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Last Updated: Aug 28, 2009 - 10:45:21 AM |
The perfect packing pistol?
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It's no secret that we're in the golden age of handguns...if you want it, it's for sale somewhere out there.
At least, usually.
Ocasionally, however, there's an itch that a manufacturer just can't
scratch, and that where the custom pistolsmith comes in. And nowhere is
that itch more prevalent than with the star-crossed .44 Special
cartridge.
The .44 Magnum's little brother is the most written-about, most
talked-about, and most revered sixgun cartridge in history. No less
than the twin sixgun saints Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton decried the
.44 Specials as the ne plus ultra of revolver cartridges...accurate
beyond any rational concept of accurate, able to be loaded 'way down ot
'way up, perfectly suited to the two finest fighting wheelguns ever
made — the Colt Single Action Army and the S&W Triple-Lock.
The Bowen Mountain Gun and it's M-21 big brother
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Here's the catch, though — ever since Remington, S&W and Bill Ruger
sucked it up and launched the .44 Magnum, the Special has been in
steady eclipse. Every few years executives from one or more of the gun
companies start reading the gun mags — or, these days, the
Internet...say sixgunner.com — see eloquent pieces from the spirtual
heirs of Keith and Skelton and suddenly say, "Hey! Let's bring out a
new .44 Special; it'll sell like hotcakes!"
They do and it does...to me, John Taffin, Clint Smith and a few hundred
other True Believers. Then the Specials just lay there on the gunstore
shelves, pining away in their metallic minds for the Good Ole Days
while embarrassed executives try to explain their .44 Special mistake
to the bean-counters.
That said, the .44 Special is everything Keith, Skelton, Taffin, etc.
said it was — powerful, accurate and, for the reloader, forgiving. It
has for years been my choice of a trail gun, usually in the form of an
ultra-light S&W 296 butt-ugly snubby or 396 Ultra-Lite Mountain Gun.
Those two guns, while light (in the case of the 296, almost too light!)
and accurate, are limited to 200-grain or less bullets, both for wear
and tear on the Scandium-framed guns and the tendency of heavy bullets
under sharp recoil to de-crimp themselves and risk locking the gun up.
The 200-grain limit, while not an issue in a self-defense gun, limits
its use as a trail gun, since much of the .44 Special's sterling rep is
based on heavier 250-grain Keith-style bullets.
yeah, you could always fish around the Internet for an S&W Model 24
big N-Frame .44 Special, vintage mid-1980s, but the problem is that the
24 is the same as the legendary "...most powerful handgun in the wolrd
and will blow your head clean off..." Model 29 .44 Magnum. If you're
going to carry the weight, you might as well cart the Magnum version.
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A couple of years ago, Clint Smith from THUNDER RANCH did the
impossible, which is convince Smith & Wesson to go back in time and
build a retro-gun, a 4-inch fixed-sight blue steel N-frame .44 Special,
essentially a rebirth of the older classic Hand-Ejector .44 Specials of
the early part of the 20th Century. I got one of the new .44 Specials,
and I enjoyed shooting it...but I got that itch.
From a field/trail standpoint, the fixed sights were a disadvantage, as
was the heavier N-frame. In the late 1990s, when S&W was cranking
out a new gun every month, they produced a stainless steel 5-shot .44
Special on the slightly smaller, round butt/adjustable-sighted L-frame,
dubbed the M-696. I thought this was about the coolest revolver I'd
ever seen, but it took me a bit to hustle up the bucks to get one.
I liked it a lot; the three-inch full-underlugged barrel pointed and
shot well for me, especially with 200-grain or so loads. Unfortunately,
that was in my gun-trading days, and someone wanted that 696 more than
I did. So I let it go (along with a pristine M-24 .44 Special Lew
Horton custom 3-inch). The only thing I can claim is a bout of virulent
"1911 fever" — I was shooting IPSC competition pretty heavy then, and
the hardware was darned expensive!
