Like Muley Gil says, that's just how things wuz back then. We didn't have no new S&W .44 Specials, Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet so we could find the few already made, SO we made our own. And we liked it.!!!

The late Robert Ballard made me one from a brand new Model 28-2 and a 4 inch S&W .44 barrel in 1977. He didn't countersink the chambers on mine. I wash he would have.

I sold it when it appeared S&W was going to produce a cataloged Model 24-3 and induced my efforts to get some of them.