History of WWI Primer 104: S&W 1917 Documentary

last time we covered the use of Smith & Wesson's endframe revolver by the British Empire now let's explore the US as adoption of an emergency big bore revolver from this same lineage [Music] hi I'm Matthias and this is the Smith & Wesson double action revolver model of 1917 caliber 0.45 another heavy US service weapon let's get a better look weighing in at 2 and 1/4 pounds and with an overall length of 10.8 inches this is another fairly big revolver it's Swing Out cylinder takes 6 45 ACP cartridges fed with two half moon effectively and block clips oh dog a we are on Episode four of four of our mini-series entitled big irons of the Great War previously we discussed the history of Colts new service and Smith & Wesson's new century lines both of these guns competed for US contracts and both found favor in the UK thanks to their 455 chamberings and as we've seen both would develop War Office contracts early in the Great War if you'd like to know any more than that about their development check out the previous episodes because today we're talking about how the Smith & Wesson saw the US adoption finally the thing that I was looking for for so many years as you may recall by 1916 the United States of America was a manufacturing giant supplying the untaught with millions of firearms these varied from pistols to machine guns and honestly went further into heavy equipment we don't cover in our show but at home well US production for its own army was growing slowly Vickers machine guns were in planning and we were gearing up more and more Springfield 1903 rifles and Colt was hard at work on the 1911 pistols our efforts at the time though were rather tame especially considering what we already knew about how high the material costs were in Europe but the u.s. used to be a thrifty nation with an emphasis on being careful with taxpayers dollars wouldn't know anything about that anymore so it was pretty hard to get the ball rolling even with Europe ablaze the real hurry wouldn't start until after or were declared now with the u.s. entry into the war commercial manufacturers already set up to produce for the British would be turned to cranking out guns for the US forces we've seen this with the P 14 and then the u.s. 1917 rifles when 1903 production was too slow in the end the US had many more n fields in Springfields we saw it again a couple episodes back with the Colt revolvers as well when the 1911 production lagged but this didn't actually happened overnight the US government wanted to keep just one pistol cartridge in the field the 45 ACP again this was a slower heavier smokeless round designed for Colt automatic pistols and therefore were rimless in design yeah that's gonna be a problem and the first issue with just plain chambering was solved quickly with a simple rebated chamber for the case mouth now I should say that reportedly Smith & Wesson was the first one to do this to put in that rebated cylinder so that this cartridge can ride in there and be shot but not necessarily ejected but I will point out supposedly that's the case and the earliest Colts did not have that ability but this gun is actually a much later piece more on that later and this is a very very early Smith & Wesson this is a sub 20,000 numbered Smith & Wesson 1917 and I'm gonna tell you that there may need to be a little more research out there because I can do that so apparently at some point the Smith & Wesson's were being done without rebated cylinders as well so there's always something to learn in history pretty cool by June of 1916 the US government was testing a Smith & Wesson in 45 ACP just like that but it had no reliable means of mechanical ejection without the rim and that's a bit more emergency than we'd really like for the war so that matter stalled for a little bit however the same time there was a near solution already available in the market inventors Garfield and Larsen unrelated to any firearms manufacturer that I know of came up with a simple clip loading system which held six rounds in place a gap between the cylinder and recoil shield was left to allow the device itself to remain in the gun during firing and to eject along with all six cartridges all at once the problem with this design was that it required a complex inner spring system to press the cartridges outward keeping them in place now I'm unsure of whether or not anyone that Smith & Wesson was aware of this device but it's so similar to the ultimate solution that it seems likely that these inventors inspired who is up next but who knows regardless the final answer to the 45 ACP problem would come from Joseph Wesson himself recall this is Daniel Wesson son who now headed the Smith & Wesson firm after his brother Walter's retirement due to poor health his device was a clip similar to the previous but greatly simplified by being divided into two three round halves and having the clip itself acting as the spring being made of wealth in spring steel this device not only allows you to eject the rimless cartridges but also ease loading making it faster and easier to handle than loose ammunition you all want to see a magic trick Shazam I've done loaded this gun with rimless ammunition despite being a revolver and then this is the cool part well point ok maybe these need to be in ok though you're supposed to do that without bullets in them but yeah ok I got simultaneous eject and I've got 2 point loading I mean this is way less finicky than loading six individual cartridges this is a good step up the patent was filed in June of 1917 and the US Army began testing immediately I don't have a lot of detail on this front but it appears that it went over well because it was adopted in a hurry there would be scant delay and promises for an order of 100,000 units there was however an exception they wanted Smith & Wesson to allow Colt to use the patent that way Moe both manufacturers could get to cranking out revolvers and those special clips as a matter of fact Edward G bud manufacturing and the American can company would both also be permitted to produce the spring clips directly for the US government Smith & Wesson complied with these requests and receive their first official order in August of 1917 although they had already started tooling up which means that they began production practically immediately if not even before the contract came in and with that the u.s. adopted well this guy here so we can finally take a closer look now looking at the actual gun it's just like the mod - although the barrel is shorter and of course we're chambered in 45 ACP so we have that telltale gap at the rear that allows for the actual end block clips and they are in black lips so the only other outstanding differences on this particular gun come from the fact that it's an early 1917 so I can show you this particular feature if you can make it out see that hammer see the see that ridges on it well those are meant to retain oil so that it stays a little much easier it seems to have been added to the early Smith & Wesson 1917 s it's an extra machining step but it's supposed to be extremely nice we're gonna see how it goes over in just a moment well we pretty much saw how this gun works last time there's no big differences other than that clip system so I think we can skip the animation and take it straight to Mae for a demonstration [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] this is a heck of a weapon now the first contract began with an order for 100,000 pieces like I said and deliveries would begin in October of 1917 in November the Ordnance Department would retest the Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers they found a couple issues those machine lines for holding on to the oil they were also holding on to dirt stop that early production also had grips with dish tops they were uncomfortable on recoil and an unnecessary step in production so knocked that off too and with those two things covered Smith & Wesson could get production going in full gear for the war effort that was all over the complaints however that's not necessarily simple matter by the way - just turn up your production the manufacturing boom during the war meant labour was in short supply and so Smith & Wesson would stretch their current employees to the limit requiring heavy overtime hours which they did not pay time and a half for gotta watch that bottom line you know about this time by the way Joseph Wesson wasn't doing so well he turned to poor health just like his brother and he was frequently out of the office generally he did a poor job of staying in tune with think growing internal problems the management's still present frankly made a huge mess of the situation I want to be clear by the way these worker conflicts were exceedingly common during the war growing unrest and strikes were actually a huge problem mining transportation construction and yes arms manufactured while the manufacturing was being done largely for foreign powers the US government did its best to avoid the worst but otherwise broadly left the market alone this of course is me giving you an oversimplified Birdseye exceptions do exist with the u.s. entry into the war however labor disputes became something entirely more disruptive President Woodrow Wilson would intervene and form the National War labor board in April of 1918 comprised of both businesses and labor representatives the board was meant to advocate for US workers supporting eight-hour working days equal pay for women and the right to collective bargaining in exchange however the board asked labor to not strike otherwise tying up that u.s. wartime production in theory the board had no coercive power unless you signed on to abide one of their mediations so Smith and Wesson had overworked and underpaid their people and the local machinist Union arranges a walkout in July of 1918 unfortunately when those men were hired they had agreed contractually not to join a union this a yellow-dog contract so Smith & Wesson fired the leaders of that strike the National War labor board insisted that these men be rehired as by their charter the men had a right to unionize this whole thing would end up in the courts before the dust was settled and I'm kind of skipping ahead to say that Smith & Wesson was legally in the right if not ethically the Supreme Court decision of hitch-pin coal and coke v Mitchell had already shown that you could contractually prevent unionization at this point in US law anyway moreover Smith & Wesson never agreed to abide by any National War labor board decisions so they stood on a fairly good legal ground in theory in a free market Smith & Wesson would have been legally able to double down on their bad ideas and the natural result would have been a shut down of the plant loss of money for the owners in this whole negotiation process but the US government would lose out on their 1917 production revolvers in this particular situation and the time to get that started again would be critical to the war effort so yeah we're not gonna let this play out so the invisible hand was going to be replaced with a boxing glove President Wilson stepped in at the peak of the unrest in August of 1918 and ordered the War Department to commandeer the plant nationalizing smith & wesson effectively army requisitioned 709 of August 31st 1918 to be exact this formed a government backed Corporation national operating company stock was held by the officer and directors of the new firm all of whom were army officers from the Bridgeport ordnance department they continued production of the 1917 revolvers at a cost plus $1.00 model so yeah this wasn't really much of a private business it was a shell to avoid a direct nationalization of the firm and it's been suggested that this was done to avoid enrolling the workers as civil service workers because the intention was always to return the property post-war also I don't think this company even had a letterhead I just made this branding up for you guys to enjoy of course all this was done as part of an expectation of an all-out push in the spring of 1919 a major offensive by the untaught sacrificing men and equipment and a final push to crack the in-depth German defenses and claim a final victory in the war but Germany saw the writing on the wall and armistice was declared in November of 1918 this act saved a great many lives and for the most part ended the war but it was a huge blow to manufacturers who had leveraged quite a bit of debt in order to build up their firms to produce massive US contracts which were now being whittled down in negotiation in order to prevent a complete collapse of the arms industries the US government kept up its contracts into 1919 and although reduced did mitigate some of the damage enough that the producers could limp away in a December letter the national operating company reported fifty eight thousand six hundred thirteen revolvers had been produced under their guidance with an unassembled component lot for say seventy-five thousand more they recommended completing these and then returning the company to the previous management On January 31st of 1919 this plan was whittled down to roughly 53 thousand additional guns and operations were halted in January of 1915 about mid month following an inventory the plant was then returned to private ownership on that date at the end of January the new old owners actually shipped seven thousand three hundred partially completed 1917 s to the army and demanded payment because they had no intention of making 1917 s for the commercial market these were made by the military control company anyway so they should have to pay for them all in all I have found official production numbers from roughly 150,000 to 175,000 my favorite source for overall 1917 production says 163 thousand give or take were made for the US government roughly half of those guns never even had a chance to make it to Europe and what few did probably not front line their best bet as a live-fire gun would be say a machine gun team still these pieces were of importance because they both freed up the standard 1911's and shared a common cartridge with them making them a very easy introduction into the supply chain it's interesting to note that 1917 s may have had a wider issue during World War two than in World War one plenty were retained on hand post-war and like we saw with the Colts they were occasionally used by federal authorities although apparently not as often my source is also very on just when Smith & Wesson restarted commercial production of revolvers I've seen claims as late as third quarter 1920 and since it is slightly beyond our check up today I have not really broken that down we talked last time about their other offerings but specific to the 1917 brazilwood order 25,000 of them in 1937 these were shipped in two Lots due to the u.s. entry into World War two one before and one after during the early years of world war ii 20,000 of these guns were released to britain as part of lend-lease aid still in 45 acp and that same number again were fielded by the US Army in combat zones but specific to the military police towards the end of the Second World War the US government would actually contract to have thousands of Smith & Wesson 1917 s fitted with a Colt positive lock style hammer lock bar like we saw on the Smith & Wesson Victory's which is really where this idea came from there were also experiments in chambering the endframe in 30 carbine to allow common ammo between while the carbine and the handgun making it sort of giving you the most out of the possible weight you would pack into the battlefield you could use it for either gun post-world war ii inventory showed 91,000 and some change remaining Smith & Wesson 1917 so still plenty the issue and yet 1917 production would see a last-gasp in 1949 with a handful more produced for the military police in Occupied Japan it's not a terrible run all right I know there was a lot to take in very quickly and we barely got to talking about the experience of the gun itself so let's slow things down take a moment to enjoy this piece along with may's opinion on what it's like to shoot this big bird all right gang once more not quite the same as before but dang similar because we are on the fourth episode of our big bore revolvers coming out of America now in this case we have the Smith & Wesson 1917 from H this guy's let me give that to you and so I think the big question is by the way you guys really need to have seen the previous episodes France to make sense because otherwise we're going to be rehashing a lot but the big question is is there any big departure between the US production of the 1917 Smith & Wesson versus the sort of commercial and early military production for the British of the Smith & Wesson new centuries in 455 which are all the same done just the difference in chambering and the addition of that half minute clip anything stand out in the manufacturer handling of that gun compared to the others not really yeah it's really just a retaining ring - 45 ACP although there is a big advantage and now be dropping stuff on the floor that's fine we've got one so the big advantage is rapid loading did you actually prefer the loading of that over the old rimmed cartridges you know I'm gonna say rapid loading makes a huge difference for me it puts it into a whole nother level when it comes to revolvers because you always think it's slow single loading every time that's the thing that always brings a revolver down and these introduction of the Halfmoon clips really puts them up into a higher speed category which is fantastic so bumps up into a whole nother level in