How to make a 44 Special out of a 357 HP??

[ElmerKeith]

In John Taffin's " Book of the 44" he mentions an article by Skeeter Skelton who started and obviously finished the project in making a 44 Special out of the 357 Highway Patrolman.

I do not know when or where this article was published but does anyone here in this form have access to this article and would be so nice to share it with me/us as a jpg or pdf?

It's hard to find a 24 or 624 in 44 Special but there are lot's of HP around here at very reasonable prices in Germany.

Thank you very much!

 

[jimmyj]

In the 1970s Model 28s were turned into .44mag by installing a .44mag cylinder and barrel.
IIRC Skeeter had the original cylinder and barrel bored out to .44spl.

 

[Frank46]

Think it was in Guns and Ammo magazine where these articles appeared. Frank

 

[Doug M.]

I'm guessing that doing so from Germany would be darned tricky if not impossible, but I would just have Bowen do it. I suspect that a good gunsmith could do that pretty easily, but it may be a skill set that is not commonly developed outside the US.

 

[Muley Gil]

These articles appeared in Shooting Times magazine in the 1970s. Skeeter was the Handgun Editor. The .357 cylinder was rechambered to .44 Special and an original .44 Special 1950 Target barrel was used.

At other times, the original .357 barrel was either rebored to .44 or was relined to .44.

I remember these articles well, as I had a M27 rebuilt. I found an original barrel and Walker Arms in Selma, Alabama did the work. This was in the summer of 1976. I carried this revolver as a police duty gun for several years.

I later (2005) had David Clements shorten the barrel to 5" from the original 6 1/2" and reblue it. It is a tack driver.

Alan Harton in Houston did a M28 to .44 Special conversion for me as well. It was also a good shooter, but I sold it a few years ago.

 

[pakm]

model 28 to .44 special

a gunsmith friend found three .44 smith barrels, in the white, very rough, but marked. these were new barrels(not finished). I gave him a 2inch model 28 and a couple of months later he gave me a 6 1/2, model 28, blued, 3.5 lb trigger revolver that the accuracy has to be seen to be believed. He changed out the barrel after smoothing it out and bluing it. he bored out the cylinder to .44 spl. did a trigger job on it, re-blued the whole gun to match and gave it to me. we put it on a Ransom rest at a range in Beaumont Tx. and six shots gave us a 1 1/2 inch group at 50 yards. This was in about 1970 or so. and yes, I still have the pistol and yes, it's still very accurate, or as much as I can see and/or shoot. I shoot it and the heritage models only double action , they are that smooth.
I have other smith and Wesson, I love the model 57's (I have two of them) a couple of the heritage models(one in .44 spl and the other in .45 LC) and yes, an original model 28 with 6inch barrel.
several 586 and 686's I really like the "L" frame also.
I just picked up a commintral model 544 in .44-40 with a 5 inch barrel this pistol is also a very accurate revolver.
ok, I like Smith and wesson revolvers I might have to trade into a 7 or 8 shot revolver some day soon.
Pat

 

[faraim]

Elmer Keith, the conversions I am familiar with involved purchasing .44 or .45 barrels, installing them on the HP frames and boring/ re-chambering the cylinders. In Germany you might have better luck having the barrel re-lined with a .44 caliber barrel liner. Before beginning you'll need to carefully check the depth of the locking slots over the chambers. As you know these are centered over the thinnest part of the chamber walls and yours may be too deep for the conversion. If that is the case, then you'll need to locate a .44/.45 cylinder for the conversion. Barrels and cylinders come up for sale on this site and some of the auction sites such as Gunbroker, and Auctionarms. There are a number of used parts dealers that can be found if you dig around on the internet. Of course there is Ebay, but they are anti-gun. Good luck with your big bore obsession, I've been told it can be treated with liberal doses of dopplebock.