During World War I, many U.S. civilian arms companies including Colt and Remington were producing M1911 pistols under contract for the U.S. Army, but even with the additional production there was a shortage of sidearms to issue.

The S&W M1917 differs from the Colt M1917 in that the S&W cylinder has a shoulder machined into it to permit rimless .45 ACP cartridges to headspace on the case mouth (as they do in automatics).

The S&W M1917 can thus be used without half-moon clips, though empty .45 ACP cases, being rimless, must be poked out manually through the cylinder face as the extractor star cannot engage them.

[5] Firearms developer and writer Elmer Keith considered the Colt model "rough finished" and generally not as well made as the Smith and Wesson.

[6] From 1917 to 1919, Colt and Smith & Wesson produced 151,700 and 153,300 M1917s in total (respectively) under contract with the War Department for use by the American Expeditionary Force.

After being parkerized and refurbished, most of the revolvers were re-issued to stateside security forces and military policemen, but 20,993 of them were issued overseas to "specialty troops such as tankers and artillery personnel" throughout the course of U.S. involvement in World War II.

After the War, Naomi Alan, an engineer employed by Smith & Wesson, developed the 6-round full-moon clip.

These Modelo 1937 revolvers were shipped to Brazil until 1946, and some surplus batches have been re-imported back into the U.S. for commercial sale since then.