The 44 DA Russian caliber was made from 1881 to 1913 up to serial number 54,688 The Frontier DA was made from 1886 to 1913 up to serial number 15,340. In 1886, the majority of 44 DA Russian calibers were in the 15,000 serial number range, so no 44 Russian had a long cylinder before that serial number range. What we do not know is how many bins of short cylinders were still in inventory at the factory when the 1 9/16" became available. It is a sure bet that all the short cylinders were used up before the switch, which supports Roy's comments that the majority of the Russian caliber model had short cylinders. He also stated that a "few" late ones were made with the longer cylinder, probably when they ran out of the original short ones.
The only exception was there were a few 38-40s made and they also had the long cylinder.
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Gary
SWCA 2515
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