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To Moon Or Not To Moon? That Is The Question.

From the The Feral Irishman;

I recently came across this Colt M1917 revolver .45 DA (dual action). According to the serial number, it was manufactured in 1920. I had a couple of friends who advised me that buying “moon clips” for shooting the pistol was the route to go.

So, I ordered some steel ”full moon clips” from a seller on Ebay. I loaded one and handily dropped six rounds at once into the cylinder and thought this is going to be dandy.

Instead, I found the cylinder “binding” up somewhat and had to help it along to rotate into battery.

After shooting, I found the empty cartridges were a bugger to remove from the moon clips.

A little more reading convinced me that later models had been headspaced to allow firing of the .45 acp without the clips.

I tried it and it worked. Since the cartridge is rimless, I had to pull each spent casing with my fingernail and that was not too bad.

Some fellow wrote on a forum I visited that he had rather load his gun with individual cartridges and poke the empties out with a wooden dowel rather that “rassle” bullets into and out of the “moons” after firing.

I am beginning to think that man is correct. At this point I have not tried any of the “half-moon” three shot clips.

It is a good shooting gun to be nigh on one hundred years old. If anyone has any experience, antidotes, insight, etc. regarding these heavy but well built firearms, I’d be glad to hear it.

 

 

 

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