Don’t get out in the woods, much, anymore; but when I did I used to carry a Smith & Wesson Model 29-2 with an 8 3/8” barrel in a Safariland shoulder rig. I liked shooting this big revolver so much that I ended up with three of them. Our local gun club used to hold steel silhouette pistol matches on weekends; we would shoot our pistols all the way out to 200 yards. (I’ll never understand how we managed to hit anything at those distances; but we, often, did!)
Because, ‘boys will be boys’, sometimes, we played this game for money; and an interesting fact began to become apparent: (This is the first time I’ve admitted this; but, I’m no longer betting on a favorite shooter, anymore – so!) If two shooters who were, in all respects, equal to each other were squared-off, one with a Smith & Wesson 44 magnum, and the other with a Ruger 44 magnum, then, the shooter with the Smith was, at least, twice as likely to hit the far targets as the other guy with the Ruger. (Now, don’t get all upset; I’ll freely admit that Ruger has always built a stronger revolver than Smith – OK.) After witnessing this phenomenon a number of times, I formed the opinion that the shooter with the S & W enjoyed the advantage of a significantly better trigger pull with: less creep, less backlash, and cleaner let-off, than the Ruger shooter with his Blackhawk. (Granted inside 100 yards there was little, if any, difference in the scores; but after 100 yards the Smith’s cleaner, crisper trigger pull would begin to take a toll.)
The point of this post is, simply, this: If you’ve got two, equally talented, big bore shooters - one with an older, carbon steel S & W 44 mag., and the other with an older, ‘ordinance steel’ Ruger 44 mag. - going head-to-head at 100 yards, or better - PUT YOUR MONEY ON THE GUY WITH THE SMITH & WESSON. This way you’ll win more than you lose!
That’s, ‘Why’ I would, always, check if the Ruger shooter were using a, ‘stock gun’ before we started to play. Cheating, you say? Naaa … just a little Saturday afternoon fun at the range! Nobody lost anything like their house, the kids’ college tuition, or something like that – honest! By the way, there are a lot of really good buys on older Smith & Wesson, carbon steel revolvers around right now. They may have been, ‘cop guns’ or show a lot of holster wear; but I’ll, just, bet ya that there’s a lot of life left in these extraordinarily well-made old revolvers.
(PM me if you’re looking for a nice, old, vintage, 44 mag. Blackhawk. I’ve, still, got several around here, somewhere, for you to choose from!) :wink:
