American legends: those fantastic .44s!

American Handgunner, Sept-Oct, 2005 by Mike Venturino

Those are the lyrics from an old Marty Robbins song titled Mr. Shorty. It shows how intertwined the .44 caliber is with American legend and folklore. Since the beginning of cartridge-firing revolvers the .44 caliber has been in the forefront. Take the Colt Single Action Army for instance. Between 1873 and 1941 more were made in .45 Colt than any other single caliber, but look at how many different .44 caliber cartridges were offered. Colt SAAs were chambered for .44 WCF (.44-40), .44 Colt, .44 American, .44 Russian, .44 Special and the .44 Henry rimfire. In tact the first couple of Colt SAAs made for U.S. Government testing were in .44 Russian and .44 American calibers but the decision was made by the military to switch to .45s as the bore size for both long guns and handguns.

The second most prominent handgun manufacturer of the late 1800s was Smith & Wesson. Between 1870 and 1912 they sold over a quarter million of their large frame top break revolvers, collectively named the Model No. 3. The vast bulk of them were in .44 caliber. Those were split between .44 Henry rimfires, .44 Americans and .44 Russian; mostly the latter one. Then circa 1907 they introduced their first large frame revolver with a side-swing cylinder. Its premier chambering and the 20th century's first new .44 cartridge was the .44 S&W Special. Nearly 50 years later they followed it up with the ultimate .44--the .44 Remington Magnum.

History's Mystery

Although Colt and Remington used .44 caliber in their cap & ball revolvers, it was Smith & Wesson that got the ball rolling on .44 caliber metallic cartridges in 21870. And, they did it by chambering their first Model No. 3s for a Winchester "rifle" cartridge. Yes, I said rifle cartridge. That was the .44 Henry rimfire, and it was a mighty puny rifle cartridge, what with a 200 grain bullet with 23 to 28 grains of blackpowder. It had to be puny if a relatively weak top break handgun mechanism could safely hold it.

Smith & Wesson sent their new Model No. 3 to the U.S. Army for testing and they almost immediately sent it back to them saying to be considered, the cartridge had to be centerfire. Smith & Wesson accommodated the army's desires but didn't change the round substantially otherwise. Not very imaginatively they simply called the new cartridge the .44/100; meaning simply the bullet was .44/100ths of an inch in diameter.

To the company's delight, the government bought it. At least they bought 1,000 revolvers so chambered, which Smith & Wesson delivered to them in 1871. These were spread in U.S. Cavalry units throughout the west, and it's worth noting modern archaeology has proven that no fewer than four of them were used in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. That's interesting because the Colt SAA .45 had been standard issue in the 7th Cavalry since 1874. They were likely officers' privately owned handguns or perhaps were used by Indian warriors.

Komrade .44

Then the Russians stepped into the picture. They thought the new Smith & Wesson revolvers were pretty nice, but thought the .44/100 cartridge was a stinker. Why? The bullet was the so-called "heel-type", with a reduced diameter shank fitting inside the cartridge case, and its lubricant being in grooves on the outside of the bullet. They were right. That wasn't a real bright idea, since all sorts of crud stuck to the lube and was fired down those nice shiny barrels. Oil the plus side it probably made for lethal if slow acting wounds.

The Russians pointed out that if S&W made their bullets the same diameter as the inside of the cartridge case and their barrels to match, then the whole shebang would work better. Duh? This new cartridge was appropriately called the .44 Russian, and then Smith & Wesson retroactively named their .44/100 round the .44 American. The latter cartridge was America's first reloadable handgun round, and the former was the first American handgun round to be capable of true accuracy. It has been written that target shooters of the late 1800s could put five .44 Russian bullets into a 3" circle at 50 yards using target-sighted Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 revolvers. That's impressive even by today's standards.

A brief look at those early Smith & Wesson Model No. 3s is appropriate--they changed quickly because the Russians were paying in gold. When they asked for something different they got it. The S&W Model No. 3 went through four distinct revisions. From 1870 to 1872 there was the first version chambered for .44 Henry rimfire, .44 American and .44 Russian. It had the early plow handle shape of grip, and was mostly made with an 8" barrel.

In 1872 came the 2nd Model Russian. It had a "knuckle" at the top of the grip which changed it into a saw-handle shape, and the strange looking spur on the trigger guard. Its barrel length was 7" and the only caliber offered was .44 Russian. Then in 1874 came the 3rd Model Russian, which retained the grip and trigger guard spur features, but added a large screw oil the topstrap. That was a cylinder release feature. Barrel length was shortened to 6.5", and it was made in both .44 Russian and .44 Henry rimfire calibers; with most of the latter ones going to Turkey.