Good guns

American Handgunner, July-August, 2009 by Mike "Duke" Venturino

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At one time I owned a sample of each of those vintage S&W ,44 Russian revolvers but hardly ever fired them because they were very fragile and also very valuable. So when Navy Arms announced their replica of the 3rd Model .44 Russian about 10 years back, I jumped on it. While it is not an exact clone of the old S&W 3rd Model .44 Russians, it's not bad. and the differences are minor. The Navy Arms' version has a 7" barrel as opposed to the original's 6 1/2", and the original had a front sight forged integral with the barrel while the replica's is pinned on. Oh, and some dimensions are slightly different by a few hundredths of an inch. So what.

My Navy 3rd Model .44 Russian is extremely accurate with either smokeless or black powder loads. I've settled on two loads: 248 grain roundnose bullets (Lyman #429383) or 200 grain roundnose bullets (Lyman #329478) over 4.0 grains of Bullseye or 19 grains of Swiss FFFg blackpowder. Its point of impact is about dead on with the latter bullet and about 2" higher than point of aim at 50 feet with the former. Despite its tiny sights I've gotten one hole groups at 50 feet from a sandbag rest, and standing with two hands I can keep dueling tree paddles swinging. It doesn't gum up with black powder fouling for at least 50 or so rounds.

When I had Duke's Great Gun Sale in 2008 and disposed of 50 seldom used firearms, all my original S&W .44 Russian revolvers went. Putting the Navy Arms 3rd Model .44 Russian on the auction block was never even considered.