.44 Special (Handloader issue 320)

The .44 Smith & Wesson Special appeared in the early twentieth century and became closely associated with the large-frame Smith & Wesson revolver. Its ancestry includes the earlier .44 Russian, linking the new Special designation to a cartridge already respected in the nineteenth-century revolver world. The .44 Special developed its own commercial identity in sporting arms and ammunition, eventually becoming one of the names most strongly associated with American big-bore revolver traditions.

The Smith & Wesson Triple Lock is an important part of that early story. Its reputation among revolver enthusiasts helped make the .44 Special more than simply another catalog chambering. Later Smith & Wesson models continued the association, and sporting writers gave the cartridge a lasting place in discussions of revolver accuracy and field use. That history extended across several successive generations of firearms rather than depending on the continued production of its first famous model.

Elmer Keith’s enthusiasm for the .44 Special became a major part of its twentieth-century literary identity. His writing contributed to the broader story that eventually led to the .44 Magnum. The arrival of the Magnum did not erase the older Special from sporting interest. Instead, the two names became connected chapters in revolver history, with the Special retaining a dedicated audience of its own. The archive should preserve that older identity rather than treating it solely as a footnote to the later cartridge.

This table comes from Handloader issue 320, published in June/July 2019. Its original notes identify a Smith & Wesson Mountain Gun and a Ruger Super Blackhawk. The two revolvers place the table in more than one manufacturer’s sporting tradition and more than one action type. The Mountain Gun description connects with Smith & Wesson’s double-action lineage; the Super Blackhawk name connects with Ruger’s single-action family. These are source-specific associations preserved by the table itself.

The compilation contains two entries, making it a compact part of the magazine’s later record of the .44 Special. Small compilations still carry meaningful historical distinctions when they identify particular firearms and publications. Here, the table links a cartridge rooted in the early twentieth century with later revolvers and a dated specialist magazine source. Its complete heading and original rifle-or-revolver notes keep that connection visible among the many other .44-caliber records. The result is a separate published chapter in the continuing history of the .44 Special and the sporting community that maintained an interest in it.

Read the original source: Handloader issue 320.

Source: Wolfe Publishing.