Shot some new Pictures of 38/44s

[Peter M. Eick]

Here are my 21 38/44s. This includes the Outdoorsman's and my Heavy Duty's.


These are the 38/44 Heavy Duty's.


These are the 38/44 Outdoorsman's They have adjustable sights which is normally a good tool to tell them apart from the HD's above. I do have on HD that is a target sighted gun. Sort of a home made "McGivern" model look alike. See below:





They came in mostly 3 lengths. Here are the 3 common ones. 4" and 6.5" are relatively rare pre-war and more common post-war.

They are fun guns to collect and shoot. I really shoot mine a lot but many of these are never fired and/or I will not fire them. They just are being protected by me. The shooters are pretty obvious and I have plenty of them that I can bang away with.

Great guns. I really enjoy collecting them.

 

[BADUNAME13]

...I hate you now!



You just did to me that thing I usually do to others!
(And I don't like it!)


Very nice.

 

[420Stainless]

I want one of those pictures turned into a poster that I can hang up in my den! Beautiful collection.

 

[918v]

You don't have enough 38/44's. You need more... at least 77.

 

[forindooruseonly]

Awesome collection! What other guns do you hoard? Kidding, I'm totally jealous!

 

[timothy75]

So whats your story bud? I cant even get my eyes on one and i hang out in gun shops. Do you have your own ffl and order them straight to your house? Did you buy a bunch together? Was your old man a chief of police or something? Ive wanted one for years and you found 21 of em!

 

[Peter M. Eick]

38/44's are fairly common in Texas. I tend to cherry pick now and am past the accumulate stage. Since I don't sell or trade them I don't need trade bait. I just buy what I like.

Today there are 4 more sitting at my LFG's shop that I passed over becasue they were nickle (can't bring myself to buy another nickle gun), were refinished poorly or just chewed up. Prewar chewed I can take a risk on but post war let it pass.

77 of them would be interesting but now I would rather expand the quality of the collection vs. the quantity.

My story is simple. I was introduced to the 38/44 by a collector and he convinced me to buy my first 38/44 Outdoorsman. I loved it. This lead to another, and another and so forth. I just like the way they handle and shoot and the history of the 38/44 appeals to me. I have a bunch of 357 Magnums, but they are generally shooters except my Registered magnum. Also for folks like me, the Pre-27's are expensive and the Registered's are out of my league, so the 38/44 is the "poor man's" collector gun of choice for me.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Impressive!

 

[Lucky Derby]

No wonder I can't find one. You have them all!
Nice collection.

 

[CraigC]

Good stuff! I'd love to have a 4" HD.

 

[1KPerDay]

Amazing. Thanks for the droolworthy pics.

 

[Got_Lead?]

Very nice. I have always had quite a curosity about the 38/44's. These revolvers were somewhat before my time, (I was born in 1960), and I remember the old timers praising them in gun articles. How many years were these guns made? I think the History of S&W during these trasnsional times of the 20's and 30's was fascinating.