HANDGUNS
A Big 50 For The .44
It's hard to believe that this seminal bigbore magnum has reached the half-century mark. Here's how it all started.
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The .44 Magnum and I kind of grew up together. When it first appeared in 1955, I was 11 years old and into just about everything firearms related. The .44 was big news. My friends and I had read bits and pieces about its development and supposed power in gun and men's magazines of the time, and I just couldn't wait to see if you really could "put a bullet right through an engine block," as claimed by some (you can't--the slug just goes splat, but it'll whistle right through two car doors with no problem).
At the time, I don't really recall much mention of the round's purported developer, Elmer Keith. His day would really come a few years later in a new magazine called Guns & Ammo. In the 1970s I had the luck, as a young associate editor at G&A, to work with Elmer and at that time received a goodly indoctrination into the whys and wherefores of the mighty .44.
The .44 Magnum cartridge, as introduced by Remington a half-century ago, was, at the time, the most powerful handgun cartridge in the world. The first "magnum" revolver round, the .357, had debuted 20 years earlier to much acclaim, though in the intervening years it was felt that a larger-caliber magnum would up the stopping-power ante considerably and provide shooters with not only a supreme man-stopper but a truly viable hunting load.
