I just read an old Bob Hagel article about the .44 special.  He mentions that the .44 Special load was never increased above 775 fps because older .44 Special revolvers were too weak.  According to Wikipedia, S&W developed the .44 SP for their New Century revolver.  This revolver was also known as the "TripleLock."  Colt offered the .44 in their SAA.  These are the guns Elmer Keith and other used to soup up the .44.  I can think of no other "old" .44 Specials before WWII.  Were there any others that were widely available?   Some cheap European knockoffs, perhaps?

Gun rags talked endlessly about how great .44 SP's were, but I never even handled or saw a full sized Special until I bought a SS Ruger Bisley Blackhawk off Gun Broker a few years ago.  Charter Arms Bulldog, yes, but no S&W, Colts, or Rugers.  Given the hype, you would think revolver makers would pump them out by the millions.  I only own magnums to shoot Specials in because Magnum have a wider choice of sizes.  For me, the Special fills the same role as the .45 Colt, but is easier to load for.  And yet there are .45 Colts everywhere, but hardly any Specials.  What gives?

I assume it’s simple economics. .44 Special is far less popular than .38 Special. Magnum can shoot Special but Special can’t shoot Magnum. So a .44 Special gun would have a much smaller market and isn’t worth producing when Special shooters can just buy Magnum revolvers and have all needs covered.

Because people like yourself buy magnums and then load them down or shoot Special's through them. That has never made sense to me. Why buy a large revolver so you can shoot light loads through it? Why not buy the smaller frame .44 Special revolver, shoot Special's through it, then load it "up" when you need heavier loads? I've been hunting deer and hogs with revolvers for several years now, mostly .44 Special's and 45 Colt's, and with the .44 Special, in all the game I've killed I've never needed more power than a 250 gr. lead SWC running around 950 fps, a load which is just barely over SAAMI pressure recommendations. I've loaded my Ruger Flat Top .44 Special with a 258 gr. cast SWC to just over 1200 fps, but have never needed that much power. Which brings us to our second point- the .44 Special is almost 100% a handloaders proposition.
 So there's my 2¢...

Reportedly, the 44 cartridge which Keith wanted was around 1200 fps rather than the 1400 fps which the factory developed.

BTW Skeeter Skelton loved the 44 for police work, ranch work and hunting but though it a bit too much so experimented by reducing loads to see how low it could go and still do everything he needed.  To his surprise it got all the down to 45LC levels.

It's not that the .44Spl isn't a terrific cartridge --- it is --- it's the victim of materials progress. Any quality modern steel (or scandium alloy) frame that can provide 5 or 6 shots of .44Spl can be built to handle the .44 Magnum, even if it's barely suitable to handle such power (as shooters of the S&W 69 and 329 will attest). The same cannot be said of the .45 Colt and .454 Casull pairing. Guns built to only shoot standard pressure .45 Colt will never handle the monster pressure and power of the .454.

Well, what about the Charter Arms Bulldog? Maybe they tried, maybe they didn't. Lockup isn't super great on these, though they did/do make them in .357, which is getting closer to the mark power-wise. I'm not sure the frame will accommodate the slightly longer OAL of the .44 Mag.

What's funny is we have come full circle with the Taurus Judge and S&W Governor --- the .45 Colt is now the preferred big, slow snub defensive round of the modern age.

That's a good question.
It's interesting that Buffalo Bore (and he's pretty well versed on launching out of old 1900 era steel guns) lists their 200 grain @ 1,000 fps for ANY .44 Spc gun including the Bulldog.
They list their: 190/1,150, 200/1,100 and the 255/1,000 for ALL guns except the Bulldog.

No disclaimer on old guns. That makes me doubt the idea of the "old, weak" guns operating at the low pressures the 44 Spc develops.

Lockup usually started out good on the Charter Arms guns, though it would deteriorate with use.  As far as accommodating the slightly longer OAL of the .44 Mag, yes, they will.  Or, I will say, there was at least one cartridge manufacturer in the early 90s who loaded .44 Magnums to an OAL that would fit a Bulldog cylinder.  I actually had a Bulldog in that time period, and as an experiment chambered a factory loaded .44 Magnum.  To my surprise it fit!  I hate to think of the consequences if some one were to fire that.

The PUG based off the Bulldog frame was made in .41 Mag.  I've owned only one N frame .44 mag (29-2 6.5") that my son now owns.  I've also had two .44 Special guns.  First a 67-69' dated CA 3" Bulldog (still have) and a Taurus 431 3".  My usual load is a Lee 240 gr TLSWC at around 950 fps.  The Bulldog is my swamp gun, first two chambers Speer Shotshells with either #6 or 9 then 3 rounds of the SWC for gator and bear.  Both reloads under a dose of Unique.  Taurus went away as it just didn't feel like my 3" 64/65s.  Too square.

To answer one of Skunkhunters's questions , There were 2 more Smith & Wesson 44 Special models before WWII. The Second model Hand Ejector , which had no ejector-rod housing , and a Third Model Hand Ejector which had the housing back again.
They would not have been weak  , they were all N-Frame revolvers. How plentiful they might have been , I don't know , but would guess probably not. That would have been in the Twenties and Thirties.

  Everything needed to know on the subject is in this link-

.44 Special +P Loads

Kind of forgot about those .41 Mag guns. But it does go to my point that modern materials will allow relatively tiny guns that fire very powerful cartridges. I mean, there are derringers in .45/70, .454 Casull, and .50AE.

These. i have a few S&W Model 3 knockoffs from Spain and Belgium in 44 Special and 44 WCF that I wouldn't fire blanks out of.

Not a Smith guy, but pretty sure S&W chambered an N frame in .44 Special sometime before 1910 that evolved into the Model 24 in the '50's.  Colt also made their large frame New Service DA revolvers in .44 Russian/.44 Special.  And Ruger w/ the GP100 - although that's far more recent.

44 Special was the original N frame chambering. In 1907.

Smith & Wesson didn't heat--treat the cylinders of their revolvers until after WWI, so none of the "Triple-Locks" or early Second models had heat-treated cylinders and definitely were weaker than later N-frames. This time frame is also when SAAMI was first started, which standardized the dimensions and pressure levels of the chambers and cartridges, locking them down and preventing future changes that would increase the pressure level.

Correct. Both S&W and Colt made .45 ACP revolvers in WWI, and these were not heat treated.  .45 ACP is/was higher pressure than .44 Special, with less metal in the cylinder.  Old timers hot rodded both, and some self disassembled.  The .44 Specials would take more pressure, though.  Much more than factory .44 Specials.