Double action 44 mag.

[po18guy]

This has been going on long enough. Truly, the most usable and even collectible D/A .44 is rather difficult to find and one pays a price when they are encountered. It can be none other than the...please hand me the envelope...the German engineered, final assembly in a remote Florida double-wide...
RG57! "Ask the man who owns one, if you can find him."

 

[OldBroad44]

Congratulations, @Wombat of Doom . You really could not go wrong with any of the guns you were considering. But when one follows ya home...or whispers lusty things to you as you try to walk by...well, that's that. Decision is made. No looking back.

 

[Ura-Ki]

Congrats on the Colt, a FINE CHOICE among the many, You will LOVE it!

 

[MikeInOr]

I am very pleased with my Dan Wesson 744! The muzzle brake can be used with any of the barrels. When I carry it I usually put the 2.5" barrel on it but the 4" is a nice quick barrel too. The 8" and 10" barrels are really hunting barrels which is where the scope mount is handy. The single action pull is as good or better than any S&W I have ever fired. The double action pull is kind of heavy because it takes less trigger travel to get a shot off. Barrel swaps take about 2 minutes and I frequently do swaps at the range. Adding / removing the muzzle brake takes about the same amount of time. The 744 will handle any hot load a Ruger will handle but I stay with standard pressure loads.

MPS03754 (Medium).JPG

• MikeInOr
• Aug 13, 2023

My Desert Eagle L5 is about half the weight of the standard 6" barrel Desert Eagles. The L5 has a 5" barrel. I have a 44 mag barrel for it but I usually shoot 50ae. I can't really tell any difference between 44mag and 50ae recoil in the DE and both are considerably less punishing than a 44 mag revolver.

DanWasson and DesertEagle.jpg

• MikeInOr
• Apr 17, 2023

 

[Wombat of Doom]

I always put rubber grips on my .44s. With my 6" Anaconda with rubber grips I could shoot .44 mag ammo up to about 1000 ft. lbs. without the gun stinging my hands. Above that it did sting, and I wore a light weight cotton mitten on my hands. The sting wasn't bad. But that sting represents nerve damage, temporary or permenent. Unpredictably.
Iably. I don't mess with it. I only shot standard pressure .44mag in my Anaconda. Up to about 1200 ft. lbs. However, according to the info at Buffalo Bore Cartridges, the Anaconda is fine with their .44mag +P loads.

If I wasn't anaphylacticly allergic to rubber, rubber grips would make so much sense. Since they leave me needing an inhaler and an EpiPen, I will stick with wood grips. Might mean I need to keep my loads in the lighter range for normal use and make some spicy carry loads. But that's why I need different grips. It isn't a preference thing, for me it's safety.

 

[coop44]

shot a s&w model 24 for years, with spicy reloads. Never a problem. 44 magnums are fun, but for a nice afternoon of target shooting and plinking specials or mild magnum are a good choice for my arthritic hands. Out of loyalty I would love to say get a 29 or 629, but, A red hawk or a cassull would be a fine choice.
Actually now I am thinking about a 44 barrel for my contender.

 

[OldBroad44]

shot a s&w model 24 for years, with spicy reloads. Never a problem. 44 magnums are fun, but for a nice afternoon of target shooting and plinking specials or mild magnum are a good choice for my arthritic hands. Out of loyalty I would love to say get a 29 or 629, but, A red hawk or a cassull would be a fine choice.
Actually now I am thinking about a 44 barrel for my contender.

Though I'm usually loyal to .44, with a Contender I think I'd go for the .45 Colt. That way I could also fire 410 shotgun shells.

 

[coop44]

Though I'm usually loyal to .44, with a Contender I think I'd go for the .45 Colt. That way I could also fire 410 shotgun shells.

I gotta meet you someday, I will let you play with my 45's.
Contenders are really more fun in rifle calibers with short barrels, they define the term "hand cannon"

 

[Bobbygun]

shot a s&w model 24 for years, with spicy reloads. Never a problem. 44 magnums are fun, but for a nice afternoon of target shooting and plinking specials or mild magnum are a good choice for my arthritic hands. Out of loyalty I would love to say get a 29 or 629, but, A red hawk or a cassull would be a fine choice.
Actually now I am thinking about a 44 barrel for my contender.

Try before you buy, if you can. I've read an awful lot of negative (even though oftentimes hilarious) comments by folks shooting .44 magnum Contenders. Especially the ten-inch barrels. I've never fired one in that caliber. I did shoot the 14-inch version with the .45 LC/.410 barrel using both rounds. It wasn't too bad.

