Tanaka Works S&W M1917 6.5" Hand Ejector 2nd. Five Screws ABS

Tanaka Works S&W M1917 6.5" Hand Ejector 2nd. Five Screws ABS


I showed my collection to a friend recently and all he could say was my revolvers all look the same.
After a while thinking this noob was just being a smart ass, I thought he might be right and more variety wouldn't hurt, so I decided to extend my collection to post WW2 S&W revolvers.
The Tanaka S&W M1917 was finally available on one of my favorite seller's website and I decided to give it a go. Plus it's Indiana Jones revolver of choice.

I have to mention the delivery was close to being a nightmare, and after a never ending week of fight with the deliverer, the model gun was finally home.


Included are instructions for S&W Model 29 plus a sheet of additional instructions for N-"flame" series.
Funny thing is the M1917 frame sports the 'MOD-29' engraving.


What stroke me at first was the super light weight of the gun: 545g full loaded!!! The small and tight plastic grips leave no room for extra metal weights as opposed to large grips. How disappointing! Especially since it was advertised as HWABS... But the surprise could also come from too high expectations due to delivery issues, following the pattern: Wait> Frustration>Expectations>Delivery>Disappointment. Oh well... after an hour or so playing around with the model gun, I forgot about the weight issue and focused on the details.



As per usual, Tanaka's markings are finely engraved and true to the real steel counterpart.


I wouldn't have mind some additional markings on the bottom of the frame.

Tanaka extremely sharp and detailed models never cease to impress and it's also very accurate.


...but the plastic material shows some weird wrinkles if you look closely (or use a macro lens)

.455 Webley MKII markings on the cartridges:


Tanaka grips on same N-frames are 100% swapable.





The finish is more grey-ish than my Tanaka M29 and was advertised as 'Parkerized'. It's fine to me, but I might use some Klever Schnellbrünierung in some future to darken the gun if I'm bored with it.

Pros:
Tanaka works. and the brand does a incredible job for accuracy and fine details.
The M1917 is such an interesting model and as it's a rare model gun I could not pass on this.

Cons:
It's super light and Tanaka could have found a solution to add weight on the grips area.
I might be wrong but as far as I know, it's not supposed to be called  M1917 if it uses .455 Webley caliber.

Overall Feeling:
I love it anyways. It's a new revolver in my collection and it does extend my S&W model guns timeline. And I might enjoy the time trying to figure out how I could add some weight on this beauty.

Bonus pic:
real cover for fake crime book.

Haaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhh!
The one i wanted!!!!
Tell us, is it as behemoth as it seems?
It's a beautiful replica, indeed!

Ha Dronne!
It's actually quite the opposite of Behemoth if not dwarfy.
It's super light and it's small. The small grips add more to the feel, but it's also why I like this revolver.
But if it's about the caps noise, well I can't tell.

Hi All, just got to test fire my new M1917 using the red flame 7mm caps, looks really good and was quite loud, considering it's only 1 cap.
You can find the video here
https://vimeo.com/118421477