They had the same lack of heat treatment as the 44's of the era...plus there was more meat and no bolt notch directly above the cylinder, even in 45 Colt. Elmer wasn't a New Service fan.
Never said Elmer blew a 44 Special; plenty of others chasing his tail and using his loads wrecked perfectly good guns doing so.
Mike Venturino knew Elmer and as a young lad "chased his tail"...ask him about using "Elmer loads" in a 44 Special, or even the 38-44.
Elmer ditched blunt heavyweight 44 slugs because they lacked accuracy and had high trajectory at long range, no lack of killing power. The 45 Colt gave the same results.
He was loading the 45 Colt to 1,100 fps and the 44 Special to 1,200 with the same weight bullet. The 44 obviously shot flatter, penetrated better, but darned if it didn't cut as large of a hole...adding more powder didn't change this.
