Questions About the 1917 Smith and Wesson
Colt had been given the contract to produce the Army pistol in 1911.
WW1 broke out, and it was apparent that Colt could not produce enough guns.
Smith and Wesson was then given a contract to produce a revolver that shot the Colt .45acp cartridge.
Why was Smith and Wesson given a contract to make a revolver, and not given a contract to produce an exact replice of the Colt semi auto pistol?
WW1 broke out, and it was apparent that Colt could not produce enough guns.
Smith and Wesson was then given a contract to produce a revolver that shot the Colt .45acp cartridge.
Why was Smith and Wesson given a contract to make a revolver, and not given a contract to produce an exact replice of the Colt semi auto pistol?
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S&W was already making large frame revolvers such as the Triple Lock. Just a matter of chambering it for the ACP round.
Easier and quicker than retooling for a semi auto.
Colt also did their own 1917 based on what I believe was their New Service model.0 -
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
Colt had been given the contract to produce the Army pistol in 1911.
WW1 broke out, and it was apparent that Colt could not produce enough guns.
Smith and Wesson was then given a contract to produce a revolver that shot the Colt .45acp cartridge.
Why was Smith and Wesson given a contract to make a revolver, and not given a contract to produce an exact replice of the Colt semi auto pistol?
I think DG101 has it.
First of all, Colt would have had to license the design to Smith, and its not clear that it wanted to do that at that point in time. EDIT: Maybe Colt wouldn't have had a say, and likely it wouldn't have minded anyway as it would have collected royalties one way or the other. I think the bigger point is below:
Next, and more important, creating the machinery and developing the expertise to mass produce semi-automatic guns isn't trivial, FAR less so 90 years ago before computer aided machines were around.
Smith already had tons of experience putting out revolvers and the tooling and assembly lines in place to do so. Simply putting out a gun it already made in a different caliber was relatively easy. For Smith to start putting out automatics it had no experience building would have been far more difficult.
Also, I don't know for sure, but my guess is that Smith revolvers cost less on a per unit basis than Colt pistols. Smith may also have had greater overall manufacturing capability. So if you needed to get a whole bunch of handguns out in the field fast (and cheap) building the wheelguns was likely easier.0 -
Agree with DG.
But I don't know if Colt would have had a say if S&W had been willing and able to make 1911s. The government had the right to build 1911s at Springfield Armory. And with the nation at war,
orders were placed with Remington-UMC, Winchester, Burroughs Adding Machine Co., Lanston Monotype Machine Co., National Cash Register Co., A.J. Savage Munitions Co., Savage Arms Co., and two Canadian firms, Caron Brothers Mfg. Co., and North American Arms Co., Ltd.
Nobody but Remington delivered in quantity; NAACo made about a hundred guns, and A.J. Savage completed enough slides that "Savage slide" guns produced by overhaul are well known.
There are some weird stories about Winchester and none of the others amounted to anything.0
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