The seldom-seen 8-3/8" .44 Special
- Thread starter Tom K
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Never saw one before.
Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting.
Art Doc
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
Can you be more specific? Exactly what model is it?
THE PILGRIM
Member
Me neither! Never even heard of one.
Nice gun.
Nice gun.
shouldazagged
Absent Comrade
That's gorgeous.
OP
Art Doc
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
Again, what model is it?
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I don't see a caliber rollmark on the right barrel (and can't recall a factory 8 3/8" .44 with a tapered barrel)...so my guess is a model 27 conversion to .44 Special.
muzzleblast
Member
That sir, is a work of art. You should nickname it, "Rembrandt".
Thanks for sharing...
MB
Thanks for sharing...
MB
handejector
Staff member
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I'm thinking a Mod 27 barrel and a drill..........
On what- a 28 or 24-3?
On what- a 28 or 24-3?
And a .357 cylinder and a reamer.
Very interesting!
You're doing a good job keeping us in suspense.
I'm trying to figure it out too.
Special order?
There doesn't appear to be checkering on the barrel rib?
Please tell.
John
Scoundrel and Ne'er-Do-Well in Training
You're doing a good job keeping us in suspense.
I'm trying to figure it out too.
Special order?
There doesn't appear to be checkering on the barrel rib?
Please tell.
John
Scoundrel and Ne'er-Do-Well in Training
Vulcan Bob
Member
I don't much care what it is, I like it!
OP
Busted! I was waiting for someone to call me out on this.
Art Doc was obviously suspicious but cautious enough not to call me a dirty lying dog right away. It's been a long and expensive road to get to this, but I started out with what I thought was a much more modest plan.
I own two Model 24-3s with the 6-1/2" barrel. I thought it would be nice to have one with an 8-3/8 barrel as my eyes don't focus as closely as they used to, and that's about the length of barrel that I need to still have the front sight in focus without glasses. (Actually even that's not long enough now!) So I thought I'd find a Model 27 barrel in that length, have it rebored to .44 and then swap it out on one of my Model 24s. Simple and relatively cheap, and I should be able to return the gun to original condition, right?
In January 2012 I found a barrel on the S&W forum classifieds and bought it. I thought it would be good to have the caliber mark changed on it so I borrowed a ".44 S&W Special" stamp from a forum member and took it and the barrel to a local gunsmith. He removed the original .357 caliber marking, stamped it .44 Special and reblued it.
Trouble is he didn't do a very good job - the stamping was crooked and not very deep. Regardless the work was done so I paid him and sent the barrel off to Jim Dubell of Delta Gun Shop in Washington, who seems to be about the only person doing reboring these days. That was in March 2012.
I got the barrel back in April 2013, just over one year later. So I started looking at the Kuhnhausen shop manual for S&W and decided that swapping out a barrel was probably more than I wanted to take on as a first-time project. Besides, I was still bothered by the crooked stamp on the barrel - it would have to be remarked again and reblued and I didn't know how well that would match up with the existing bluing on the Model 24. I didn't really want to reblue the entire gun as that would destroy any collector value.
So - since I already had the barrel and I was going to have the entire gun it was installed on refinished, why not use a beater gun that needed refinishing? Trouble is there are precious few beater Model 24s out there. But there are ample Model 28s that could use a refinish, so I bought such a specimen off of Gunbroker in May 2013, a Model 28-2 from about 1967-68.
Of course now I needed a gunsmith to do the cylinder reboring, installation of the barrel and overall refinish. I didn't really trust the local guy since he had bungled the caliber stamp and I figured that since it had turned into a project I might as well go with the best, so I sent the whole shebang to Andy Horvath in May 2013. He did the barrel swap and polish and refinishing, including re-casing the hammer and trigger, and installed an appropriate front sight. It came back just today, Oct 9 2014 so I haven't shot it yet. The stocks are from a Model 29-2, I only put them on for picture purposes as I dislike S&W target stocks for actual shooting.
Next project - the seldom-seen 8-3/8" K-32.
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Art Doc
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
I sort of figured it was custom built. I would not have use for an 8" 44 Special but it's a pretty gun and quite a conversation piece.
