I recently got my hands on a beauty of a Colt M1917. I ain’t gonna go into a history lesson on this pistol and bore you all with a story you already know or have heard a 100 times by now but I will mention to those who don’t know that it was brought out in 1917 to supplement the M1911 for WW1. Not enough of the service pistol was filling the need so the Army adopted the Colt large frame 6 gun in .45ACP and the S&W version to augment.

Both use half moon clips or full moon clips to allow the use of the 45 ACP round. Both are a pain in the ass without the tool. I was stuck with half moon clips for the use of this one and I despise them. Unfortunately this isn’t one of the revolvers you can use without the moon clips and just knock out the empties with a stick. The round goes too deep for the firing pin to even strike.

I got it out and used one of the old police style targets and ball ammo. I thought for the first go around I’d use what it was originally meant to use, good old 230 grain ball.

I am no revolver shooter so I had my carry gun along with me for moral support and to shoot a group side by side to see if the last few years of revolver shooting had started to maybe make me improve a little.

My first two groups from 20 yards off a sandbag. The head was fired double action and the “heart” area I fired single action. I consider this pretty good for me. The trigger on it is not that great at all but man this thing is accurate.

This is two groups fired from 10 yards offhand. The top is with the m1917 the bottom one is 8 rounds using my M1911XSE that I have been using for almost 20 years. Of course the 1911 is tight because I know it like its my twin but that M1917 group isn’t too far behind. I was shocked at this.

This one was fired from 7 yards at a moderate rate on double action off hand.

After those groups and some practice on my metal targets, I went on out to 100 yards from a bag rest. I don’t think I have ever shot a group that good with a revolver at that distance on the first try. I just stopped there because I wanted to let myself believe I could shoot that well every time.

That large frame sure makes it a pleasure to shoot. I have fired several .45ACP/Auto rim revolvers over the years and they weren’t that soft. The S&W model 22 thunder ranch was downright rough for my tender 1911 accustomed hands. You can tell that M1917 started out as the .45 Colt ( “long colt”).

I like this gun a lot and I will try this all again with some modern premium ammo and some handloads. It is always fun to shoot the old US service pistols. Karl tells me the S&W M1917 is the better of the two so I have been trying to borrow one to test and compare. I’m sure Karl is right and I will take his word on it but I am curious to see and I’m sure some of you’d like to see.