Taurus 44 Special
Heres an ad a guy has, does anyone know anything about such a gun?
I have for sale is a limited edition taurus stainless 44 special with 6" barrel with full 6" lug its 5 shot it was made for one year 1992 so it almost 20years old but dont look like it,it was made for cowboy western action shooting its in 98% condition has not been shot but 10 times I am asking $1200
I have for sale is a limited edition taurus stainless 44 special with 6" barrel with full 6" lug its 5 shot it was made for one year 1992 so it almost 20years old but dont look like it,it was made for cowboy western action shooting its in 98% condition has not been shot but 10 times I am asking $1200
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What is the difference between the 44 special and 44 magnum? thanks, Dwayne 0 -
longer length and higher pressure for 44M 0 -
The 44 Magnum is to the 44 Special what the 357 is to the 38 Special. The 44 Magnum is more powerful, creates greater chamber pressure and uses a longer case to ensure someone doesn't drop the Magnum into a Special gun.
A typical 44 Special load is a 240 grain lead bullet at about 800 fps. A typical 44 Magnum load is a 240 grain jacketed bullet at about 1400 fps.
The 44 Magnum can be loaded down to 44 Special levels for practice and target shooting, the 44 Special can be loaded up and made more powerful.
Each are very good loads, the 44 Special probably benefits more from reloading and use in modern guns than does the 44 Magnum. The 44 Magnum is occasionally used in long guns such as the Ruger semi auto and 96/44 and the Marlin 1894.0 -
quote:Originally posted by dwurth
What is the difference between the 44 special and 44 magnum? thanks, Dwayne
The rounds are related, with the .44 magnum case being a little bit longer so that you can't accidentally shoot one through a .44 special revolver.
The two use similar .429 caliber bullets.
Dfletcher gave you the ballistics numbers above, but if those numbers don't mean anything to you, .44 special will give you ballistics roughly comparable to a .45ACP auto round.
That makes .44 special an excellent choice for a self-defense round from a revolver, though for a variety of reasons, .44 special has never really been that popular. Consequently, commercially loaded .44 special rounds can be a bit hard to find (though any good gunstore should have them), and tend to pretty expensive, nearly the same cost as .44 magnum rounds.
.44 special can be found in relatively small snubnose revolvers for defense. Charter arms famous "bulldog" in .44 special is on example, though both Taurus and Smith and Wesson have put out guns like this for limited periods of time.
.44 magnum is potentially a *LOT* more powerful, and is much more suited to hunting (including medium to large game like deer, hogs, maybe black bear), or to long range shooting at metallic silhouette targets.
The increased power of the .44 magnum comes with much more recoil and noise, plus risk of overpenetration, making the gun probably "too much" for typical self-defense. You probably wouldn't want to be firing .44 magnums through a small snubnose revolver, even if you could find a gun like that.
The typical .44 magnum revolver is built on a large frame, and is fairly heavy both to deal with the power of the round, and to mute recoil.0 -
Of course this wouldn't be quite the same with a 44 Special as the "27th most powerful handgun in the world ....." [;)] 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBJzJgYjto0 -
With the advent of cowboy shooting, the popularity of the 44 has increased. You can find 44 special rounds loaded for this sport though they are downloaded somewhat. 0 -
What does Taurus have to do with your question? 0 -
quote:Originally posted by dfletcher
Of course this wouldn't be quite the same with a 44 Special as the "27th most powerful handgun in the world ....." [;)]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBJzJgYjto
Its a great movie scene, of course, though its all a bunch of Hollywood fluffery.
The Casull .454 was out in 1959, so even at the time of the first iconic "Dirty Harry" movie, the line about .44 magnum being the most powerful handgun in the world wasn't strictly true. Arguably, the character "Dirty" Harry Callahan even knew this, but he was just exaggerating for bravado in the scene.
Also, with the barrel of the gun pointed right at his face from only a few feet away, the wounded "punk" on the ground could simply have looked in the front of the cylinder to see which if any of the chambers were loaded! They look empty to me. . .
