I think this a perfect place for a support group, so....
Hi, My name may be "MakeMineA10mm" but I have a serious addiction to anything with the name "44" in it.
I've owned, shot, reloaded, casted, and been generally totally enamored with 44s since nearly before there was a 10mm, going on 30 years now. I began shooting the 44 Magnum in 1983, and I've never looked back. I blame this mostly on growing up reading Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton. Now, Skeeter was a 357 Magnum man, but he had deep affection for 44s, especially the 44 Special, as I'm sure you all know. Elmer Keith, well.... Do I need to say anything?!?
I know I'm not alone, here, right? Do you guys keep going back and re-reading through Gun Notes, Hell I Was There, Sixguns, and Skelton's articles in old Shooting Times?
One of the stand-out things about Skelton and Keith was their particular likes or "druthers" in their sixguns. Skelton liked the 5" barrel on the N-frame, and Keith liked the Magna stocks and 4" barrel on his 44s (both Specials and Magnums). They also both liked single-actions, good gun leather, and purpose-driven modifications or "enhancements" to their pistols. (Keith's #5 maybe being the most extensively modified between the two men.)
Now, here's my main gripe (as you could tell by the subtitle of this thread):
Guns have changed some since these two icons were around. One of the points these men made, was that the 44 Special has a benefit of being a lighter gun than the 44 Magnum. A few people in the industry in modern times "get it" and have ran with that idea, albeit in a limited edition (Lipsey's Ruger 44 Specials) or a semi-custom gun (Freedom Arms Model 97). I hear Ruger has added the 44 Special Blackhawk (357-sized medium frame) to it's regular catalog, and even though it's expensive and there's a wait, Freedom Arms will still make a 44 Special 97. So, I'm pretty happy with the state of single actions.
It's the double-actions I'm more than a little disappointed about. (Yes, Smith and Wesson, I'm calling you out!) S&W almost made it. They came awful darn close to making a perfect DA 44 Special with their Model 696. The trouble was, it had a really thin forcing cone. So, sticking with the L-Frame idea to make it smaller and lighter, but attacking that forcing cone issue, they messed around with the 2-piece barrel system and some heat treating, and pretty soon, they realized they could chamber the cylinder for 44 Magnum safely. I'm sure the marketing department got together with the bean counters and decided that they should run with that idea, as the Magnum label appeals to more people and we 44 Special aficionados would load it down anyway. A classic example of not giving us what we want, but what they think will sell and telling us to like it or go away...
Here's what would be better (IMO, FWIW):
-- Start with the L-Frame, but give it the old, square-butt, longer grip frame. Base it on the new Model 69, so it has a stronger, larger-circumference breach ring for the forcing cone area of the barrel. (See below.)
-- Chamber it in 44 Special.
-- Go back to the old-style, front of ejector-rod lock-up system (which was only changed on the new Model 69 because of the pressures of the 44 Magnum; chambering it in the Special precludes the need for the new system).
-- Use a traditional-looking, 1-piece barrel. By traditional-looking, I mean - a tapered barrel like was used on the M24 with the thin, lighter barrel walls, and the thin, profiled ejector rod housing (not the full-round, lopped-off ejector rod housing you've been putting on all L-frames that seems to give me the impression a troll in the basement with a dremel tool cut off the front part of a M-586 barrel to make it "look" like a short ejector rod housing, but leaves a full-round "bull-barrel" style ejector rod housing). To make up for the thin forcing cone issue, use the new Model 69's larger breach ring and re-size the forcing cone area of the barrel to fit that breach ring. This will give the forcing cone all the thickness it needs, even for hot-rodded 44 Specials (which will not get shot much out of such a light gun, but still, it will handle it, no matter what). And, finally, regarding the barrel, we only need two lengths: 5" and 3.5". For the 3.5" make it end at the end of the ejector rod housing, so it looks like the 1930s FBI Registered Magnums with the 3.5" barrels. (I'm giving you some lee-way here, as I'm not sure the ejector rod housing on this new L-Frame barrel will cause the barrel cut-off at its end to be exactly 3.5", but I'm sure it will be close, possibly 3-3/8" or some such.)
-- Lastly, make this in both an adjustable-sight and a fixed sight version.
-- Oh - there's always one more thing... Get rid of that stupid lock on the side of the frame. Either just eliminate it, for this model like you have for some other "classics," or set about your design engineers to come up with a more clever design that is completely hidden from view like the Ruger designers did, where you have to remove the grip panel to activate or de-activate it. (While you're at it, do it one better than Ruger and instead of making it part of the frame, design it so we can just take it completely out of the gun and throw it away, without it effecting the function of the gun...)
I've posted a similar idea over on the Smith & Wesson Forums, and people there loved the idea. (This was before the Model 69 came out, so my idea about the larger breach/forcing cone was not in that posting.) I'm betting a lot of you guys here would support a factory-made double-action 44 Special that fits the bill better than anything that has come before.
Is there really so few of us REAL 44 Special guys around that we can't get a proper DA 44 Special built? Ruger and Freedom Arms are doing it (and probably a couple others I'm leaving out)...