I still am a little gay for the idea of carrying a 3" .44 magnum (fucking Léon). But lighter loads on something that's that much of a chonker feels...silly.
And with full power loads it feels as if I could stick the muzzle in a room and touch one off to flashbang any occupants.
Peeps who'd carry a 3-4" .44, how would you do it? I'm just curious.
There are some "Harry Callahan" style lighter .44 Magnum loads available specifically for concealed carry, putting out between 650 ft. lbs. at the muzzle and 800 ft. lbs, with HP bullets designed for rapid expansion and energy transfer and less likely to over-penetrate. There are also some heavy .44 Special rounds available putting out around 550-650 ft. lbs. at the muzzle with bullets designed for two-legged threats.
I've been looking into what's available for .44 defensive loads, both in Magnum and Special, as I'm still deciding between the Python and Kodiak/Anaconda. Also looking into holsters, grips, sights, etc. Like my other carry guns I will be getting a belt holster and speed loader carrier for warm weather, and a shoulder rig for jacket weather. I'm probably going to go with the new S.L. Variant speed loaders that came back out to the market a few years ago. Unlike most speed loaders where you twist the knob on the back of the loaders and the cartridges slide into the chambers under gravity, the S.L. Variant loaders have a spring loaded mechanism that spits the cartridges into the chambers. There is a plunger between the cartridges right at the center of the loader that impinges against the center of the ejector star at the rear of the cylinder which releases all the cartridges, which themselves are all sitting on top of springs which pushes them out of the loader and into their respective chambers. And the loaders themselves are roughly the same size of other speed loaders, so they fit into a wide variety of pouches and carriers. And they're priced competitively with other loaders, like 5 Star, which are one of my favorite speed loader brands and I'll also end up getting some of them as well.
One of the nice things with .44 Mag/Spec over .357 is the fat, chunky cartridges are often times easier to insert into the cylinder with speed loaders compared to the long, spindly .357 cartridges. The first gun I ever bought specifically as a carry gun was a Smith and Wesson Performance Center 627 V-Comp. It was an N Frame pistol the same as the Model 29/629 or 57/657 big bore magnums, same diameter cylinder, but since it was .357 it held 8 rounds instead of 6. It was also cut for moon clips. So the rounds I had in the cylinder I had held together with a moon clip so they would all eject together, and then I carried two 5 Star speed loaders. However, I found that reloading with the speed loaders took a little finesse because the thin rounds wobbled quite a bit. Later, I ended up getting to use speed loaders with .41 and .44 Magnum, as well as .45 Colt, and found the larger cartridges were much easier to work with, and also found that 6 shot .357s were much easier to load with speed loaders as well.
