Gun Digest – August 2019

(^56) | GunDigest the magazine AUGUST 2019 gundigest.com
staffwriter—or,astheyputit,“Keith
JoinsRiflemanStaff:ThenotedWest-
ern gun writer augments Dope Bag
panelofexperts.”
Keithwasknownforhisfondnessof
big-bore firearms, particularly hand-
guns—evenmoreparticularly,revolv-
ers.A serioushunterwhobelievedin
usingenoughgunforthejobat hand,
Keithwasnotcontentwiththehand-
guncartridgesofhisday.Large,slow
bullets were not for him, nor were
light, fast bullets. He wanted large,
fastbullets,andheexperimentedwith
available cartridges, pushing the lim-
its of cartridges and fi rearms alike.
HEFTY, HEFTY, HEFTY
The beefy Triple-Lock, also known as
the New Century (it was introduced in
1907), was right up his alley.
In designing the Triple-Lock, Smith
& Wesson set out to create a large-
frame wheelgun that could fi re more-
powerful loads. Based on earlier swing-
out cylinder double-actions, such as
the .32 Hand Ejector, .38 Military and
Police and .38 S&W Special, the new
revolver was beefed up, especially in
the frame, to handle the company’s
newly designed .44 Special cartridge,
which was based on lengthening the
.44 Russian case to provide additional
spacefor powder. Theresultisoften
consideredoneofthefinestrevolvers
evermade.
The“Triple-Lock”aspectofitsname
camefroma designthatincorporated
three locking mechanisms—one at
theforwardendoftheejectorrod,one
locking intothefaceofthecylinder
and thethirdin between a notched
lug andboltforwardofthecylinder
butattherearoftheejectorshroud.
Thethreemechanismsprovidedsolid
lockup and a strong foundation capa-
ble of handling more-powerful loads,
such as the .44 S&W Special.
And that gets us back to Elmer
Keith. He is acknowledged for his
work in heating up handloads for
the .38 Special, .41 Long Colt and .44
Special—and pushing fi rearms and
ammunition manufacturers to follow
suit. This resulted in the development
of Magnum cartridges we know today:
the .357, .41 and .44 Magnums.
If you play fi rearms word associa-
tion with a handgun afi cionado and
say, “Elmer Keith,” the response will
likely be “.44 Magnum.” (We’ll save
for another discussion Keith’s work
with wildcat rifl e cartridges that was
instrumental in developing other car-
tridges. .338 Winchester Magnum,
anyone?)
KING OF THE SIX-GUN CARTRIDGES
But back to the .44 Special. Keith re-
portedly proclaimed the .44 Special
“king of the six-gun cartridges,” but
he continued to push it, using it as a
basis for reloading and range experi-
ments to push velocities of heavy bul-
lets.Heis knowntohaveusedtriple-
locks(aswellasColtsingle-actions)in
hisworkwiththe 44 Special.
Asthereliablereferencebook,Car-
tridges oftheWorld, pointsout,asan
accurateandpow-
erful big-bore re-
volver cartridge,
the .44 Special
was neverfactory
loaded to its full
potential:
“It was left to the handloader to
develop truly effective hunting loads
... Experiments to maximize the .44
Special’s big-game hunting potential
by men like Elmer Keith culminated
in the .44 Magnum.”
But we were talking about this partic-
ular Smith & Wesson .44 Special—the
one purchased from the Keith collec-
tion after his death in 1984.
A bolt mechanism locks into the face of the
cylinder, providing a solid lockup of the frame
to cylinder.
Elmer’s
revolver
features a
McGivern
Gold Dot
inset on the
front sight.
The star next to
the serial number
indicates the
revolver was sent
back to the factory
for work; in this
case, in the 1920s
for rebluing.