my mind yeah we talked about this last time the the Halfmoon clip takes what is a fine motor skill and turns it into a much more gross motor skill and that's much better for combat scenario I think this invention alone puts these 1917 revolvers both Colton Smith and Wesson to the top of the heap in terms of marshal revolvers but we'll see what your opinion is because we haven't even answered the obvious would you take something like this in a battle because you said it handles the same it shoots the same loads a little faster what's the answer here so I did say yes to the previous the mod - there's no way I can't say yes to this one because it's inherently better with the faster loading like I said it puts it into a hole higher category so of course I'm gonna say yes to this one granted you can tell it's been through some wear and tear but even at that it was still pretty smooth I still shot well with it and I got a faster load I'd say I've got a lot of pluses with this one okay well that's gonna wrap up our episode hold your horses there Sonny there's some things we got to compare this to you're right that would be boring as sin if we just sort of came and said yeah it's great by now let's put into some perspective first of all we got to compete with cold that's the one everybody thinks of because these guns share almost the same name and people regularly confuse them which is part of why we have four episodes trying to break up that history so that you guys can understand how different they are as a matter of fact let me make this clear while we have a moment do you mind if I go on for a second Cal both of these guns start as different versions of the Galant so there's a Galland 1868 and then a later Galland de guerre but they both are one is an evolution of the other sort of with new ideas put in from one man and then Colt borrows one Smith & Wesson borrows the other and they start moving out and for time Smith & Wesson is off in this top break land like Webley which actually is probably where Webley got its evolution from as the early Smith & Wesson work and then Colt does the swing out cylinder and this is the first and only place where you have one copying the other Smith & Wesson adopts the swing out cylinder going forward in their designs so that is the one place because a lot of people think that one of these guns is a copy of the other just the fact that Smith & Wesson switched from top break to swing out this much the only time you see one company truly copying the other that's where they start to come back together and then market forces drive both companies into making big frame revolvers for big cartridges and that brings them convergently evolution into the same point so the guns look nearly identical at a glance they handle almost exactly the same they shoot the same cartridge they load the same way because wartime pushed them on to the exact same cartridge onto the exact same loading method but realistically they had very different development cycles and that's the part that I think a lot of people miss out and that hope came across in this episode I sorry to beat that drum in the middle your section but it's only place I can put it in to be fair it makes sense just the only difference for me was that intrinsically the Smith & Wesson just felt better because it seemed like there was just little tiny features here and there that just felt more natural less less girth at the top so a little narrower at the top yep Smith & Wesson right a bit more bail on the Smith & Wesson like hooked under your grip and then on top of that they also kind of bolster this out ever so slightly here in the center so that it follows the curvature of your grip so it goes out in out again so that it kind of follows the curve of your palm which is something I noticed almost instantly it's beautiful feeling and then you and I both agree that if you point the colt you can't load and unload the colt I have big hands and I still can't get control you have to effectively change your grip up a little but on the Col in order to pop open the cylinder whereas with a Smith & Wesson you can retain the same grip and not only does it let you keep your grip on top of it where the push button is placed with your thumb you're able to use your thumb as a place of purchase for your forefinger to pop the cylinder open so of these two which is superior in your money Smith & Wesson that's got to be the one Smith & Wesson has to be the one that is the victor just because it's more natural to use and then on top of that it everywhere else it was relatively equal with the exception I would probably say is the sights the sights on the Colts are inherently a little bit better only by the advent of the fact that they used a triangular or shark fin looking sight right you prefer that over a half night exactly because it happened get a little bit shiny yeah so militarily the colt is slightly preferred that I do remember you talking about has to do with the ability to refurbish these easier Springfield is able to just make these barrels whereas they had to purchase replacement barrels from Smith & Wesson because of that added lug representing a whole other tool up for them that they just didn't want to get into the cheaper have the company do it so construction on this is also simpler engineering is simpler like if you think about the fact that this was solving for that crane walk problem they solved it by not having the hand push opposite the crane on this gun that kept the hand pushing office at the crane and just added a bunch of extra stuff so arguably that gun might be over engineered at the same time the over-engineering seems to resulted in a better experience for the organic operator and so as a user of the gun I prefer the Smith & Wesson if I'm watching the pennies there may be an argument for the colt if you're trying to penny pinch but that's not what the US