Although the .44 Special arrived in the closing days of 1907, it would remain for Elmer Keith to really make it a household name among sixgunners. From 1929 to 1956 he called it the “King of Sixguns” and several of his .44s including the “No. 5 SAA” as he called it are on display in the Elmer Keith Museum in the Boise, Idaho, Cabela’s. Keith worked for nearly three decades trying to convince ammunition makers to offer his .44 Special Heavy Load consisting of a 250-grain hardcast bullet at 1,200 fps, and if necessary he felt revolver manufacturers could come up with a new sixgun for this load.
He got a lot more than he asked for when the new .44 Magnum arrived and clocked out at nearly 1,500 fps. Both S&W and Ruger offered excellent sixguns for the new cartridge which was simply a lengthened .44 Special. Keith was so happy he retired his .44 Specials and used the .44 Magnum almost exclusively for the next 25 years.
The Drought Is Over!
It’s raining .44 Specials!
As I write this, it is the first month of the New Year and it is cold and snowing; however, it is also raining—raining .44 Specials. Suddenly it seems .44 Specials are everywhere, being offered by at least four American manufacturers in addition to imports and special limited runs by distributors. The .44 Special goes back over 100 years and has always been the connoisseur’s cartridge. The neat thing is more and more sixgunners are becoming connoisseurs. Anywhere thinking sixgunners gather, the .44 Special becomes a topic of conversation. If that’s not cool I don’t know what is!
Suddenly .44 Specials such as these are everywhere, including (from top left clockwise)
2nd Generation Colt New Frontier, USFA 3-1/2" Double Eagle, MG Arms Dragonfly,
Ruger’s Production Model .44 Special Flat-Top.
Skeeter’s Pick
Keith laid the .44 Special torch down in the mid-1950s, however, Skeeter Skelton picked it up in the 1960s carrying it for nearly 25 years. The following quote is from my Book of the .44, which is available at www.sixguns.com: “Once the .44 Magnum arrived, the .44 Special appeared to be doomed. Elmer Keith who had relied upon the .44 Special for three decades retired his Specials, took up the Magnum, and never looked back. The Smith & Wesson 4″ .44 Magnum even fit the same holster as his 4″ 1950 Target Model .44 Special. Keith was not the only one pushing the .44 Special aside. In 1966, along with several other great sixguns, Smith & Wesson dropped the 1950 Target .44 Special from its catalog.
“Another devotee of the .44 Special was Skeeter Skelton, and just as Keith he dropped the .44 Special in favor of the .44 Magnum. He swapped off his 5″ 1950 Target .44 Special and took up the 4″ .44 Magnum. However, Skeeter did look back and he longed for his .44 Specials realizing there was room for both .44s. He wrote in the March 1975 issue of Shooting Times, ‘With full loads the muzzleblast and recoil of the 4″ Model 29, while not as fierce as sometimes described, brought me to the conclusion that the .44 Magnum was not the optimum choice as a law-enforcement gun. While it is certainly true that one well-placed shot from it will anchor any man, there are other considerations… For law-enforcement use I returned a favored 1950 Target .44 Special with 4″ barrel to my holster. After reflecting on my experiences with the .44 Magnum, I even loaded the .44 Special down to a manageable 250-grain 900 fps rate that gave me good DA control and retained more than adequate stopping power. If you’re thinking that I quit the Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum, you’re wrong. It simply switched roles in my cast of handgun characters. The Model 29, in my mind, became an outdoorsman’s gun—perhaps the finest ever made for the handgun hunter. I soon learned that the 6-1/2″ and 8-3/8″ models performed better than the 4″ gun.’
“It would not be long until Skeeter would begin a campaign to resurrect the .44 Special… It was my good fortune to first meet him at the NRA Convention in Salt Lake City in 1978 when he was awarded the Outstanding American Handgunner Award. I had taken along a picture of a First Generation Colt Single Action Army with the barrel marked ‘RUSSIAN AND S&W SPECIAL 44.’ All I had to do was show him that picture without a word and he grabbed my arm and said, ‘Let’s go talk.’ I had found the way to his heart.”
Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton both left us in the 1980s. They are the most influential sixgun writers of all time and I make no pretense to coming even close to what they were able to do. However, I have done my best to hold up the torch for the .44 Special and judging on what I hear and see, there are a whole lot of .44 Special sixgun connoisseurs out there. It has never been easy to find .44 Specials even when they were standard offerings from Colt and S&W both of whom dropped the .44 Special when Keith and Skelton were still with us. Now in this second decade of the new century .44 Specials are easier to find than ever before.
I’m always on the lookout for a good .44 Special and suddenly they are appearing with definite regularity. Kull Auction which purchased Old Town Station Dispatch holds at least two auctions per year and I always bid on one or more sixguns. In the past year, I’ve won not one but two very rare .44 Specials.
I am a shooting collector. I do not pay collector prices for pristine examples; however, I am always looking for sixguns in excellent shooting condition. The first one was something I have been seeking for years, a Colt New Service 7-1/2″ Target Model. The only other one I have ever seen belongs to my friend and brother Allan Jones, who is now retired from CCI, but not before he edited the Speer Reloading Manual No. 14. I have been lusting after one of these Colt Target Models ever since I first shot his more than 20 years ago. The second auction found me the new owner of another 7-1/2″ Colt, a 2nd Generation New Frontier. Colt only made about 250 2nd Generation .44 Special New Frontiers split between 5-1/2″ and 7-1/2″ barrel lengths.
A Special Ruger
This morning my FFL dealer, Buckhorn Gun & Pawn, called to tell me a new gun had come in from Ruger. It turned out to be one of their new, standard production, Flat-Top .44 Specials, this one with a 5-1/2″ barrel. Not only is Ruger now offering the .44 Special as a standard production item, it is also built on the medium-sized frame of the original .357 Blackhawk which basically makes it the same size as a Colt Single Action. In fact, Ruger’s .44 Special and Colt’s New Frontier both fit the same holsters. Just before Christmas two other very special .44 Specials arrived, a 3-1/2″ USFA Double Eagle and the new MG Arms Dragonfly which is a 15-ounce .44 Special looking much like a Ruger Flat-Top Blackhawk.
The .44 Special Flat-Top Blackhawk is now a standard production item, as in 2009, Lipsey’s ordered a special run of 2,000 .44 Special Flat-Tops with production evenly split between 4-5/8″ and 5-1/2″ barrel lengths. They sold extremely well and there were many sixgunners unable to come up with one; now they can get one from Ruger.
New From Lipsey’s
Lipsey’s new offerings include not one, but two new versions of the .44 Special Flat-Top Ruger Blackhawk. One of these is just like the original .44s ordered by Lipsey’s, however, in stainless steel with a 4-5/8″ barrel. The other special Specials will be 4-5/8″ and 5-1/2″ barrel length Blackhawks; however, they will be fitted with Bisley parts—that is grip frame, grips, hammer and trigger will all be patterned after the Ruger Bisley Model parts. Later this year a group I started known as The Shootists, will be celebrating their 25th Anniversary and our special sixgun will be a 7-1/2″ .44 Special Ruger Bisley Model Ruger.
Readers can count on seeing all of these sixguns in future pages.
Freedom Arms continues to offer the excellent single-action Model 97 in .44 Special, while USFA not only offers the above-mentioned Double Eagle, but their Single Action and Flat-Top Target Model in .44 Special as well. Smith & Wesson has also offered several double-action .44 Specials in the last few years. We may have to work on Colt to not only chamber the Single Action in .44 Special but to bring back the New Frontier as well. Add in all the custom sixgunsmiths building .44 Specials and, although it took a long time, it appears the .44 Special is alive and well. May it ever be so.
Contacts:
Sturm, Ruger & Co.
200 Ruger Rd., Prescott, AZ 86301
(928) 778-6555.
www.ruger.com
USFA
445-453 Ledyard St., Hartford, CT 06114
(860) 296-7441
MG Arms
6030 Treaschwig Rd., Spring, TX 77373
(281) 821-8282
www.mgarmsinc.com
Smith & Wesson
2100 Roosevelt Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
(800) 331-0852
www.smith-wesson.com
