Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The .44 Special Ain't So Special?

The .357 was developed primarily for hunting, not for defense. Doug Wesson was the the driving personality pushing the .357 magnum, and he was all about field performance on game. S&W and many LE agencies were very happy with the performance of the .38-44 High Speed, and the ballistics of 1150 fps for a 158 grain SWC would tend to make a guy think that's something that's going to get the job done. But the .38-44 is a good deal hotter than any current .38 Special +P. So from a self defense/LE standpoint, that cartridge was working well. And even though the .357 was available after 1935, the .38-44 High Speed was loaded by all the big makers on up into the early '60's. Now admittedly the .38-44 while externally is identical to the .38 Special cartridge, it really is a different cartridge, because it was very gun specific. If you didn't have an N Frame S&W, or a medium or large frame Colt, then that cartridge wasn't recommended. In fact, you won't find any real evidence of any law enforcement agency using the .38-44 High Speed in anything other than those guns. Maybe some adventurous individuals, but not agencies.

Now that said, the self defense capabilities of the magnum were not lost on anyone, least of all S&W. So it obsoleted the .38-44 for both hunting and self defense.