I see the last post was over a year ago, but wanted to add another tidbit. My dad sold sporting goods on the side (including FFL) when he lived and worked in Yakutat Alaska in the early 70s. I would visit and we'd hunt and fish and target shoot. It was the era of Model 29s not being available, but I was persistent and willing to wait to acquire one. I told him what I REALLY wanted was a matched pair of 8 and-three-eights in nickel. It was not a really serious search for a while, then one one visit when I broached the subject again, he said "Here's what you want," as he whipped open the full color brochure of Harry Sannford's AutoMag. Well as a 22 year old I was sold and finally got it a year later (they were slow on delivery as is common knowledge). Well that thing was (still is) GREAT, so I was content. A few years late he and I were shopping in Anchorage and we saw that they had TWO model 58s in PayNSave, which was mostly a drug store, but sold a wide variety of items. So we each took one, and had lots of fun shooting together. I was aware that the ballistics were similar to the model 29, and when people would start up with the comparisons, I'd just change the subject to Automag.
I still love shooting the Model 58 and found when ammo of all sorts was scarce in early 2013, that it always seemed that .41 mag was on the shelf, when nothing else was available. I reminded my buddies that it was because the .44 was more popular. I reload so it didn't really matter, but I keep an eye out for private sales of .41 ammo because I can usually strike a pretty good bargain. I used to also reload .44 for a buddy who had a Ruger, but did not want to reload himself. He would bring over empty brass, I would reload with varying bullets and charges till he got what he liked. I still have and occasionally use the dies he bought, but I don't like doing it at the same time as .41 or .45 Colt because of the similar sizes of the cases and don't want to try jamming a larger one into a smaller die, LOL. The model 58 with one of my favorite loads makes plenty of noise (for scaring bears, not shooting them) has a big ball of fire, and tends to send the lead towards the small black circles on the paper.
Cheers for S&W fans everywhere!