Originally Posted by The_Real_Hawkeye
Originally Posted by TheKid
Extra weight helps tame the vicious recoil of the mighty 38 special cartridge. 1948 production 4” 38/44 Heavy Duty
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There's one of those up for sale at the pawn shop down the street, in like new conditions (with box), for about two grand. Nice guns, but being chambered in .38 Special (and being N-Frames) has always made them a deal-breaker for me, however.

I bet, however, that you could load up some .38 Special to Magnum levels, and that big gun could easily handle it.
I bought both my Heavy Duty and my Outdoorsman when they were the unwanted stepchildren to S&W collectors. I gave $400 for the HD and $200 for the OD.
I’ve shot 173gr Lyman Keith bullets at 1175fps out of them and it’s pretty much exactly like shooting factory 357 ammo out of a M27 or 28. Certainly doesn’t give the impression that it’s straining the revolver.

But I haven’t found much that I do with a 38/357 revolver that I can do with that load that I can’t do with the same bullet over 5.5gr of Unique. The best side benefit is that the milder Unique load doesn’t ring your ears as badly as the 357 level stuff.