unfortunately, many of the 455 First Model Hand Ejectors, aka New Century, aka Triplelocks, were rechambered for the 45 ACP cartridge. These were not ever accepted by the Army.
Kevin
StrawHat,
You are correct, the M1917 is a Second Model. I should have said the original S&W Webley .455 Mark IIs were 1st models and the M1917 and the British Production revolvers were 2nd Model. As I wrote before, I am not a hardcore S&W collector. What I know about them is from modifying them. I'll admit I'm more interested in the technical package than the collector minutia (now the Colt's Conversion Revolvers is a different matter, I am very interested in the details and every variation).
We were interested in heavy bullets and also adding a second cylinder in .45 Colt. On some of the "conversions" I used two crane/cylinder assemblies (just swap out the entire Crane/Cylinder assembly), on others kept it to one crane assembly, just cylinders/Extractor Rods, gas rings, spacers for the extractor rods. But they all needed a new extractor/ratchet (they have to be modified) to set the recoil shield length for the .45 Colt, usually a modified a .44 spl 1950 (no counter bored chambers), you can also use a Mod 27 or 28 Extractor because the counter bore goes away as you open it up to accept the larger diameter cartridge (you can't use Mod 24 or Mod 29 because of the counter bores), new gas rings, move the barrel back, re-cut the clocking pin slot, a spacer for the extractor rod. A lot of work, now you can just buy a model 25 in .45 Colt.
To answer your question about early model dimensions, I have never had a 1st Model (or an early 2nd model I was aware of) available to measure, so I don’t know what the early barrels measured. The guys who were the hardcore 1917 nuts were the ones who told me about some of the early 1917s having the Webley bore dimensions. I don't normally trust someone just telling me but they are hardcore 1917 nuts. I also know Pete has at least one Commercial Model 1917, I know the one I examined had a better finish and not marked as gov’t property. Pete has some expensive toys.
I'm not the 1917 nut that several of my friends were/are, I tended towards the Mod 25s and M1950s. As you can see from my photos I still have a couple of 1950 barrels and cylinders with Cranes in my parts bins. All of the 1917 barrels I ever measured are more or less the same as the 1950 and Mod 25 barrels. I know I have measured at least four, and yes, they were all originally government property guns and had all of the appropriate inspector stamps on them. The 1917 barrel I removed and replaced with a shortened 1950 barrel had problems which is why it was replaced. I never measured it, I guess I need to find it, and measure it now.
I don't have production drawings for the M1917 barrels,
do you have one or a complete or partial drawing set? If you have the barrel drawing number I may have a way to retrieve the document, I don't have a technical data package list for the M1917 drawings. You stated that the barrels were inspected to the government specifications, they must have a greater range or a nominal shift for at least the bore dimension. I'd be very interested in what that spec. was.
I'm curious as to what you consider a "Hardball" cut barrel. I know exactly what the Army considered a “Hardball” cut barrel for the 1911 which of course is the original Mil-Spec for the .45ACP barrel rifling. This is from the Army Rock Island Arsenal drawing 7791193 for the 1911A1 Barrels. This drawing has a 1961 release date but I have seen older ones and they are the same. The national match rifling is actually where the Kimber barrel drawing specifications came from that I posted above in reply #18.
I can tell you the S&W barrels (both M1917 and later models) I have measured are actually
above the 1911 mil-spec rifling dimensions in the Groove diameter. On later commercial 1950 and 1955 revolvers the Groove Diameters are usually Ø.453 and the Lands (Bore) are Ø.443, which does not meet the 7791193 dimensions of Ø.450 +.002/-.000 and Ø.442 +.002/-.000. What I don’t understand is why everyone keeps calling these “Hardball” rifling or jacketed bullet rifling dimensions. They are just standard rifling dimensions. the ratio from the Bore to the lands are typical of modern barrels, the groove depths on pistols that were designed to shoot jacketed bullets run groove depths of .004” to .006”.
I have measured at least one M1917 barrel with Groove diameters as large as Ø.455 and can’t swear to it but I think they all tend to normally run Ø.453 to Ø.454. I know this because of the loads Leon and Britt were working up, those cartridges with the 244gr bullets were part of that. They ran larger soft lead bullets because the throats ran large and the bores did too. They had a bunch of "shooters" and one other friend Pete, has serious collection of guns he doesn't shoot, he also collects Colt Commandos.
What do your barrels measure? And your chamber throats? How did you or do you measure them? I don’t have air gages at my disposal anymore and have to borrow an Optical Comparator or toolmakers scope if I do a bore optically. I have to resort to gauge pins and slugged barrels for the most part now. I have a micrometer somewhere with internal anvils made for bore measurement but I don’t always trust the measurements, you have to be perfectly centered in the groove and do it under a scope to make sure you are in the center of the grooves, any lean or touching the groove wall and you are off. I didn’t know they had gone to 5 grooves on the 625s, you couldn’t use that mike on a five groove and slugging a barrel with odd numbers is hard too. Why did they change, was it because of the Stainless galling during rifling and dropping a groove to minimize friction?
I have never been able to get a set of the 1917 drawings or the S&W .45 drawings. I have complete sets of the drawings for the 1911a1 (plus the set I detailed from the models) I also have drawings for the National Match Slides and Barrels they would send out for production quotes.
You’ll get a chuckle out of this, in 1973 the last National Match slide contract was actually built by IMI. I actually have the military drawing sets from them and slide drawings in Metric and annotated in HEBREW!
Back in the ‘90s the last Frames the Army purchased (for general use) were from 1947, they just rebuilt them or in the case of the AMU they also bought some frames from Colt’s (I don’t know when they bought the last of them.) I used to sell Hammers and Sears to the Colt’s Custom shop, the last ones I manufactured were for the Series ’80 and they had to send me prints so I could add their “safety shelf” (not a “half cock” they would cut you off in the middle of a sentence if you said “half cock”). After that we sold some Series ’80 Hammers in the aftermarket, or I should say we offered them, we sold very few and just sold the stock we had from the 1st run. I have those Colt’s drawings around somewhere.
~Mako
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