Origin
The .44 Magnum cartridge was the result of "souped-up" handloading of the .44 Special. The .44 Special, and other big bore handgun cartridges were being loaded with heavy bullets pushed at higher than normal velocities for better hunting performance. One of these handloaders was the late Elmer Keith, a famous writer and outdoorsman of the 20th Century.[2]
Elmer Keith settled on the .44 Special cartridge as the basis for his experimentation, rather than the larger .45 Long Colt. At the time the selection of .44 caliber projectiles for handloaders was better, and the .44 Special case was smaller in diameter than the .45 Long Colt case—in revolvers of the same size, this meant the .44 caliber revolvers had thicker, and therefore stronger, cylinder walls than the .45. This allowed higher pressures to be used without risk of a burst cylinder.[3]
Mr. Keith encouraged Smith & Wesson and Remington to produce a commercial version of this new high pressure loading, and revolvers chambered for it. While S&W produced the first prototype revolver chambered in .44 Magnum, the famous Model 29, Sturm, Ruger actually beat S&W to market by several months in 1956 with a .44 Magnum version of the single action Blackhawk revolver. The exact reason for this is lost in legend; one version says a Ruger employee found a cartridge case marked ".44 Remington Magnum" and took it to Bill Ruger, while another says a Remington employee provided Ruger with early samples of the ammunition.[4]
The .44 Magnum case is slightly longer than the .44 Special case, not because of the need for more room for propellant, but to prevent the more powerful cartridge from being chambered in older, weaker .44 Special firearms.[3]
The .44 Magnum was an immediate success, and the direct descendants of the S&W Model 29 and the .44 Magnum Ruger Blackhawks are still in production, and have been joined by numerous other makes and models of .44 Magnum revolvers, and even a few semi-automatic pistols, such as the Desert Eagle. While modern steels and manufacturing techniques have allowed even stronger cylinders, leading to larger and more powerful cartridges such as the .454 Casull, and .480 Ruger, in revolvers the same size as a .44 Magnum, the .44 Magnum is still considered a top choice today. In 2006, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the .44 Magnum Blackhawk, Ruger introduced a special 50th anniversary Blackhawk revolver, in the original .44 Magnum "Flattop" style.
Technical specifications
The .44 Magnum delivers a large, heavy bullet with high velocity for a handgun. In its full-powered form, it produces too much recoil and muzzle blast to be suitable for a police weapon, and is likely not very suitable for shooters of smaller build or with small hands.
Some gun styles are more comfortable to use when shooting this caliber. Single-action revolvers, with their rounded grips and longer hammer spur are designed to pivot upward toward the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger when being fired, which can cause injury if not guarded against with a firm grip. Double-action revolvers, like the Anaconda in the photo, the S & W Model 29 and the Ruger Redhawk, have a shoulder on top of the grip that helps prevent such pivoting, channeling the recoil more rearward under a shorter hammer spur. In any case, barrel porting and longer, heavier barrels help hold the gun down when being fired.
Dual use of the .44 magnum
The dual-use concept has been popular since the Old West with cartridges like the 44-40 Winchester, whose "High-Speed" loadings were a sort of precursor to the .44 Magnum. Other dual-use rounds were the 32-20 Winchester, the 38-40 Winchester, and the more recent .357 Magnum.
From the start, the .44 Magnum handguns were designed to tolerate the high pressures this cartridge produces. Some past dual-use handgun/rifle cartridges, like the 44-40 Winchester, gave their manufacturers trouble and occasional lawsuits when people loaded the "High-Speed" versions designed for rifles into handguns.
This was one of the reasons why the .44 Magnum casing was lengthened so it would not chamber in .44 Special revolvers. Some high-quality .44 Special weapons could accept the high pressures of the new cartridge, but other older guns would be damaged or destroyed. The lengthened cartridge abated this concern.
As a rifle or carbine cartridge the .44 Magnum is reasonably powerful yet compact and not bulky. The lever-action Marlin Model 1894 and Ruger 96/44 carbines, with 20-inch and 18½-inch barrels respectively, are currently available in this caliber. In a short-barreled rifle such as this Marlin, the Ruger 96/44, or the out-of-production bolt-action Ruger 77/44, about 300-to-400 feet-per-second extra velocity can be expected. It is far better on deer and other big game than the .357 Magnum. However, the .357, also available in the Marlin Model 1894C carbine, is said by some to be more versatile as it covers small and medium game better and has less recoil (although recoil in a 44 rifle is considered negligible by many).
