My "New" S&W 1917 destined for a Bapty conversion

[Mark Brody]

I foolishly sold my first S&W 1917 a few years ago for way too little, thinking I'd never have the interest in doing the Bapty conversion. After a change of heart, I found myself in the market for another 1917 to chop up. It's amazing what the asking price is for these things on Gunbroker - especially considering most of the auction are NEVER bid on. I thought I'd found a good candidate when someone was offering a very old model with some pitting and a modified front sight (great, I can cut of the barrel and not worry about cutting the value of the gun). I watched the auction end without a sale (or even a bid) and get relisted several times, but when I contacted the seller, he refused to come down on his price. I ended up going with the Brazilian model from another seller. I'd hoped to avoid Brazilian models simply because I didn't want the crest, but I may just order a new sideplate to "hide" this. I've also got a spare barrel headed my way to cut down. I hope the finish on my Frankenbapty won't be too inconsistant. This one also has the grooved trigger. My first 1917 was smooth, and much more confortable to shoot. Maybe I'll look for a replacement for that one too. Anyway, it'll be a while before I get around to the conversion, but I thought I'd share the pistol now, anyway.






The previous owner of this piece seemed to this that grease was the be way to lubricate the guts. I always used oil. What do you think works best?

[Solent MKIII]

Wow - that thing is swimming in grease! I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it could get messy. I've had some old Mauser and Mosin rifles that I thought I had cleaned all of the cosmoline grease out of pretty good, but when shooting them a lot ( and especially on a hot day ), those suckers would ooze like a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup. As to your pistol ( very nice pickup, BTW ), I don't see the need for that much grease in a gun that has no high-friction parts in it ( like a semi-automatic would ). I would probobly shoot all of that gunk out of the innards with some kind of gun scrubber spray, then apply a thin coat of oil and wipe it down - that should work fine ( please correct me if there's a better way, guys - I'm just a part-time armorer/shooter/enthusiast! )

[Mountaineer]

For long-term storage, in a safe or closet, lubing the internals up like that are fine. However, if you plan on using it outdoors and in the wilds, those internals need to be cleaned with a good cleaner/degreaser/scrubber and given a light coat of your favorite oil. Gun oil, not grease, and not WD-40.

Loading up the guts of a firearm with prodigious amounts of grease is usually found because "more makes it work better". Which is wrong in this case.
The thick grease acts as a magnet for the dust and dirt that live outside of a safe. Follow me here.

Internals on firearms, especially sears, releases, sideplates, etc. are finely machined; they follow close tolerances. When you take something like a firearm, load it up with grease, then take it out shooting, dirt, unspent powder and other grime can get inside the workings of a pistol where it adheres to all the grease. Popping off sideplates is not normal maintenance, so over time, this buildup of gunk gets to the point where it acts like emery cloth and you wear down the inner workings' metal. This can lead to various unsafe conditions. One is where there is not enough metal for the sear to properly engage and opens up the possibility of misfires. Another possibility is the wearing of the hand (the part that advances the cylinder around) to the point where the revolver's timing (individual cylinders lining up with the bore) is thrown off. At the least, it affects accuracy, at the worst, it fires out-of-battery and it blows the front half of the revolver off.

Can this happen in one range session? No. However, you are talking about an older revolver with older parts. They had a way of maintaining them then so it's best to follow that routine. AKA a drop or two of gun oil on the internal working parts. You can use modern gun oils if you like, you're not confined to old-school Hoppe's, but make sure you use a gun oil, not just a water-displacer (ala WD-40). You want some lubrication and protection inside there. (FWIW, I use Hoppe's Elite in my revolver internals. Very adequate protection as it binds to the metal, has little to no run-off and leaves no heavy residue.)

[Mark Brody]

edit >> doublepost

[Mark Brody]

Okay, so I was right about the oil on my first gun. Now I've got some more decisions to make. The truth is, finding the right gun to convert has been an enormous pain in the behind. With all the money I'm likely to spend to preserve any value this gun has (i.e. not cut up original pieces, it seems I may have been better off with that other gun anyway (darn). In the meantime, the extra parts (barrel and sideplate) are coming in, and it's obvious this will be quite the Frankengun - the replacement parts are nowhere near the same finish as the rest of the pistol. Since reblueing the pistol to get all the pieces to match would also hurt the value of the gun, that would make replacing the barrel pointless. The pistol is in such rough cosmetic condition anyway, I'm considering forgoing the barrel replacement and just cutting it as is and getting it reblued. Really, I'd rather have just gotten the other pistol and not have to worry about all this. It's such a straightforward project - why does it seem so difficult?

[Trebor]

Just cut the barrel. If the gun was in nicer condition, and was more of a collector' piece, I'd say leave it as-is or replace the barrel. As it stands though, I'd just cut the barrel and do the conversion. These guns weren't really made for "barrel swaps" anyway. Removing and replacing the barrel was only done to replace a bad or damaged barrel (or as part of rechambering a gun to a different caliber).

If it was collectible, removing and replacing the barrel would lower the value, even if you later reinstalled the original barrel, just by the work being done to remove the original, install the new, and then later remove the new barrel and reinstall the original barrel. With all those changes you're going to get some wrench marks, etc., and that's going to knock down the value compared to a gun that was never "messed with" in that way.

Do yourself a favor though and get some Moon clips and .45 ACP and shoot ti first. They are a hoot to shoot.

[micsteam]

Mountain is right. Also nice peice, I wouldn't cut it down to make it like Raiders S&W. I gotta S&W British issue .45 love this thing !!! Fires great, kill an elephant and beat down 300 pound schmuck !!! Is the the barrel good ?? If not you can change out the barrels, sometimes you can find them on Ebay.

[Mark Brody]

The gun is still filthy, so I haven't gotten a really good look inside the barrel. All I can say is that it looks dirty. I haven't gotten around to cleaning it yet, and now that I'm deployed, I won't see it again for a few months.