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

A 44 Special is a 44 Magnum that’s still growing. 😁

Load and shoot .44 specials and appreciate the power without the kick

A 44 magnum is a grown 44 special

Maybe so, but a 41 Mag, now THEY .......are Special

BS.

I owned many handguns since the early 1970's. Buying a 44 special never happened and never will. Any advantage a 44 special has I can duplicate with my reloading.

41 Magnum is an excellent and often overlooked cartridge

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve had several 41s and all have been outstanding shooters. Right now I have one in a fluted cylinder Bisley and a mountain gun. Long been a favorite.

Now if you want really special, the 401 Powermag is your huckleberry. I’ve sure had a lot of fun with mine.

Good trick.
Personally, I’ve never been able to make a revolver smaller or lighter with my reloading...

And I've never been able to make a revolver kick less or shoot more accurately by going lighter

Never been a Triple Lock or 2nd or 3rd model Hand Ejector or Colt SAA chambered in 44 Mag from the factory either. Sometimes the package is more important than the goods inside.

This article and some posts afterward illustrates what wheelgun shooters "think" makes some cartridges stand out amongst all others.

The 41 Magnum has the least amount of bore, groove and cylinder throat variance among all makes and years of almost all common wheel gun cartridges. Groove is almost always .410/.411 and throats .411 to .412.

The 44 Special was pretty good dimensionally in S&W guns until after WWII, where throat diameters got larger, ironically they were the same in 44 Magnums from postwar to at least the mid eighties (432-434).
Colt 44 Specials could be decent, chambered and grooved to the 44/40 or a mismatched combination of either.

Rugers were better in 44 Magnum ( 429 groove/430/431 throats).
Colt 44 Mags were tight at .429/429/430.

Its all about dimensions. I've slugged Smiths of more recent make with .427 throats and .429 groove.
And 38's.....

The 41 Mag, the 32s and possibly the over 45 bores probably have more going for them to make them special over our more common clamberings, at least that I've found.

Of course one who fits those dimensional characteristics given a certain arm of a certain era finds they all shoot better than well with that understanding.

I agree and sold a Taurus Tracker, decent build quality, but it just did not float my boat in .41, yes, an excellent often overlooked round. I can imagine with heavier than normal bullets, it will really shine. Those who venture into that realm, need to understand twist rates vary among various revolvers and perhaps the TCs as well so as not to 'Mis-Match' a heavy bullet with a less than needed ROT. Btw, that Taurus would be likely limited to 210s or so. Having spent a bit of time with Ruger OMBH, they had an alloy frame and were lighter, handier than the steel frame models, but handled the 41 well. Seen chrono data that seemed to put the little 4 5/8 nearly equal of 6" Smith's - I assume the Rugers had a tighter gap, and perhaps the throating/forcing cone specs were factors. An anamoly perhaps, but more speed is a bonus and I never was a fan personally, of going real long on sixguns for speed, I used TCs for closed breech and maximum performance.

I can say a load of 9 grains of Universal Clays or thereabouts, with a 240 in a 44 Mag, seemed to duplicate a 10.5 Unique charge, metered much better and burned much cleaner, IME. That load yields around 1000 - 1050 fps, and will penetrate far more than many might imagine. Recoil and blast were very mild in the 4 5/8 super blackhawk - a SS/Non-fluted, granted it was no lightweight. Built like a tank.

Obviously weight can be good at the target range.
If you really don’t understand why a smaller & lighter revolver is sometimes appreciated then there’s no use trying to explain it...

I understand people want lighter to carry, but the flip side is in a big bore revolver that means more recoil and difficult to shoot accurately

Congratulations!
You’ve arrived at why the .44 special is special. In a gun built for it, you have a controllable & comfortable to holster carry rig. An adequately powerful big bore that is not an anchor & is not unpleasant to shoot.
Not my idea, read Skeeter Skelton or many others who bemoaned the loss of the lighter smaller .44 models when the Magnum was invented.

I like .44 Magnums & have many but I also like the .44 Specials for what they are, an elegant marriage of cartridge to envelope.

I have no particular use for 44 specials

Gun writers write articles to stir people up...........Helps sells magazines........Venturo's article is BS plain and simple.........Go back and read his history. he's always been a .44spl fan.

Believe nothing you read and only one half of what you see.

NOBODY dictates what I like or don't like.

I have a darling 4.6 inch Blackhawk in 44 special. It has balance in many ways. I have a few 44 magnum SBHs, ant the special gets more range time.

The great thing about the mags, you can download to special territory, but you can't do the reverse.

JWP - I agree. Also, that weight issue applies to rifles IME, you get too light, and they are harder to put rounds in the zone from field positions, and that applies to handguns. No doubt recoil can be aplenty with light weight in rounds like 44 Rem Mag....a M29 with Keith loads was a handful, 4" - I definitely have no interest in say the Mountain Guns or the newer M69, just me. Yes, a loaded N Frame will weigh on a belt over time, but one can select a say shoulder holster if desired.

Terry, later on I found I enjoyed my 44s when loading 1,050 level loads with 240s, or even 200s at 1200. My first 44 was a SBH Bicentennial model, 7.5", never warmed up to me...I think the 5.5 would have been more to my liking. Certainly liked a OMBH in 41, 4 5/8. I would not want that light alloy frame in a larger bore however - not with heavy loads.