 

[oremike]

Try before you buy, if you can. I've read an awful lot of negative (even though oftentimes hilarious) comments by folks shooting .44 magnum Contenders. Especially the ten-inch barrels. I've never fired one in that caliber. I did shoot the 14-inch version with the .45 LC/.410 barrel using both rounds. It wasn't too bad.

I didn't care for the 44 mag in the light 10" barrel but the super 14 has enough beef to tame the recoil down. These days I'd still rather shoot my Redhawk.

 

[The Heretic]

If I wasn't anaphylacticly allergic to rubber, rubber grips would make so much sense. Since they leave me needing an inhaler and an EpiPen, I will stick with wood grips. Might mean I need to keep my loads in the lighter range for normal use and make some spicy carry loads. But that's why I need different grips. It isn't a preference thing, for me it's safety.

Then do NOT get one of the lightweight revolvers. The S&W 329 PD is painful with rubber grips, and no one who has shot one recommends using anything but rubber grips.

 

[WAYNO]

I've owned or shot most .44's. They all work well, and all are accurate. But, the 629 fits my hand the best of any, so it's my favorite.


The shorter barrel Super Blackhawks in .44 are a very close 2nd, and I carry them more often than the 629.


.

 

[P7M13]

If I wasn't anaphylacticly allergic to rubber

Holy crap! That must make life difficult at times.

 

[WAYNO]

Is there any actual rubber in most rubber grips? I thought they were synthetic.

 

[OldBroad44]

Try before you buy, if you can. I've read an awful lot of negative (even though oftentimes hilarious) comments by folks shooting .44 magnum Contenders. Especially the ten-inch barrels. I've never fired one in that caliber. I did shoot the 14-inch version with the .45 LC/.410 barrel using both rounds. It wasn't too bad.

I was at one point attracted to the idea of having a contender with various barrels, including one in .22 and one in .44 or .45. But when I handled a Contender at a gun show I noticed that the Contender design put my hand way below the line of sight of the barrel. Yipe! I didn't even wanna think about what the recoil would be like with full power .44mag loads. Generally the farther below the barrel your hand is the more the recoil takes the form of torque, twist, and flip rather than just a polite push rocking your hand(s) up briefly. I decided the idea of having a .44mag Contender was likely to be way more enchanting than shooting it would ever be.

A classic Chinese story is about a Chinese nobleman who was very into dragons, which are traditionally lucky and not malevolent in Chinese tradition. The nobleman had pictures of dragons all over his house and statues of dragons all over his lakeside property. And he loved telling stories about dragons. Now it so happened in the lake lived a huge dragon. And the dragon was rather lonely. He knew that the nobleman liked dragons however. So one day when the nobleman was taking a stroll on the path around the lake, the dragon decided to step out and introduce himself. So the dragon quietly came up on the path behind the nobleman and accosted him politely. "Ahem." The nobleman turned, saw the dragon, screamed, and ran off as fast as he could. And behind him the lonely dragon stood and said mournfully, "You only liked the idea of a dragon. Not a real dragon."

Shooting is an area where I save myself a lot of money buying guns I never use by remembering the difference between liking the idea of something and the real thing.

 

[Wombat of Doom]

I'll be honest, the colt and Smith both felt like perfection. The ruger felt bomb proof.

 

[Wombat of Doom]

Is there any actual rubber in most rubber grips? I thought they were synthetic.

I can vouch for a couple, that have rubber for sure, and certain synthetic rubbers can trigger my allergy.

I love contenders and encores, but as rifles. I have an sbr form on one currently underway on my encore. I thought the idea of a 50ae encore pistol sounded like a good idea. It wasn't. I will get about an 8-10 inch 44 encore barrel. But for an sbr.

 

[Wombat of Doom]

Holy crap! That must make life difficult at times.

It actually does a lot. But I have known of it since I was 3, when I took the most pain filled object and attempted to erase my older brother when he punched me. See, I thought the eraser erased everything and that's why my skin bubbled up and came off when I touched it. So when I came at him and attempted to erase his face when punched, he was thoroughly amused.

 

[Wombat of Doom]

Then do NOT get one of the lightweight revolvers. The S&W 329 PD is painful with rubber grips, and no one who has shot one recommends using anything but rubber grips.

Never would I get one. I had a ruger lcr in 38 that stung a lot worse than full power loads out of the 454. I tend to lean towards heavy revolvers for that reason.

 

[The Heretic]

I can vouch for a couple, that have rubber for sure, and certain synthetic rubbers can trigger my allergy.

Is this a latex allergy?