S&w 617

[Viggen]

This weekend I had the chance to shoot a S&W 617.

It's a 10-shooter DA 22. This one with a 6" barrel. But they also make them in 4".

It's built on the K-frame(I read somewhere).

This is a solid shooter. It's not small by any means and certainly not dainty.

This had a factory trigger but the owner had put a dot sight on it. It shot real good.

The 617 has just gone to the top of my "Got To Have" list.

Has anybody changed out the springs on one of these or slicked up the trigger? Does is differ in any way from the centerfire S&W revolvers?

[8shooter]

Viggen,

617 are alot harder to get a smooth and light trigger, getting them smooth is not so hard but getting them light and still reliably igniting your loads is a different story.

Randy Lee is at the forefront of all Revolver trigger work, and last time I heard was working on a light and reliable trigger for the 617. He is a regular here (this is you cue to jump in Randy) he may be able to share his wisdom.

If I wasn't 17 hours in a plane away, Randy would have done the trigger on my 617 already.

[SRT Driver]

I put a Wolff reduced power main spring and a 14 lb rebound spring in mine then played with the strain screw length a bit. The 13 lb rebound spring didn't return the trigger all of the way.

It's down to 6 lb and reliable.

Stay away from an Extended firing pin. I forgot it was in there and a friend dry fired it...bad news!!!

[Viggen]

Ok. that mention of the 14lb spring gives me something to work with.

My intent, as soon as this little stocking stuffer is in the house, is to just smooth things a bit and replace the stock spring with what you suggest or something real close.

Have you tried various types of ammo?

6 lbs, that would be very nice and much better than I had hoped for.

[Carmoney]

I've messed with lots of different kinds of rimfire ammo in my 617 (and several predecessor K-frame .22s I've owned over the years). Among the reasonably-priced ammo on the market, I have consistently found CCI Mini-Mags to be the best in terms of ignition reliability.

However, I must say I have never seen a S&W rimfire be reliable at anything close to 6 pounds DA. I'd love to know how to accomplish that, though!

[SIX SHOT]

I've messed with lots of different kinds of rimfire ammo in my 617 (and several predecessor K-frame .22s I've owned over the years). Among the reasonably-priced ammo on the market, I have consistently found CCI Mini-Mags to be the best in terms of ignition reliability.

However, I must say I have never seen a S&W rimfire be reliable at anything close to 6 pounds DA. I'd love to know how to accomplish that, though!

Since you can't build a rimfire load it becomes a two stage process to find what works best in your personal 617, and it seems all rimfires have their own sweet tooth for a certain brand of ammo. First you buy several different brands to find what shoots best, then second you use the trial & error method to make sure your gun is reliable with that brand. Don't recall what my double action pull is & really don't care, its 100% and out of all the different brands of ammo I tried, including some of the expensive stuff, good old american eagle came out on top, who woulda guessed!

Dick

[Randy Lee]

With the existing parts, it's pretty tough to get reliable ignition with rimfire ammo below 6.5 lbs. Lightening the hammer, reducing the striking surface area of the firing pin, replacing the fp return spring with a reduced version will help.

If I can get enough time away from the bench to complete my R&D, I should have a rather unusual trigger system available for the 617 by next year's Steel Challenge. It should be down-right wrong.

Thanks for the plug 8shooter! I'll be heading down to your neck of the woods in '06.

[10mmdave]

With the existing parts, it's pretty tough to get reliable ignition with rimfire ammo below 6.5 lbs. Lightening the hammer, reducing the striking surface area of the firing pin, replacing the fp return spring with a reduced version will help.

If I can get enough time away from the bench to complete my R&D, I should have a rather unusual trigger system available for the 617 by next year's Steel Challenge. It should be down-right wrong.

Thanks for the plug 8shooter! I'll be heading down to your neck of the woods in '06.

Reducing the striking surface area ?? I would have thought you'd want to increase it !

I only say this because every 22 auto loader I've seen has a square shaped firing pin

which would (in my thinking) "crush" more priming compound !

Now if I was trying to pierce the case ?? and then again it takes more force to crush more

brass case rim if you have a flatter firing pin!?!

Dang! now my head hurts !

[Randy Lee]

With the existing parts, it's pretty tough to get reliable ignition with rimfire ammo below 6.5 lbs. Lightening the hammer, reducing the striking surface area of the firing pin, replacing the fp return spring with a reduced version will help.

If I can get enough time away from the bench to complete my R&D, I should have a rather unusual trigger system available for the 617 by next year's Steel Challenge. It should be down-right wrong.

Thanks for the plug 8shooter! I'll be heading down to your neck of the woods in '06.

Reducing the striking surface area ?? I would have thought you'd want to increase it !

I only say this because every 22 auto loader I've seen has a square shaped firing pin

which would (in my thinking) "crush" more priming compound !

Now if I was trying to pierce the case ?? and then again it takes more force to crush more

brass case rim if you have a flatter firing pin!?!

Dang! now my head hurts !

Hey Dave,

I believe that the rectangular imprint simply insures that the priming media actually does get crushed- I tend to reshape my firing pins to something similar- this tends to reduce the surface area over the spherical dome of the factory part.

Sorry for the brain ache.

[8shooter]

With the existing parts, it's pretty tough to get reliable ignition with rimfire ammo below 6.5 lbs. Lightening the hammer, reducing the striking surface area of the firing pin, replacing the fp return spring with a reduced version will help.

If I can get enough time away from the bench to complete my R&D, I should have a rather unusual trigger system available for the 617 by next year's Steel Challenge. It should be down-right wrong.

Thanks for the plug 8shooter! I'll be heading down to your neck of the woods in '06.

Good to hear your venturing "down under" Randy..... I assume for the Australian Icore Regionals yeah?

I will be back over in May... I am going to try my hand a Bianchi .... I can only guarantee 1 thing ... I will have fun .... shoot a top score not really a sure thing.

Also trying to get back to Steel again as well as I have had to miss the last couple due to work committments.

[SRT Driver]

I'll second the ammo bias.

Walmart Federal was OK. The C&S extended firing pin cured most of the problems. Federal 711 gave the biggest headache but it FTF in my Hammerli also.

PMC ScoreMaster is what this particular 617 likes. The priming compound is Eley and I have not had any issues with it.

The only issue I had was the increase needed with the rebound spring. It took a while to figure out. I really don't like the MIM parts but sometimes things work well.

Randy's firing pin idea sounds cool. I'd stay away from the extended firing pin if I could. It's fine until you forget and dry fire.

[10mmdave]

With the existing parts, it's pretty tough to get reliable ignition with rimfire ammo below 6.5 lbs. Lightening the hammer, reducing the striking surface area of the firing pin, replacing the fp return spring with a reduced version will help.

If I can get enough time away from the bench to complete my R&D, I should have a rather unusual trigger system available for the 617 by next year's Steel Challenge. It should be down-right wrong.

Thanks for the plug 8shooter! I'll be heading down to your neck of the woods in '06.

Reducing the striking surface area ?? I would have thought you'd want to increase it !

I only say this because every 22 auto loader I've seen has a square shaped firing pin

which would (in my thinking) "crush" more priming compound !

Now if I was trying to pierce the case ?? and then again it takes more force to crush more

brass case rim if you have a flatter firing pin!?!

Dang! now my head hurts !

Hey Dave,

I believe that the rectangular imprint simply insures that the priming media actually does get crushed- I tend to reshape my firing pins to something similar- this tends to reduce the surface area over the spherical dome of the factory part.

Sorry for the brain ache.

I think I got it now, course that was what I was trying to say, but what I'm trying to say always get messed up by the time it gets to my mouth (or fingers in this case)