was doing at the time so when we compare these guns to the world wide what comes what comes into the same category as these is there anything in Europe that is delivering as well as the u.s. revolvers um you know probably the first one that comes to mind I would say would be the Webley it's a large it's got a decent large cartridge with it and the only issue real 'silly with them was the top rate the fact that it is a top brake inherently makes it a little bit weaker and then the ejection on those in general was not my favorite because you could snack a casing under there but they were kind of natural use when popping open its it cuz it's given has it's taken I don't find to be a new production Webley alongside of new production of these to be particularly weaker in any one specific regard to the point of me going well I won't accept one but I will accept the other right fair and then I guess probably the Belgian I got so I would say is another one that's kind of up there that's gonna confuse people because that is a gate loading black powder revolver how'd that get in this list let's see it's still got it's still not bad for for the use like it's still fairly smooth and it's still it's still really really yes the grip feels good the handling feels good the pointing is natural and very smooth but then the problem again is we have gate loading and a black powder cartridge yeah that's true that's that's getting there so you know honestly when you're thinking about it comparing to the world you can tell the u.s. heavily focused on these but it's interesting this wasn't even their number one this was like no they never adopted these day anything right they weren't they were going with you know the 1911 as their as their primary focus so like that's an Larry it couldn't make enough of our super cool handguns so we had to make some revolvers I guess and the revolvers that the US made I guess because we have to seem to be the superior combat revolver in the great war like I can only think of one combat revolver from the conflict that I might choose over one of these 1917 only one and I I probably would but I would miss the clip loading cuz this is it this is really why don't get me wrong there smooth let's swing out it's great the loadings the clip is amazing this is what throws it over the line because reloading faster and getting him back into action faster is truly unique about these guns but can you guess the gun that I'm thinking of is it the great colt yes the colt [Music] it's a mid frame with a 38 special cartridge and because it's a mid frame and they reshaped the latch you can get on it from a natural position it doesn't disrupt you as much as the full frame colt and so that gun to me and especially that gun by the way remained like a standard police sidearm for a long time that pattern it's set the standard for police weapons for quite a while too so it was a good combat revolver I think quick loaders like these if they shave the back of cylinder and there's God had done loaders like this for them that would die would it be it that would be my favorite combat revolver the world what's your favorite combat revolver of the war right now god you know it's it's kind of sad but um it I was pretty pro on that Smith & Wesson the the triple lock but the problem is is that it didn't do well enough because of freaking the colors Road yeah the shroud oh my god I'm so mad about that because it was beautiful it truly was a rapid loading no it didn't have rapid loading but everything else about it was just singing so what's your pick what's your favorite combat revolver so far probably the Smith & Wesson 1917 yeah not the gun that tugs at your heartstrings now well these are cool top rate school oh yeah they're not very strong but cool and there's a number of other like Belgian stuff and things like that I've fallen in love with like I love the Belgian 78 totally not the best revolver the war I would have to argue that the Smith & Wesson 1917 or the Colt army special those are like the two toes those are two top guns in terms of revolver technology which was all below a good semi-automatic handgun this is true so maybe one day we'll get to talk about what was that 1911 might be the right year yeah maybe we'll do an episode on you know you get busy sometime so let me just wrap this up right you got any more comments on these guys realistically now I mean these were a heck of fund issue I personally am a bit more Pro revolvers especially once we get into these Colts and Smith & Wesson's they seem to be my favorite one of each overall know there's been a longtime Smith & Wesson fancy cowgirl anyway no that's gonna come off wrong but that's okay anyway no yeah these were a heck of fun to shoot I thoroughly enjoyed them but yeah we're gonna get into some semi autos that are probably gonna knock these out of the water unfortunately alright well thanks for tuning in we'll have updates after the credits have a good one tonight everybody [Music] you [Music] all right gang very short update because I'm still getting settled coming back in from Cody but number one on the list is the fact that you should watch your email inboxes if you were a supporter of our t-shirt campaign because you're gonna see tracking and other information coming out very very soon if not by the time you are hearing this so matter of fact double check your spam folders because when you start to send out several thousand emails you never know where they'll end up so look around but pretty soon I'd say within the week you should have some pretty good data so you know when your stuff is arriving and we thank you again for that support all right y'all have a good one

Channel: C&Rsenal

Views: 108,066

Keywords: firearms, guns, WWI, History, greatwar, bf1, battlefield1, worldwar1

Id: eTcuAktkT1U

Length: 31min 29sec (1889 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2019