The .44 Special ain't so special?

[NFrameFred]

I'll tell you what's not so "special" - gun magazines and the price they ask for them now.

I used to take a couple of subscriptions to AH and G&A but they couldn't keep my interest with the "1911 flavor of the week" and gushing rhapsodic about the latest polymer wonder. Add that to the fact that they found my renewal check long enough to cash it on more than one occasion but "didn't have any record of the payment" when it came time to send the magazines, necessitating letters and phone calls to folks who didn't seem interested since, after all, they already had the money.

Hadn't bought one in years and knew I was in for an extended wait at the hospital one day for some tests so I stopped by a magazine rack to see what was available. Same old names, same old article types ("9mm vs. 45 - the controversy destroying our nation !") but what the heck . . . . then I noticed the price. Forget that - nothing in those pages I need to see bad enough to pay news stand price for.

 

[feralmerril]

I was a heavy reader as a kid in the 50s up untill the last 5 years or so. I must have threw out a shed full by now. Somewhere I have the very 1st guns & ammo put out. I like only the old classic guns anyway. I dont blame the newer writers as much as some of you do. Elmer and those guys were popular when the rags were just starting to get heavy. Anything they wrote back then was new to most of us! Now its impossable to write something new we havent already read on older guns dozzen of times! Think about it, unless you are young and just getting interested in guns, there just isnt anything "new" about the older stuff. About the only breakthrough thing comeing might be practable caseless ammo that the power is caked or something where the guns dont have to eject at all! That would change everything. Also maybe a electric button trigger for super trigger control---- oh, I seen that tried 40 years ago too! And on that caseless ammo----they had that in the civil war! Oh well, maybe someday----Maybe a ray gun?

 

[rburg]

Hey Feral, I'm actually ahead of you! I'm so cheap I don't throw much of anything away. There are times I think I invented cheap (but my lurking buddy, Joe feels he's the master of cheap.) If I paid good money for a gun rag, I kept it. I'm not as bad as my departed father and father-in-law, but I try. I still have their American Rifleman mags from the end of WWII to the present (mine.) And over the years I've even bought some prewar editions to add to the collection. Once, when my oldest son was young, we went shopping over in town. I purchased a couple of boxes of Shooting Times and Guns and Ammo from the 1960s and 1970s. I paid the princely price of 1/2 of retail, less a discount because I bought so many of them.

The point is, I can still go down into the Powder Magazine (aka gun room) and read some very good and well written articles. Probably better stuff than is being written today, but with out the incentive to make today's advertisers keep buying pages.

Yes, everyone who has subscribed to magazines has had the hassle with them taking your money and then not sending your mags, or worse, sending you 2 of them for a few months because they just started new subscriptions instead of adding on your payment to the old.

It does make me feel better to know others have the same problems. My solution was to just not bother reading them at all. And when the snow flies and I feel sick, I can just go sit in a warm room and read the articles from the past. Research projects I call them.

 

[feralmerril]

This is slightly off thread, but I enjoy telling it! I was about 13 years old, (1954), my family went to a sports show in green bay, wisconsin. A guy called me over to a booth and said he wanted to GIVE me a subscriptin to some unknown magazine as they were just starting out. It was something like minnesota fur and game? Anyway he asked I just pay postage. In those days the major sports rags were like a buck and half a year with postage. I said sure, and got out my wallet thinking he might want a buck. He wanted something a lot more, maybe 4 bucks! I foolishly paid it as I didnt want to look like a fool!
I found my dad and confessed. He said, show me that guy! My dad watched from about 15 yards off as the guy worked his scam on a couple of grown men, who timidly paid like I did after they got out their wallets! Then dad walked by, guy called him over and started the con job. Dad got out his wallet and said sure, how much is the postage? Guy told him, dad acted like he come unglued and bellered, WHAT?, why ya rotten crook! Ya belong in jail! etc. I wanted to crawl off! Dad was 6ft 5"s, and usualy the queitest man around! We walked off as the huge crowd had shut up for 30 yards in each direction, and was gawking at us! I just knew we were going to get throwed out! Then, a guy in a suite called at pa to hold up! I noticed he had on a paper badge that said SHOW OFFICAL!
He came up to dad and said, "I want to shake your hand big guy! We been trying to figure how to get him out of here! He is legal and nothing we can do about it! I loved that!"

 

[M29since14]

Mike V...(whatever his name is) is a hot air hold-over from the once wild west!

(Those of you who are 50-something or > will recall that Elmer K. was once unceremoniously dubbed "a hot air hold-over from the wild west," I believe by Charlie Askins himself.)

(This paraphrase of Askins' remark is not meant to be any particular compliment to MV. Just struck me as fun to throw out. )

Puffery!

 

[Walter Rego]

I read an article about the .44 Special a few years ago titled something like "What makes the .44 Special Special". I don't remember the author either, but his point was that there was nothing inherently more accurate about the cartridge, but that it had based it's reputation for accuracy on the quality and mechanical accuracy of the guns that had been chambered for it. He was of course probably writing about Triplelocks and Model 1950's but it made sense. I think a good analogy would be the .223 out of a milspec AR-15 platform vs. a good Remington 700 Varmint Special. One shooter would say the .223 is a 3 MOA cartridge, the other a 1/2 MOA cartridge. I was surprised that Venturino didn't have better results with his S&W's and I agree that he was just stirring up the pot.

 

[tennexplorer]

I guess this is inaccurate. It's 12 rounds at 25 yards single action from a rest from an 80 year old gun.

Maybe I cheated because I temporarily put modern grips on it.

There's a little thing called load development.

 

[Muley Gil]

"I guess this is inaccurate. It's 12 rounds at 25 yards single action from a rest from an 80 year old gun."

SHOW OFF!!!!

Give me back my .44 caliber pencil!

Seriously, Old Burt is a pretty good shot, as his target demonstrates.

 

[rburg]

Its interesting how we draw conclusions. Just as interesting how some people with press access are somehow believed. I like a pretty story as much as the next person, but I realize the short comings of using one person's flawed experiences to try to extend over all similar things.

One of the watershed moments in my life was when my friends, Joe and Cuz tried to make a race truck. OK, maybe they drank too much, and were a little light (to be kind) in their mechanical ability. But after buying and building a couple of motors with not so spectacular results, they both concluded "you can't make a truck run." What they really were saying was they couldn't, but they tried to extend their conclusion over everyone because they were the most competent engine builders in the world. Well, kind of.

Just because Venturino, an overweight baffoon, can't shoot well with them doesn't necessarily extend to the rest of us.

One of my favorite 44 special stories, which means very little in the overall scope of things (or the quest for world peace, or a cure for cancer), but is at least as valid as Venturino's experiences. I have a buddy. He never could shoot well. He did like guns a lot. And in the past, he had a good job with lots of money to throw around.

He was one of the new generation (maybe he's 50 now.) For him, it was modern guns, with semi-auto being the weapon of choice. For about 20 years, he always was coming up withs something better. Even I thought his throwing money at a problem was fun. And he came up with some very interesting guns, including some automag's, etc. But they were less than spectacular in his hands. Usually less than serviceable. If I had an open choke shotgun that shot as poorly as his favorite of the day, I'd dump it. But to his credit, he continued to try.

Then one day, a while back, maybe 8 or 10 years ago I just decided I had way too many guns and it was time to put my collection on a serious diet. I just arbitrarily decided to sell off about 20 guns that no longer interested me. In that group was my 24-3 Lew Horton 44. Don't know why, probably because I was buying Mountain Guns and it just seemed expendable. I didn't even tell this friend about my sell down, but I told another mutual friend. Of course he appeared on my doorstep the following day with a fist full of money. He wanted my .30 Carbine crap, and he brought along the friend who was semi-auto all the way.

The friend for whatever reason, fell in love with my 44. I was hesitant to sell to him, just because I didn't want a nice gun to fall into the "wrong" hands. But he tendered money, so I sold. And I gave him a baggie full of ammo to shoot, if only because I knew he only had 44 mags from his one semi-auto. And that was the time our CCW law passed and he wanted to practice.

I was sure the shooting portion of the class would be his downfall. He had to hit the target 11 of 20 shots at 7 yards. I know for a fact that would be a challenge for him with any of his semi-autos! But for whatever reason, he took the cute little N frame to the range. And he came back with the best target, by far, of any he'd ever shot. Caliber didn't matter, he couldn't do that well even with a 22! We're talking a respectable 6 shot group that maybe covered 5" or so (at 7 yards, I know, maybe not great by your standards.) I flat didn't believe it, and neither did our mutual friend. He went along for the next shooting session - yep, repeated.

So from all that, I/we can conclude that in Murphy's hands at least, the 44 is a deadly weapon. Showing superior accuracy to all the 44 magnums, 9mm's, 40s, and .45 ACP he's tried to use over the last 35 years I've known the guy! Take that, Venturino. And it proves absolutely nothing, except that one person can shoot well with it. And Venturino's drivel proves only that he can't shoot with it. Nothing more or less.

 

[Joe Kent]

Guys, I will tell you what has happened, Mike's article has generated 5 pages of discussion by a group of very knowledgable gun guys and has probably caused some of you to either buy or at least read his article. I am not personally aquainted with him but I have 3 very good friends who are friends of his and they have the utmost respect for his knowledge and ability. For my friend Jag312, the next time you're tossing them off the pier , at least give me time to get my mask and snorkle. All my best Joe.

 

[44forever]

From my experience

In 40-odd years of reloading, the most exasperating pistol cartridge I have encountered was the .44-40 (followed not too closely by the .38 super). The .44 Special, on the other hand, is a nice, straight walled case with a reasonable capacity. It is forgiving as to bullet weight (165 to 255 grains), powerfull enough for ordinary handgun chores and the revolvers I have owned chambered for it have been quality weapons.

It handles self defense with the old school idea of a large caliber bullet of substantial weight with enough velocity to achieve adaquate penetration. When this cartridge was developed, pistol bullets weren't expected to expand - bore diameter was what you got.

Will the special do everything the magnum will do? No. Will a factory 200 grain hollowpoint expand like a 9mm+P? No, and it doesn't need to do so. On the other hand, the .44 special can easily match the bullet weigh and velocity of the 40 S&W that seems so popular now and with a bullet that is 13% larger in diameter before you factor in the expansion.

As a matter of personal preference, I would much rather be armed with a model 24 S&W than any of todays polymer wonders.

Gun writers today make their living selling advertising and few manufacturers are making .44 specials. Perhaps that's for the best as I shudder to think what some of them might do to a fine old cartridge.