.44 Smith & Wesson Special
Through the years, the lengths of a number
of cartridges have been slightly increased in order to produce new and more
powerful cartridges. The
.357 Magnum
case is an extra long version of the
.38 Special
case, and the .357 Maximum case is an extra long version or the
.357 Magnum
case. And so it goes with a trio of cartridges in .44 caliber. The .44 Smith
& Wesson Special case is a lengthened .44 Russian case, and the
.44 Remington
Magnum case was created by adding a bit of length to the .44 Special
case.
Introduced around 1907, the .44 Special was once far more popular than it
is today. Until the arrival of its offspring, the
.44 Magnum,
the .44 Special was sometimes loaded to chamber pressures considerable higher
than the Smith & Wesson revolvers it was available in were designed for.
Those heavy duty loads were one of the reasons Smith & Wesson teamed
up with Remington to produce the
.44 Magnum.
Even though the .44 Special is not as powerful as its magnum offspring, it
will still get the job done when handloaded for modern revolvers. A 240 grain
bullet fired from the .44 Special at maximum velocity from a 6-1/2 inch barrel
is only a bit shy of what the harder kicking
.44 Magnum will
produce with the same bullet weight in a four inch barrel.
For full power loads in the .44 Special, a 240 grain jacketed bullet pushed
along by H4227 or H110 is an excellent choice. One of the author's favorite
paper punching loads for this cartridge is 4.0 grains of
HP38 and a good
cast bullet such as the Bull-X 240 grain SWC.
Source: Hodgdon Data Manual, 26th Edition
© www.reloadbench.com 1999 - 2005 All Rights Reserved
|
|
 |
|