Four, .44's, No Less, No More.

by Chris A. Umfress

A few months ago I had the misfortune of stumbling onto a website called Sixgunner.com., a site dedicated to the big-bore sixgun (read: revolver) enthusiast. Now, I don’t mean that the site itself is a bad thing, as I have learned a lot since discovering it, but this find has led to me parting with a sizeable chunk of change for new guns.

One subject that tends to surface regularly on the message center section of the Sixgunner website is the discussion of various sixgun "batteries". A battery is generally referred to as a group of sixguns kept or bought for a specific purpose. In other words, one might have a battery of handguns for defense, which may include a full size service pistol, a compact concealed carry gun, and possibly a pocket gun for backup or for when it is not possible to carry a belt gun. Another handgun battery might be assembled for hunting purposes. This battery might include a short barreled, big bore, revolver for packing in the woods along with your deer rifle. It could also contain a longer barreled single action, five or six shot revolver for bigger game or it might include a scoped big bore sixgun, if you have bad eyes, for making longer range shots, or if you just prefer a scoped handgun. Whatever the intended purpose, there usually isn’t one single sixgun that will meet all your needs, thus this requirement for a "battery".

In the past several years, I have usually kept one or two big bore sixguns around, usually 44 Magnums, for various purposes. My collection usually included either a .44 Ruger Bisley or a Smith and Wesson 629, or 629 Mountain Gun, or both, and were normally very limited in their use as I just didn’t go out and shoot them for fun. At this point in my life I was heavily into the defense gun, IPSC, IDPA craze and revolvers didn’t appeal to me very much. My attitude was that revolvers had their place but for almost every purpose semiautomatics were better. Anyway, as I visited the Sixgunner site more and more, my interests in sixguns increased and, as a result, I decided that I needed a "battery" of sixguns to fill the revolver needs in my life.

Now, unless I mislead you, I must say that my handgun shooting began with revolvers. My very first shot with a handgun larger than a .22 Long Rifle was fired in a Smith and Wesson .38 Special of unknown model. I was just a boy and didn’t pay attention to the details of the gun, however, I know it was bright blue, wood gripped, and 4 inch barreled, as God intended a Smith to be. Soon after this experience I began to buy and read gun magazines and I discovered the writings of Skeeter Skelton. The influence of Skeeter is most likely what turned my main gun interests toward handguns, which I still hold today. I, like Skeeter, consider myself to be a "..handgun man". My point is that I was no stranger to revolvers but during my teenage years I turned to semi auto’s for much the same reason that young men like hotrods instead of family sedans. They just seemed to go faster.

Over the years my biggest problem with guns has been that I could never afford to own all the ones I wanted or thought I needed. Well, I still can’t but I am able to afford a few more than in the past. My desire for a sixgun battery was still plagued by money limits but this added excitement to the problem as I would be required to put some serious thought into what my needs were and just how few sixguns would be required to fill this bill. After many hours of examination, I have narrowed down my true needs into 3 basic categories and, with much thought on just the right guns, I have been able to fill these needs with a total of 4 sixguns.

My first criteria that I based my decisions on was that of nostalgia. In my readings as a young man I was most influenced by, as I said before, Skeeter Skelton as well as Elmer Keith. I read everything I could find by Skeeter and, even though I just caught the tail end of Elmer’s writing life, I was able to come up with a few works by the "Grand Old Man". By reading the writings of these two men I came to be fascinated with certain guns even though I had never actually owned any of them. To me there are some guns you "must" have for no other reason than that one of your heroes had one.

The second criteria that I used as a basis for my choices was that I needed a revolver for my outdoor activities such as horseback and ATV riding, hiking, scouting for deer sign before hunting season, working on the farm, and a few other less frequent activities. Even though I lean toward semi-automatics for self defense and have carried one in the woods on many occasions, I just don’t feel right in the great outdoors unless I have a sixgun on my side. Certain semi auto’s, loaded properly, would work just fine but I just don’t get the same sense of well being that I get with a big bore revolver. This need required that I find a gun, or guns, that would be, as John Linebaugh says, "portable, powerful, and practical." All my guns meet this standard.

