You now have a choice between War Daddy and Indy

Smith & Wesson went the extra mile for wheel gun enthusiasts this week, paying tribute to the famed M1917 while also adding a revolver fans have waited years for. As we have detailed in the past, the U.S. Army Model 1917 revolver in .45 ACP was one of the company’s first big N-frame “triple lock” revolvers. Using two 3-round “half-moon” clips or a single six-shot “full moon” to accommodate the rimless .45 ACP, 150,000 S&W M1917s were delivered to the Army before the end of the Great War, and they were often standard-issue for specialist soldiers such as dispatch riders, military police, tankers, and machine gunners through WWII. Wartime S&W M1917s had plain wooden grips and a lanyard ring. (Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps image circa 1918, via the National Archives) The new “no lock” S&W Model 22 is headed to market in both a 1917 clone with much the same features as the original, along with a Classic variant that recalls the common conversion often seen with such “war babies,”…