The original gun suffered from a weakness related to the design of the receiver. Under field conditions, the bottom plates, which were dovetailed into the gun's two side plates, tore out. An early fix was to attach a roughly horseshoe-shaped steel bracket around the rearmost part of the receiver. A later fix was to rivet "stirrups" (right-angled steel pieces) to the bottom and side plates. The stirrup fix became the standard reinforcement until a more permanent fix for the problem was developed. Another reported problem was bulging in the side plates, which was probably caused by stresses put into the side plates when hammering the dovetails closed. The 1917 also had a simple sliding safety that blocked the trigger when moved to the far right position. These were removed as part of post-war refurbishment.