The last, but certainly not least, requirement was that I needed a gun primarily for hunting. This gun would be used, at times, as a backup for a rifle, and at other times as my primary gun while hunting. The gun would have to be powerful enough to take anything in the "lower forty-eight" in case I were to sally forth on hunting trips, and would need to be slightly longer barreled for more velocity and longer sight radius. This gun will probably be my least used gun, but only time will tell.

One other criteria that I had was that the guns would all have to be in .44 caliber. Now many people would wonder at this requirement, but the sole reason for making it is that I wanted to be able to stock only two or three types of bullets that will work for all the guns. My funds are limited for reloading components just as they are for buying guns. I realize that there are calibers and loadings that will do a better job at some of the tasks that my .44's will perform but I was already set up to load .44 Magnum’s and Specials and I didn’t want to have to buy new dies, conversion kits, brass, bullets, etc. Anyway, I believe that these guns completely fill my needs, or I would still be looking for something else to add to my battery.

What are the guns, you ask? My big bore sixgun battery includes the following:

1) SMITH & WESSON, MODEL 24: This is a 24-3 with a 4" barrel. It was better than 98% when I bought it and it is a very nice and accurate gun. It has the small hammer and narrow, smooth trigger. It now awaits a set of Blu Magnum Skeeter Skelton grips that I recently ordered.

- REASON FOR CHOOSING: A) Skeeter carried one. B) Elmer carried one. If those two reasons aren’t enough, C) It is plenty powerful for hunting, if need be, and it would be a very good defense revolver should I be forced to carry one.

- LOADING FOR THIS GUN: The load that I intend to use most often in this gun is the old standby loading of a 240-250 SWC with 7.5-8.0 grains of Unique.

-LEATHER: The leather that I have chosen for this gun is, my favorite sixgun holster, a El Paso Saddlery, Tom Threepersons with security strap in basket weave brown.

2) SMITH & WESSON, MODEL 29: This older model 29-2 is a bright blue gun with factory target grips, reworked by me, and a 4" barrel. This gun is very nice although, when I bought it, it had a few small specks of bluing missing where someone had evidently removed surface rust. The previous owner stated that he had only fired it once or twice and it had rested in his safe for many years. The gun is otherwise original except for the crane ball lockup device that I had Dave Clements install for me. Without getting into the exact details, I will say that I shortened and reworked the factory stocks to make them into a much more usable grip.

-REASON FOR CHOOSING: A) Elmer carried one. B) Skeeter tried one. C) Versatility. I decided that this gun would be my everyday workhorse. I can either carry it with lighter loads for defensive use, if I must, or I can carry much heavier loads for hunting if I need to. This will probably be the sixgun that most often backs up my hunting rifle and I will take game with it as the opportunity arises. Although heavier than the Model 24, I consider this gun to be one of the best choices for outdoor activities, whether it be working or playing, and probably one of the most versatile guns I could have chosen. Besides, doesn’t every serious sixgunner have one?

-LOADING FOR THIS GUN: My intended loading for this gun will most often be the 240 grain JHP or SWC with 10-11 grains of Unique. The Winchester factory 240 JSP at around 1200 is also very accurate in this gun. As I said before, this gun is very versatile and even 300 grain loads can be used in this gun on a limited basis.

-LEATHER FOR THE 29: Again my choice in leather for this gun is the Threepersons design from San Pedro Saddlery. This holster is not as nice as the El Paso but it is excellent quality nonetheless. This holster is russet brown with border stamping and a security strap.

3) CUSTOM RUGER BISLEY CONVERSION BY CLEMENTS CUSTOM GUNS: This gun was chambered in .357 Magnum with a 7.5 inch barrel when I bought it and I asked Dave Clements to rechamber it to .44 Special. Other modifications on this gun include: Install Ruger 4-5/8ths barrel, Install new front sight, Install #5 oversize base pin, freewheel cylinder, remove creep from trigger, install QP&R steel ejector rod housing and crescent rod, fit and install Hogue white micarta grips, and high polish blue the entire gun. He did all this and more. Dave line bored the cylinder, making this gun a tackdriver. With the 240/7.5 Unique loading it will shoot one hole groups, at 15 yards, all day long.

