"I've owned a couple of both (Bulldogs and 696s) and my experience is different than yours. The Bulldog speed loader from HKS did not fit well at all in either of my 696s. The cartridges had to be forced outward, binding them in the speed loader and making turning the knob difficult."

Dave:

I just retrieved my 696 from the safe and tried it. With the only 5 shot .44 Spl. HKS loader I have, with W-W round nose lead ammo, it worked in my gun. The speed loader would drop the cartridges into the chambers until the little metal piece in the center of the loader contacted the rear end of the ejector rod assembly, and they release okay. There is a little resistance when you first get the bullets into the chambers because they sort of sag towards the center of the loader when it is held verticle, and they have to "straighten out" until they get what looks like parallel with each other before the loader will go in all the way. I guess if might be a fiddly deal with SWC bullets, but they should work, too.

My loader is of the old, original HKS design, which lets the bullets wobble around some. They are not held in place tightly like the later, improved loaders do (like the 10-A). Yours may well be different.

I have shot up a couple of Charter Arms Bulldogs. The first one took a pound of Unique, 7.5 grains at a time, to ruin it. The forcing cone never broke but the frame stretched considerably, the cylinder migrated forward until it rubbed on the forcing cone and the frame was cratered on the bolt face around the firing pin hole. At the end, the primers flowed into the crater and made the cylinder about impossible to rotate with the trigger; I switched to thicker cupped large rifle primers to shoot it. It was stupid of me but it was the first handgun I handloaded for and I learned from my mistake. The second gun was never fired with anything but factory ammo or handloaded equivalent and it is still fine. They were strong enough for what they were intended for, the newer guns may be stronger. I bought these 2 in 1976. They were $89.50 out the door then on sale. I wanted a S&W .44 Special badly but in those days, unless you were really lucky, connected or rich, you had to make your own from something else!