Club Obi Wan

I saw a commercial yesterday for a movie called "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." One of the pistols in the poster (Do you call it that if it's digital ) caught my eye. We've got two revolvers with short barrels, ramp sight, and the lanyard ring on the bottom. I don't think it's the Colt version of the M1917 because of the ejector shroud bit attatched to the bottom of the barrel (I'm sure there's better terminology for that, sorry if that's not the correct word to use.) rather than the ejector rod sticking out freely. It just looks incredibly similar to the Bapty to my eyes. Anyone with more knowledge have an idea as to exactly what model of gun this is?

-WNY Indy

Nice spot, WNY Indy! It really does look the part to me, but I am not a gun guy. Hope someone chimes in.

PS: the movie is a nice Sunday afternoon flick, when you want something entertaining, but mindless.

Cheers,
Bear

According to imfdb they are indeed S&W 1917’s. Not sure if the grips are the same though.
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/The_Ministry ... ly_Warfare

IJJTM wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 1:52 pm According to imfdb they are indeed S&W 1917’s. Not sure if the grips are the same though.
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/The_Ministry ... ly_Warfare

Boy, I can't believe I didn't think to look there Thanks for the info! Even if the grips aren't the same, it's interesting that they have (from what I can tell) the same barrel and sight. I guess the lanyard ring was more common for military pistols so that's not too much of a surprise.
I wonder if the barrel and sight we see on Indy's gun appeared historically or not. I'm not aware if that was a modification that was common or if it was just a movie thing...

-WNY Indy

If I had to guess, I’d assume the film was homaging Indy.

The shortened barrel is a mod as are the sights. The specs were the same on S&W’s and Colts per contract.

Illinois James wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:38 pm The shortened barrel is a mod as are the sights. The specs were the same on S&W’s and Colts per contract.

Yeah, I understand that they were modifications and the guns weren't issued that way originally. I just wonder if those modifications ever showed up historically, or if it's just an Indy thing.

-WNY Indy

bearbeast wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 10:58 am Nice spot, WNY Indy! It really does look the part to me, but I am not a gun guy. Hope someone chimes in.

PS: the movie is a nice Sunday afternoon flick, when you want something entertaining, but mindless.

Cheers,
Bear

I was at a family gathering when the ad popped up on the TV. Everyone was so confused why I suddenly started staring intently at the corner of the screen for seemingly no reason- I tried explaining what had caught my eye, but I think that just confused them more

Good to know about the movie. I had not seen advertising for it until yesterday, but it looks interesting!

-WNY Indy

Western New York Indy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:59 pm

Illinois James wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:38 pm The shortened barrel is a mod as are the sights. The specs were the same on S&W’s and Colts per contract.

Yeah, I understand that they were modifications and the guns weren't issued that way originally. I just wonder if those modifications ever showed up historically, or if it's just an Indy thing.

-WNY Indy

Oh I see what you mean.

As far as the mods being very common, I dunno. To me, why bother? It was based on already existing large revolvers already available-unless you just had to have .45 acp.

I could never bring myself to cut an original, since there were only, what, about 150,000 Smiths? Maybe one of the ones recently made.

Anyway I’ve never seen it outside of Raiders, but I’ll pay more attention now!

Good catch!

Illinois James wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 2:35 pm
Oh I see what you mean.

As far as the mods being very common, I dunno. To me, why bother? It was based on already existing large revolvers already available-unless you just had to have .45 acp.

I could never bring myself to cut an original, since there were only, what, about 150,000 Smiths? Maybe one of the ones recently made.

Anyway I’ve never seen it outside of Raiders, but I’ll pay more attention now!

Good catch!

I thought I read that the reason the M1917 was modified to fire .45 ACP because the US military didn't have enough 1911s at the time of WWI. You probably know way more about this subject than I do, but I just always thought it was interesting how the American version fired .45 ACP vs. the British version fired.455 Eley and how both versions can be seen in Raiders.

I wouldn't want to cut up an original either... Not that I have enough gun expertise to try to do that in the first place Unless you could replace the barrel on an original with a new barrel that had the modifications done to it. But again, I'm not an expert enough to know if that's really a good idea. It would be cool to turn one of the newer versions into a good Indy replica though.

-WNY Indy