The .44 Smith & Wesson Special, also commonly known as .44 S&W Special, .44 Special, .44 Spl, .44 Spc, or 10.9×29mmR, is a

smokeless powder Finnish smokeless powder Smokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to black powder. Because of their similar use, both the original black powder formula ...

center fire metallic revolver cartridge developed by

Smith & Wesson Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (S&W) is an American Firearms manufacturer, firearm manufacturer headquartered in Maryville, Tennessee, United States. Smith & Wesson was founded by Horace Smith (inventor), Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson as the ...

in 1907 as the standard chambering for their New Century

revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...

, introduced in 1908.Hawks, C
"The .44 S&W Special"
Chuck Hawks website. Accessed February 25, 2008.

Development

On the late 19th century American frontier, large .44- and .45-caliber cartridges were considered the epitome of

handgun A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun, long barreled gun (i.e., carbine, rifle, shotgun, submachine gun, or machine gun) which typically is intended to be held by both hands and br ...

ammunition for self-protection,

home defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in tim ...

, and hunting. Black-powder rounds such as the .44 American, .44 Russian, .44 Colt, .44-40 Winchester, .45 Schofield, and .45 Colt enjoyed a well-earned reputation for effective

terminal ballistics Terminal ballistics is a sub-field of ballistics concerned with the behavior and effects of a projectile when it hits and transfers its energy to a target. This field is usually cited in forensic ballistics. Bullet design (as well as the veloci ...

, accuracy, and reliability.Taffin, J
"Sixguns Beyond The .44 Magnum"
Sixguns.com Web site. Accessed February 25, 2008. At the start of the 20th century, Smith & Wesson decided to celebrate by introducing a brand-new revolver design which they called the New Century.Taffin, J
"The .44 special cartridge of the century? Accurate, powerful and reliable, the .44 special really is special"
American Handgunner, September–Oct, 2004. Accessed February 25, 2008. Smith & Wesson wished to pair their new revolver design with a worthy new ammunition chambering. At the time, smokeless powder was state of the art in ammunition technology. Older black-powder ammunition was in the process of being converted to smokeless. Smith & Wesson's popular .44 Russian cartridge had established a reputation for superb accuracy and was a renowned target load, and they decided to use an improved smokeless powder version as the basis for the new round. Due to the lower

energy density In physics, energy density is the quotient between the amount of energy stored in a given system or contained in a given region of space and the volume of the system or region considered. Often only the ''useful'' or extractable energy is measure ...

of the early semi-smokeless powders, prior efforts to convert the .44 Russian to smokeless had produced less than stellar ballistic performance. Smith & Wesson addressed this issue by lengthening the .44 Russian cartridge case by and increasing the powder capacity by . The resulting design, which S&W called the .44 Special, had a case length of .

Ballistics

Unfortunately, the

ballistics Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets and the like; the science or art of designing and acceler ...

of the new cartridge merely duplicated the bullet at statistics of the .44 Russian, when the powder capacity of its case would have supported performance rivaling that of the .45 Colt and close to the .44-40. Nevertheless, the .44 Special retained its progenitor's reputation for accuracy. The SAAMI maximum pressure standard for the .44 S&W special is .

The .44 Associates

Almost from its introduction, firearms enthusiasts and cartridge handloaders saw that the potential of the .44 Special chambering was far from being realized and by the end of the 1920s were loading it to much higher velocities than factory standards. Led by articles in firearms periodicals penned by gun writers such as

Elmer Keith Elmer Merrifield Keith (March 8, 1899 – February 14, 1984) was an American rancher, firearms enthusiast, and author. Keith was instrumental in the development of the first magnum revolver cartridge, the .357 Magnum (1935), as well as the la ...

and Skeeter Skelton, a loose cadre of enthusiastic fans who called themselves the ".44 Associates" formed. Trading information such as .44 Special handloading data and tips regarding the conversion of revolvers to .44

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge ( ...

, they promulgated the belief espoused by many firearms authorities and experts that the .44 Special chambering is one of the best overall in the handguns.Skelton, C
"The .44 Special - A Reappraisal"
Shooting Times Magazine August 1966. Accessed February 25, 2008.

Elmer Keith and his Magnums

Elmer Keith, one of the most famous and popular firearms related authors at the time, developed a number of classical heavy handloads for the .44 Special; many are still highly regarded today.Taffin, J

Sixguns.com website. Accessed February 25, 2008. He also championed the concept of higher powered big-bore revolvers with Smith & Wesson and

Remington Arms Remington Arms Company, LLC, was an American firearms manufacturer, manufacturer of firearms and ammunition. It was formerly owned by the Remington Outdoor Company, which went bankrupt in 2020 with its lines of business sold to several purchase ...

, eventually leading to the development of the .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and .44 Magnum. Keith's suggested designation for the proposed .44 caliber round was the ".44 Special Magnum," but when Remington Arms developed the cartridge they chose to name it the .44 Remington Magnum. Nonetheless, the new cartridge was developed directly from the .44 Special design by simply lengthening the older case by .125 inch. Remington's stated rationale for the making of this change was to preclude higher pressured Magnum loads from being chambered in .44 Special revolvers.

Usage and loadings

The hype and excitement surrounding the introduction of the .44 Magnum in the mid-1950s eclipsed the .44 Special, causing it to fall in popularity with firearms manufacturers. They offered fewer models chambered for .44 Special for several years. Recently the .44 Special has experienced something of a resurgence, since many firearms enthusiasts have realized that the heavy recoil of the Magnum round is "too much pistol" for many applications, and the heavier and more bulky revolvers chambered for it are not as convenient to carry. Another factor fueling the .44 Special's comeback is its ability to fit in the longer chambers of the .44 Magnum revolvers, much like the .38 Special fits in the longer chambers of the .357 Magnum. This makes the .44 Special cartridge an attractive alternative for reduced velocity target shooting and plinking. The popularity of

cowboy action shooting Cowboy action shooting (CAS, also known as Western action shooting, single action shooting, cowboy 3-gun, and Western 3-gun) is a competitive shooting sport that originated in 1981 at the Coto de Caza Shooting Range in Orange County, Califor ...

has also helped pique interest in the .44 Special, motivating manufacturers to offer modern and reproduction firearms chambered for this classic cartridge. A variety of factory ammunition loadings are available in .44 Special, including bullet weights of at various velocities. Special high performance terminal ballistic loads are also offered, such as the Hornady JHP,

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

Silvertip JHP, Speer Gold Dot JHP, Federal LHP, Cor-Bon JHP, and various other jacketed hollow point and soft point designs.Cassill, M
"Feeding the Gunblast Bulldog - A Study in Terminal Ballistics"
Gunblast website. Accessed February 25, 2008.

References

External links

Ballistics By The Inch .44 Special results
{{DEFAULTSORT:44 Special Pistol and rifle cartridges Rimmed cartridges Smith & Wesson cartridges