-REASON FOR CHOOSING THIS GUN & CHAMBERING: Growing up I had read about and seen photographs of Elmer Keith’s #5 .44 Special. It was what he called "The last word" in handguns. I was enamored with this gun and I still love to look at it today. Keith’s #5 is what inspired this gun and even though I couldn’t have one just like it, I wanted something as close to it as possible. This gun was built to my specs in the spirit of the Keith #5. Nostalgia aside, this gun is extremely accurate and serviceable, if it weren’t I wouldn’t own it, and I plan to use it just like any other gun. My main purpose for it will be outdoors activities although it could double for a hunting arm as it will handle the heaviest of .44 Special loads.

-LOADING FOR THIS GUN: The most common load I plan to use in this gun is, again, the 240/7.5-8.0 grains Unique, but I will most likely alternate, depending on the situation, with the Keith load of 240-250/17.5 grains of 2400.

-LEATHER FOR THE CCG .44 SPECIAL: El Paso, Tom Threepersons, basket weave brown, with security strap. Note: I have the belt channel on all my holsters sewn to fit a 1-1/2" belt so I can wear them on my trouser belts. I have three belts that I alternate. One is a plain brown Milt Sparks double thickness, one is a basket weave brown lined by El Paso, and the other is a plain black double thickness by Helweg. I don’t own a western style cartridge/gun belt.

4)CLEMENTS CUSTOM RUGER BISLEY .44 MAGNUM: This gun is identical to the gun above in all respects except it is .44 Magnum and it has a 5.5 inch barrel. It is a beauty and it shoots like a dream.

-REASON FOR CHOOSING THIS GUN: I chose this gun primarily as a hunting gun. I plan to use it as my primary hunting arm for whitetail, wild hogs, or any other of the larger critters I decide to hunt. With the proper loads it will work well on anything in the continental U.S. I decided to have it tricked just like the .44 Special because I thought it would be neat to have a pair of, almost, identical single action Bisley’s. This gun is very accurate and tough and it packs more easily than its original 7.5" length. Since this gun’s twin, described above, was built in the spirit of Keith’s #5 then this gun could rightly be described as being made in the spirit of Bill Grover’s, Improved #5.

-LOADING FOR THE CCG .44 MAGNUM: As this is relatively a new acquisition for me, I haven’t yet worked up a load that works best for what I want. I have been shooting Cor-Bon’s 320 grain hard cast ammunition in it and the velocities average just under 1200 fps out of the 5.5" barrel. From a sandbag rest, at 75 yards, this load will consistently print 3" groups. I am very pleased with these results but my intentions are to work up a load using the same LBT 320 cast bullet and the new Lil’ Gun powder by Hodgdon while looking for velocities in the 1300 fps range.

-LEATHER: Once again, the San Pedro, Threepersons, brown, border stamped, for 5.5" Ruger. It has the same security strap as my other holsters.

Some may ask why I didn’t go for a .22 Long Rifle or a big five shot .45 and my answer would be that, since I only use a .22 Long Rifle for shooting snakes and such, I can just as easily accomplish that task with shotshells or with light loaded .44 rounds. Even when I had a Ruger Single Six, I very seldom shot it just for fun, and its main duty was packing along in the woods as a second gun to a big bore. As for the five shot .45, I think the .44 Magnum will do anything that I, for now, am likely to need. If I were going to Africa, I would definitely take one along but for now the .44 Magnum fills the bill even though it might do it at slightly higher pressure than the .45.

Well, those are my picks and my reasons for picking the ones that I did. Others may dissect this story with what they coulda, shoulda, woulda, done but that’s okay as this battery of sixguns fits me and probably wouldn’t make most folks envious at all. This battery is unlike others in that all of the guns aren’t intended for the same purpose. Be that as it may, each of the four guns holds a bit of nostalgic appeal for me, each one could be used for my outdoor activities, and each of them could function perfectly as a hunting gun, though some would work better than others. All of the guns are somewhat interchangeable in their separate roles but, at the same time, each one fills a niche all it’s own. With these four unique choices I have a "battery" for every occasion.