The Forgotten model of 1950 .44 Special Target

Hello
I came across the Model of 1950 .44 Special Target revolver about a year or so ago. It was owned by a Good friend of mine who has One of every Target sighted revolver S&W ever made and as Luck would have it for me, he had Two of these. We Often get into deep discussion's of different calibers and The.44 Magnum Came up.


He shared with me that the reason the .44 Magnum was born in 1956 was because of the Dare devils like Elmer Keith & Skeeter Skelton had taken the .44 Special to the veloicties of the .44 Magnum Came to be when it was developed in 1956 by expanding on the Vintage .44 Special Cartridge to Absurd levels while shooting the Earlier Triple Lock revolvers. Of The Three series of the target triple Lock's for this Upper load testing of the .44 Special their favorite One happened to be the final third series.


After much Coaxing from Elmer Keith and His Associates S&W during their World-War II Time Lull, of Building Civilain Revolver's it was decided to revamp The Third series triple lock and Give these dare devils what they yearned for. This involved Building a Ribbed barrel, a short throw action only used Previously on the K-22's Built in 1940 along with and enclosed extractor shrouded area of the barrel a feature only seen on Triple locks and Pervious .357 Magnums of the Late 1930's.


By 1948 The Factory was working feverishly on this new model tooling up for it and in September 1950 They released The Model of 1950 Forth series Hand Eject Target revolver in .44 Special. It was a slow Mover at first for sales But their dare Devil crowd did not fail them and these elite Men formed a special group that shot the caliber and expanded on it to levels seen later only met with the Fierce .44 magnum Cartridge. This group was called "The Associates" and was combined of High score shooter's & Cartridge Re-loaders the Likes of Elmer Keith, Phil Sharpe, Townsend Whelen, John Lachuk, Earl Naramore, P.O. Ackley, F.W. Mann, and Julian Hatcher. Theses Guys were all Avid top Notch re-loaders & Very Serious Target shooters in the day, and to them the model of 1950 was a welcome note for serious Big Bore target shooting.


By the Mid 1950's Sales for the .44 Special Cartridge Target Model of 1950 Target Revolver's were still slow so the experimental Team at S&W who were working with Elmer Keith on his recent Hot load findings in the .44 Special Cartridge commissioned Remington Arms to see if they would Build the New then .44 Magnum Cartridge Keith had so Longed for. Remington agreed to Build the Cartridge after S&W sent them an Experimental Hand Gun to test the load with, I suspect this revolver was or may have been a Special prepared Model of 1950 as I have read it had a special Heat treating done to it to endure the Higher Magnum pressures of the .44 Magnum round So In 1956 The Mighty .44 Magnum was Born and released to the Public.


It was a Huge success, and Sales remained soft for the Grand Daddy .44 Special cartridge revolvers that it derived from & Ironically, The Cartridge that Spurred the Birth of The Mighty .44 Magnum would later Face it's demise in 1967 S&W Dropped The Model of 1950 in .44 Special with Just 5,050 total Built through it's 17 Year span.


Below is The Model of 1950 That shipped Just Four short Months after it's introduction of The Model of 1950 being in January 1951. It is a special Order revolver with It has a Full Target Option applied to it, along with it's special high Polished Bluing finish for that time frame that was Not Common or standard and it is early enough in the series that it has The Transition Piece Being The Mushroom style Cylinder Extractor Knob we saw on the Pre-War Third series Triple Locks and The factory Box it shipped in was a left over Third series Triple Lock Model of 1926 .44 Special Model box with The New Model of 1950 .44 Special target sticker affixed to it. It is clear that S&W Wasted Nothing along the way that could be used. Regards, Hammerdown