When it comes to the .44 Special I sort of came late to the party. I had been shooting the .44 Magnum for some time and finally decided that it was time to start reloading to defray the cost of my shooting addiction. My magnum hunting load was straight out of the Gospel According to Elmer Keith, 250gr SWC and a substantial amount of 2400 powder. My woods-bumming load was the same bullet over Unique powder that I discovered from reading Skeeter Skelton. In order to keep from getting the two different loads confused with each other, I began to buy .44 Special cases to use in constructing the Skeeter load.
As you can imagine, I quickly realized that Skeeter’s .44 Special handload didn’t deserve the status of understudy. It was a good, accurate load that was perfectly capable of standing on its own merits. I began to cast around for a suitable .44 Special revolver. Alas, they were hard as hard to find as gold is in the Pecos River. I finally settled on an original Flat Top Ruger Blackhawk, .44 Magnum, that was in need of some TLC. I had a gunsmith cut the barrel to 4 5/8-inches, tune the action, and have an Armaloy finish applied. This, then, became my woods-bumming revolver while my 7 1/2-inch Super Blackhawk was reserved for actual hunting trips. That cut-down Blackhawk, stuffed with .44 Special loads, soon accounted for a lot of game…javalina, wild turkey, feral hogs, and even whitetail deer when in season. A few years ago, I gave it to a friend to encourage him in his efforts to become a gun writer.
The .44 Special has been around since 1907. But most of that time it was under powered for serious work, be it hunting or personal defense. Over time handgunners began to show interest in the cartridge and the ammo companies began to come up with a little bit better .44 ammunition. It was a little bit better but not a lot because major ammo companies are just naturally afraid that someone will damage an old gun and blame it on them. They didn’t use to be that way before they started associating with lawyers.
At any rate, today some of the smaller ammunition crafters are building some really decent .44 Special loads. I refer you to High Desert Cartridge Company, Underwood Ammo, and Grizzly Cartridges, to name three. And, of course, if you’re a handloader the world is your oyster and there are hundreds of high performance .44 Special loads to choose from and select what works best for you.
A few years ago I got a nice .44 in a gun trade with a good friend. On the one hand, he had an 8 3/8-inch S&W Mod. 29-2 that was too long to be useful to him and, on the other hand, he was able to find a 6-inch Mod. 24 barrel. These went down to Alan Harton.
Harton cut the Mod. 24 barrel to 4 inches, mounted a good post front sight, and installed it on the Mod. 29. Then he tuned the action and reblued the gun. I don’t know if you’d call it a custom Model 24 or a blue steel Mountain Gun, but one thing’s for sure…it will shoot. Although it will still chamber the magnum cartridge, as far as I’m concerned it’s a .44 Special sixgun.
Another great .44 Special that I have and use regularly came about when we set out to honor Skeeter Skelton. John Wootters had a 3-screw .357 Blackhawk that had been converted to .44 Special for Skelton; unfortunately Skelton died before the work was completed. In the course of the conversion, the serial number was legally removed by Bill Grover and the new number became SS1.
John Taffin and I agreed that more should be built. Getting the blessings of John Wootters and Sally Skelton, Skeeter’s widow, we decided to have six more of the guns built. Bill Grover, Texas Longhorn Arms, built mine using an original Flat Top .357 and marking the gun as SS5. Among other niceties, it sports an original King mirror ramp front sight and aged Tru-Ivory stocks. For a long time I just admired the gun, figuring it was too valuable to me to actually shoot it. But then I realized that Skeeter would have told me that was a stupid idea…guns are made to shoot.
That Ruger has quickly become a favorite companion. So, when you run into me out in the Tall Uncut, afoot or horseback, this is the gun I will undoubtedly be carrying. And you can bet that it will be stuffed with a good lead SWC bullet running about 950fps.
Based upon its accuracy and usefulness, I would nominate the .44 Special as America’s Cartridge. I can’t imagine keeping house without one.
By: Jim Wilson