Relevant to this thread, I don't have a link, but supposedly in the 1973 sequel, "Magnum Force," Detective Callahan tells a colleague that he loads his gun with lighter ".44 specials", in the context of the police shooting contest, which can be seen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AorLP3VHLdw
So that's another use for the round; they could make good "practice" or "competition" rounds for .44 magnum, or better, rounds to introduce a newer shooter to the bigger guns.
As another relevant comparison, .44 special is roughly on a par ballistically with .45LC of cowboy single-action revolver fame. I'm not going to try and give it an actual numerical ranking, but I think its fair to say that even today (let alone in the 1970s) its in the top ten of "viable defensive revolver rounds". [;)]
Whether "slow heavy" .44 special is better or worse than "fast light" .357 magnum rounds in a snubnose is debatable, but empirically .357 magnum is a LOT more popular, at least in part because the guns themselves are smaller, and the low cost and recoil of "practice" .38s makes the revolvers more attractive.
IMO, .44 special is an excellent and underappreciated round, but unless you have deep pockets or are reloading them yourself, .357 probably does make more sense for most shooters.0 -
quote:Originally posted by beantownshootah
quote:Originally posted by dfletcher
Of course this wouldn't be quite the same with a 44 Special as the "27th most powerful handgun in the world ....." [;)]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBJzJgYjto
Its a great movie scene, of course, though its all a bunch of Hollywood fluffery.
The Casull .454 was out in 1959, so even at the time of the first iconic "Dirty Harry" movie, the line about .44 magnum being the most powerful handgun in the world wasn't strictly true. Arguably, the character "Dirty" Harry Callahan even knew this, but he was just exaggerating for bravado in the scene.
Yep, I don't think the scene would have gone as well if the truth were told.
What I found as an interesting part of the scene is that when he walks up on the fellow he thumb cocks the hammer, then gives his speech - but when he later pulls the trigger it's a full "DA pull".0 -
Thanks for all the helpful info. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by dfletcher
What I found as an interesting part of the scene is that when he walks up on the fellow he thumb cocks the hammer, then gives his speech - but when he later pulls the trigger it's a full "DA pull".
Good eye, I never noticed that before.
Watched it again. Its not clear to me whether the revolver is cocked or not when Harry delivers his famous monologue, though it doesn't really matter.
After the "punk" says "I gots to know" Harry walks over, and at about 1:06 in the video we see him thumb-cock the hammer gun from HIS point of view. Then the camera immediately cuts to the "punks" point of view and we see Harry go through a full double-action pull with the cylinder rotating. Obviously he didn't DE-COCK the gun in that fraction of a second while the camera changed view.
So arguably the single most famous handgun scene from Hollywood cinema has a significant continuity error! My guess is that this was probably a deliberate cinematic choice on the part of the director/editors rather than an accidental "error". From a purely aesthetic standpoint, manually cocking the hammer and a double-action pull would be the two most visually dramatic choices for each individual cut. So they probably opted to cut the scene that way opting for maximum artistry over technical accuracy.
Again, getting back to .44 special, the most famous (or rather "infamous") use of .44 special was by David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, who used a Charter Arms gun to kill several individuals in NYC the mid-1970s.
Interestingly, via its unique ballistics, the NY police managed to identify the murder weapon as a Charter Arms gun, and then they tracked down every registered owner of a Charter arms .44 in the city and ballistically tested all 56 guns. . .of course with no matches. So much for registration and "gun control".
Back on the original question, I don't really know how I feel about a Taurus .44 special revolver. In my opinion, a relatively small .44 special snubnose is a potentially attractive alternative to a .38/.357 gun, with the devil being in the details of size and weight.
I wouldn't buy a large frame .44 special because if I'm going to be lugging around a gun of that size and weight I might as well get a .44 magnum. I think a medium frame combat-type revolver (like the "Thunder Ranch" Smith and Wesson .44 special, but maybe a bit smaller) does make a sort of sense, but to the extent that I might like a gun like that I think I'll just stick with my Smith .357 instead.
On Taurus in particular, its had quality control issues over the years, so I'm a bit hesitant to spend "real" money on one, particularly in a gun that I'm probably not going to shoot a lot and that might be hard to resell.0
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