After spending a bunch of time (and rounds) on the new M-21 N-frame and
a couple of other of my .44 Specials, including the 3-inch stainless
Taurus 441, another marketplace failure that is very close to a 696, I
got a feel for why I'd been too willing to let the 696 go — it's a spec
too big to be a real snubbie and a spec too small to be a great trail
gun...sort of stuck betwix and between.
And that got me to thinking...what did I REALLY want in a .44 Special?
So I started outlining my ideal .44 Special packing pistol. I'd want an
L-frame like the 696, but with a 4-inch barrel. Ideally, I wanted one
of the "Mountain Gun" profile barrels — thinner and, to my hand, with
better balance than the fatter standard 4-inchers. All steel so I'd
have no probelms with heavier loads...a decent sight picture...great
trigger job...nice looking, in keeping with the earlier classic
S&Ws.
I took this list to gunsmith Hamilton Bowen, who you've seen on
SHOOTING GALLERY (and, yes, you can buy the DVD!), and he said, "No
problem...just give me your credit card number and a box of parts."
Those parts included a M-686 .357 "donor gun," which would supply the
frame and the Hogue grips; a M-696 5-shot cylinder and hand purchased
from Brownell's and a .357 "Mountain Gun" barrel purchased directly
from S&W.
Hamilton had the barrel rebored to .44 Special, fit the cylinder and
hand to the donor frame, made sure the timing was on the money ("Sort
of a pain," Hamilton said), did his signature flawless trigger job (SA
2 pounds; DA 11 pounds) on the gun, added a set of his "Rough Country"
S&W front and rear sights and his signature lanyard ring, plus a
whole series of Bowen "touches" — a chamfering the front of the
cylinder, for example, to give the revolver a more classic look; roll
marking the barrel ".44 S&W Special Ctg." in the older, smaller
style.
The result is a gun that looks every bit as classic as the old
S&Ws, shoots amazigly well with both heavy and light loads and is
perfectly suited as a packing pistol. The tall front sight is pretty
much on for heavier weight bullets...when I settle on my final regular
load, I'll fit the sight accordingly. I can't argue with the
accuracy...look at my 10-yard groups!
I've fired several hundred of the 240-grain flat point lead Winchester
cowboy loads, plus about 50 200-grain SilverTips and a selection of
other Special loads I had squirreled away, all with pretty much equal
excellent results. The Bowen "Mountain Guns" points as well or better
as any revolver I own, and the balance in my hand is just about
perfect. I love Bowen "Rough Country" sights, because it gives me a
nice flat-blade "Bomar-esque" sighting plane.
This is a gun that really makes you want to shoot it! Yesterday on the
range I was surprised that I ran out of .44 Specials, since I'd bought,
like, 600 rounds with me. Where'd the tme go?
I am going to get a prettied up set of Hogue wood grips for the
Bowen...it deserves that. If I was going to keep it by the bedside,
yes, we'd go for the CT LaserGrips, just like the ones on my M-296
snubbie!
Holsterwise, I'm having two made up — one a "Tequila Hunter" rig from
Kirkpatrick, a leather crossdraw based on my friend Tequila's excellent
cowboy competition rig, and the other a Kydex holster from Chris at
Ready Tactical. I'll have a 12-round set of loops on the leather rig
and several of Chris' world-class speedloader holsters for the plastic.
We're planning to put together a Tactical Revolver class to film for
SHOOTING GALLERY, and I plan to alternate between the M-21 6-shot and
the Bowen 5-shot just to get a feel how the two guns work under
pressure...that'll make for a great show!
And thank you, Hamilton, for producing another classic sixgun!
Smith & Wesson
http://www.smith-wesson.com/
Bowen Classic Arms
http://www.bowenclassicarms.com/
Hogue Grips
http://www.getgrip.com/
Kirkpatrick Leather
http://www.kirkpatrickleather.com/
Ready Tactical
http://pistolpacking.com/
Crimson Trace LaserGrips
http://www.crimsontrace.com/
© Copyright 2006 by DOWN RANGE TV
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