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The .45 Acp Revolvers
American Handgunner, July, 2001 by Charles E. Petty
Almost Since The Moment The .45 Automatic Colt Pistol Cartridge Was Invented, There Have Revolvers Chambered For The Old Warhorse.
The year was 1916 and trouble was brewing in Europe. Somebody recognized that there would be a need for more handguns chambered for the new .45 ACP cartridge. Colt, Springfield Armory- the original one in Massachusetts- and Remington-UMC would not be able to produce enough semiautomtics. Even though the 1911 was standard issue, there weren't enough to meet wartime needs.
Working with Springfield Armory, Smith & Wesson began development of a revolver to fire the ACP cartridge. They were already making .455 revolvers for Great Britain and it was not a particularly difficult job to adapt their Second Model .44 Hand Ejector to .45 ACP.
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The problem was the ammunition. Loading rimless cartridges into a revolver cylinder presented some difficulties. While it was certainly possible to cut a chamber that would make the ammo headspace properly, there was no way to eject them. It took forever to pick the empties out by hand. Joseph Wesson solved the problem with the half-moon clip we all know and hate. At the time, it was a great idea.
Colt got the same job. With the ammo issue resolved, it was easy for Colt to make their New Service in .45 ACP. When the United States declared war on April 2, 1917, both revolvers were given the designation of Model 1917.
It is interesting to speculate a bit here. Colt was turning out 1911 pistols at a huge rate and it is reasonable to ask how they could also make large numbers of revolvers. During the World War I period, Colt produced over 500,000 1911 pistols and 151,700 Model 1917 revolvers.
The way guns were manufactured at the time provides the answer. It was customary to group machines and dedicate them to specific jobs. Even though the same milling machine might be capable of making a pistol or revolver frame, the tooling and time it took to change from one to another made it more economical to have machines dedicated to one product line or the other. So while Colt was churning out pistols, somewhere else in the cavernous Hartford plant were lots of machines that could be used to make revolvers.
During the war, the standard package size for .45 ACP ammunition was 20 rounds and the majority of wartime ammo was packaged that way, but as a convenience they also made some 24 round packages that had the ammo already loaded into clips. These are rarely seen these days, and equally rare is a 20 round package with seven half-moon clips stuffed down inside the box.
The 24 round package wasn't just to make things come out even. The standard web ammo pouch for those armed with 1917 revolvers had three pouches that held two clips each. Thus, the pouch held 18 rounds which left six to load the gun.
When the war was over, both Smith and Colt continued to offer the .45 revolvers: Colt's within the New Service line as an available caliber and S&W continued the 1917 with a commercial finish.
In 1937 S&W received an order from the government of Brazil for 25,000 1917 revolvers with the Brazilian crest on the side plate. In the last few years some of these have been imported back into this country.
World War II put a stop to commercial production and after the war the large frame revolver disappeared from Colt's catalog. S&W, working largely with parts already in inventory, continued sales of the 1917 until 1949.
People really didn't like those half-moon clips and in the early 1920s Remington designed a new cartridge, the .45 Auto Rim. It had a big, thick rim to fit into the fairly large gap between breech and cylinder required to accommodate the clips. It eliminated the curse of shredded fingers that often accompanied use of the clips.
Post-War Growth
The shooting sports got a big boost in the years following World War II and bullseye matches drew large numbers of competitors. S&W had been asked to provide a target quality revolver. They did so with the 1950 Target. They had made just a few 1917s with target sights, but developed a new large frame gun that took advantage of all the postwar improvements of a short action and better adjustable sights. It was a companion piece to a similar .44 Special revolver that wasn't used in competition, but gained prominence in the hands of Elmer Keith.
In his authoritative book, History of Smith & Wesson, Roy Jinks reports that the factory received some complaints from bullseye shooters who wanted a heavier barrel to aid in recoil control. S&W's answer was the 1955 Target.
It's pretty easy to tell the two apart. The barrel is obviously quite a bit heavier. The diameter was increased from 0.63" to 0.79" and the rib made correspondingly heavier. The net result was an increase of about 4 ozs. in weight. Handling the two guns, you notice a much more muzzle heavy feel with the 1955 Model.
The rise of the semiauto in bullseye competition wasn't the end of the big revolvers. S&W has had one or more versions in their catalog ever since. Some law enforcement officers who wanted the .45 ACP cartridge but weren't allowed to carry automatics happily packed Model 25s. Plinking and informal target shooting offer great excuses to have a .45 revolver or two and you'll see them all the time in bowling pin matches.
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