Introduced back in 1907, it was based on a cartridge Smith & Wesson had already gotten a lot of mileage from--the 44 Russian. S&W simply lengthened the 44 Russian to the length of the 38 Special.
Introduced in such fabled guns as the S&W 44 Hand Ejector, better known as the Triple-lock, it was not an instant success largely due to ammunition then available. The only loading was either the Remington or Winchester ammo with a 246 grain round nosed bullet at around 750 fps. These
loads were less powerful than the old 45 Colt of the time.
However, by the late twenties and into the thirties there came a group of shooters that called themselves the "44 Associates." They shared loading data and other info via mimeographed newsletters. One of the members in that group was a gunwriter known as Elmer Keith. Keith eventually devised heavy loads for the 44 Special that hit 1,200 fps. He used the older balloon head cases of the time with 18.5 grains of 2400 powder behind his own design 240 grain SWC bullet. Even with modern cases and a drop to 17.5 grains of 2400 (due to the smaller case capacity of the modern cases) it is a formidable load.
For close to thirty years Keith and the other 44 shooters had bugged the ammo companies to bring out his load that Keith dubbed the "44 Special Magnum." However, the gun companies were hesitant to bring out the powerful load with all the older handguns around in that caliber. Finally he got the nod from Remington that they would make 44 magnum ammo in a longer case if Smith& Wesson would build a new gun for it. Smith & Wesson eventually expressed mutual interest and the 44 Magnum was born in 1955 with guns arriving in to customers in early 1956.
However, this would also lead to an eventual drop in popularity for the 44 Special. With shooters able to fire the 44 Specials in their 44 Magnum revolvers demand for 44 Special guns ebbed to the point where Smith & Wesson dropped them all in 1966. That might have been the end of the line for the cartridge except for another gunwriter--Skeeter Skelton. Through the seventies and early eighties Skeeter praised the virtues of the 44 Special. He even did articles of how to build your own gun since factory 44 Special revolvers were scarce guns to find. He used older 3 screw flat top Rugers in 357 magnum and had the cylinders reamed out to 44 specs and swapped the barrels to 44. This resulted in a lighter, more compact gun than the 44 Magnum Rugers. For the Smiths he used the M28 Highway Patrolman in 357 and did the same gunsmithing treatment resulting in duplicating the M24 44 Specail which is a lighter, handier gun than the M29 in 44 Mag.
This caused enough demand that Smith & Wesson eventually brought out a reissue of the 1950 Target M24 in 44 Special in 1983. With a limited production run of these 4" and 6 1/2" blued M24's Smith & Wesson eventually brought out a run of stainless 4" and 6 1/2" m624'S as well. Also, Lew Horton (a large distributor at the time) enlisted Smith to build 3" M24's with round butts and soon after the same configuration in stainless M624's. The M24 pictured here is one I got back in 1983 when they first came out. At one time, when I was in my collector mode, I owned both the blued and stainless versions in all the barrel lengths. Unfortunately, I sold most of them before Smith revolvers started their huge escalation in prices.
The Ruger pictured is a reissue of the old flat tops and was from the distributor Lipsey's. They came out in 2009 but proved popular enough for Ruger to make them as a regular catalog item. Using a slightly smaller frame than the regular Blackhawk, they also use the old XR3 grips which are similar to the Colt SAA and New Frontier.
I shoot these guns using Skeeter's old load of 7.5 grains of Unique behind a 240 grain bullet. It doesn't beat you up and it allows you to make neat little cloverleafs on your targets for as long as your ammo supply holds out and you do your part.
