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

Bingo! Just tryin to stir up the readers, Taffin had a counterpoint article in the same issue as I recall. A revolver version of the popular 9mm vs. 45ACP discussions back in the day. It apparently didn't fly well as it petered out quickly.

.38 Special standard pressure as originally loaded with a 158 grain lead round nose is just an obsolete cartridge, and dumb azz LE agencies just refused to recognize for decades how inappropriate that cartridge was. When developed the acid test for handgun performance was penetration through 3/4" or 1" pine boards. In that test the 158 grain LRN actually performed rather well, so everyone kept convincing themselves the .38 had the goods. And sadly it took about a generation for some LE agencies to wake up. NYPD used the round for something like 80 years!

Modern .38 Specail +P is a very different story. Heavy loads and good JHP's bring the .38 Special up to roughly 9mm-P performance when fired from similar barrel lengths. Which puts it into the adequate category, and that's about it. The .38 Special of today is finally adequate, nearly a century later!

.38 Special standard pressure as originally loaded with a 158 grain lead round nose is just an obsolete cartridge, and dumb azz LE agencies just refused to recognize for decades how inappropriate that cartridge was. When developed the acid test for handgun performance was penetration through 3/4" or 1" pine boards. In that test the 158 grain LRN actually performed rather well, so everyone kept convincing themselves the .38 had the goods. And sadly it took about a generation for some LE agencies to wake up. NYPD used the round for something like 80 years!

Modern .38 Specail +P is a very different story. Heavy loads and good JHP's bring the .38 Special up to roughly 9mm-P performance when fired from similar barrel lengths. Which puts it into the adequate category, and that's about it. The .38 Special of today is finally adequate, nearly a century later!

For some reason, people think that mass and energy matters when shooting a human being, but small calibers and shot placement means more on game…

I was out this morning doing some work.

Took some time and shot a couple of groups, using my .44 Special 240 hardcast SWC load that clocks at 900 FPS from a 5" barrel.

It gets the job done.

Glad to see you are continuing your streak of screwing up groups

IMO the last sentence should have read "In my opinion.", rather than "Just the truth.".

Most people can shoot the .44 Special better than they can the .44 Magnum because of the reduced recoil. The S&W 329PD is, shall we say, a handful when you shoot full power .44 Magnum loads in it with the original grips, while it is much more user friendly with 240 grain ammo loaded at 1,000 fps. A lot of 329PDs got sold because the people who bought them found the recoil to be uncomfortable. When I bought mine back in 12/05 it came with 40 rounds of .44 Magnum ammo. It appears that the previous owner gave up on it after firing only 10 rounds.

A lot of the more recent .44 Special revolvers have been 5-shooters that were built on smaller frames, like the Rossi 720 and Taurus 431/441. I have a couple of N-frame S&W 624s, a 4" and a custom 5", but don't use them very often as the Rossi 720 and 4" Taurus 441 serve my purposes just as well in a slightly smaller, slightly lighter, package.

I have had the forcing cones reamed in all of them, as I do with all of my shooter revolvers. Ahlman's tunes them and reams the forcing cone before I take them to the range for the first time. I see no need to waste ammo on a revolver before Ahlman's has worked it over.

Controversy produced clicks.

Here's mine. This pistol in a .44 MAG would be unpleasant.

Here's mine. This pistol in a .44 MAG would be unpleasant.

Here's mine. This pistol in a .44 MAG would be unpleasant.