Suitable game
It was and still remains a very fine and popular short-range deer, black bear, wild pig and other North American big game cartridge, but it is on the light side for elk or moose, and adequate against a brown bear only with precise shot placement at relatively close ranges. It is easy to reload, very accurate, enjoyable to shoot if one can tolerate the recoil, and universally available in the United States.
This cartridge has a natural home in single action revolvers like the Ruger Super Blackhawk and some autoloading handguns like the Desert Eagle. The single-action designs tend to "rear up" when fired and tame the recoil a great deal, while the gas system of the autoloading weapons absorbs and buffers recoil significantly.
Range
The .44 Magnum is a splendid short-range big game cartridge in a various short, handy rifles, especially in heavy brush or timber, out to about 150 meters. Past that, the trajectory is too steep for easy hits on game, as the short, fat bullets have poor aerodynamic shape.
Still, many shooters like it as they can thus have a rifle and a handgun in the same cartridge, making logistics easier. It is popular in rifles within these limitations for big game. It will also work well for coyotes and animals in that class, though it is rather expensive for that purpose versus lesser cartridges.
Many handloaders will load lighter than factory loadings for other purposes and for target shooting.
.44 Magnum in popular culture
This cartridge was made notorious through its use by the "Dirty Harry" character in the Clint Eastwood film of the same name. However, it was not then and is not now "the most powerful handgun [cartridge] in the world." Nor is it in any realistic sense a practical police cartridge, though some persons do favor it for personal protection purposes. In the film Magnum Force, "Dirty" Harry Callahan admits to using light .44 Special loads, due to their reduced recoil, even though his gun can handle magnum loads. It has been said the .44 Magnum was not even used by Clint Eastwood when filming. The actual gun used was reportedly either the Smith & Wesson Model 57 in .41 Magnum or the Model 25 in .45 Colt, due to the unavailability of the S&W Model 29 at the S&W factory.
However, Harry's pistol was in fact a Model 29. An article in Guns Magazine explained that, although the revolver was not being made at the time, the factory still had a stock of repair parts from earlier production runs, and one was custom-built for the film. Close-up photos from the film clearly show the Model 29 configuration.
Travis Bickle used the .44 magnum cartridge in the 1976 film Taxi Driver to dispatch the less desirables of New York. Upon purchasing this revolver, the salesman states that "It'll stop a car at 100 yards, put a round right through the engine block." Obviously, this is not true. Large caliber, high velocity rifle rounds are capable of penetrating such thick metal as is present in an automobile's engine block, but not a far less powerful pistol round such as the .44 magnum. This is just another example of the many popular culture descriptions of this cartridge that highly overstate its power.
The Model 29 also made an appearance in the 1990 thriller Blue Steel starring Jamie Lee Curtis as rookie cop Megan Turner who happens upon a market being robbed by a man with a .44 Magnum pointed at the clerk. She sneaks up on the robber and empties her service revolver into him, causing the big gun to go flying down the aisle and to land next to a customer cowering on the floor. Eugene Hunt, played by Ron Silver, surreptitiously slides the weapon under him and makes off with it, terrorizing Turner and those around her for the rest of the film. A gaffe of note in the movie: Eugene is hiding in Megan's bathroom. He reloads the .44 with fired cases (the primers are clearly dented), folds a towel over the barrel and shoots her partner Nick Mann (Clancy Brown) without waking Megan in the adjoining bedroom.
A .44 gun is mentioned in many popular songs. Some notable examples are Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Fire on the Mountain by the Marshall Tucker Band, the country standard Cocaine Blues, So Much More by Fat Joe,Tin Pan Alley by Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Fistful of Steel by Rage Against the Machine. However, some of these songs were written before the .44 Magnum round became famous, and may refer to firearms using .44-40, .44 Special or other rounds.
The 'generic' .44 caliber, if not this cartridge, has a long history. A 'famous' epitaph on a grave marker in the 'Boot Hill' graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona reads: "Here lies Lester Moore, four slugs from a .44, no Les, no more".
This cartridge also appears in multiple video games such as in the Fallout series.
Synonyms
- .44 Mag.
- .44 S&W Magnum
- .44 Remington Magnum
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