Last year I picked up a WW1-era M1917 S&W .45 DA Hand Ejector from the estate of a WW2 vet who passed. While the gun timed, indexed and locked up great, its barrel was completely washed out, having been abused for over a half-Century of not being cleaned after having been fired with WW2-era corrosive primers.
My plan was to rebarrel the gun, but first I wanted to shoot the “sewer pipe” barrel with its accompanying WW2-era hardball, purely for academic curiosity, just to see if it would still produce hits at “across the bar room floor” distance, aka 25 feet. And it did. EC43 hardball would just about stay in your hat. If you look in the photo below, there are several circled full-broadside keyholes around the bull which sure would hurt!
At 25 yards firing ordinary cast lead bullet reloads about 2/3 of the bullets keyholed, but most of them would have still hit an “E” silhouette. Re-enactors who fire flintlock horse pistols tell me that a dispersion of “one inch per yard” is normal in firing a smoothbore flinter unsighted in “instinctive point” shooting, being extended with the weak hand, as you brandish your cutlass with the strong one, Errol Flynn swashbuckling pirate stuff.
While a revolver with rusted out “sewer pipe” barrel wouldn't be your first choice if expecting combat, if you had no gun at all and came found this one foraging during your TEOTWAWKI scenario, you delighted to make do with it until you got something better. I also tried some shot loads in the “sewer pipe” S&W M1917 .45 revolver. Result was that it is NOT the “world's greatest snake gun” with shot. If it put the center of the pattern even close to where the sights look it might have possibilities, but if I'm going to spend any money on this gun, it's going to be for a re-barrel, re-cylinder and reblue, so it can become a daily carry.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
