Posted: 9/27/2007 10:31:38 AM EDT
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Hi all! I'm looking into maybe getting a S&W 696 .44 Special. How well does this gun hold up to this round? It is a L frame which is Smith's medium frame used for .357 most commonly. The gun will be shot a lot and carried even more so I need to make sure it will hold up to lots of regular factory ammo and mostly Speer Gold Dots. Will this gun hold up better then a K frame does to .357 ammo? Thanks for any and all input! |
| .44 Special is a fairly low pressure round, and shouldn't be a challenge at all to the frame unless you get up into some Keith-style hotrod reloads. And lots of factory ammo in .44 Special will be mind-numbingly expensive... you may want to take another look at reloading. |
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Reloading is very popular for .44 Special shooters, and there becomes the problem with L frame .44s. Once some people start handloading, they learn of how Elmer Keith made the .44 Special into an "almost magnum" and try to do the same thing. Too much of that and your poor 696 will not be long for this world. Not to say it's weak, but it just can't stand up to, say, a 250 grain LSWC at 1200 fps for very long. I have no desire for a short barreled 5 shot .44 Special, but I can understand why some people do. |
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Oh Man! I had one of these and I got rid of it. To this day I can't remember why. I loved this gun. It was very accurate for a 3" bbl and soft recoiling too. 44 spl is certainly a reloader round and very fun to dial in. I think mine liked 240 gr, LSWCs the best over about 6 gr. of W231. Check out starline.com for brass and grab a set of Lee dies and your good to go! I'll tell you what, buy it! If you don't like it for any reason, I'll buy it from you. No really, I would. They are that much fun. Mark Edit to add that the 3" 629 ("N" frame in 44 mag) is my very favorite gun of all time. Carry on. |
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The 696's are great guns. I paid $400 for mine five years ago and I am kicking myself for trading it off. They are strong guns, but the poster who said you shouldn't trn it into a .44 magnum is correct. Factory Gold Dots won't wear the gun out; if anything, factory ammo will probably prolong the life of this fine gun since most facotry loadings are somewhat on the light side. I used to load a Thompson 250 grain gas checked SWC over 7.0 gr of Universal for app 1000 f.p.s. Controllable and about as powerful as a gun of this size needs to be. There was a 'dash-1' and a 'dash-2' version of this gun. The dash-1's had hammer mounted firing pins and the dash-2's had frame mounted firing pins. I believe the rifling was EDM'd and not button-rifled like older S & W's. but accuracy was always stellar in my particular gun. I replaced it with a 3" M29 Lew Horton .44, and (like I see a pattern here) it too was traded off in a moment of stupidity. GOnna try and find another one someday. On the SIXGUNS website a few souls had converted M686's into .44's with barrels and cylinder swaps, but I believe Brownells no longer stocks the parts. |
| the 696 is a great gun. I've got a 396 and it holds up quite well with pretty warm handloads so the 696 will be great for you. as a note, Keith didn't work up his super hot 44 specials in an N frame, he did it in a smaller, less strong revolver. the N frame came out because of him. you may also want to look into a model 24 or 624 with the short barrel, they are quite fun too. |
Ever heard of the S&W New Century, or M1917, or .38-44, or.... 
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What frame is the 24 and 624.....are they an L frame? Thanks! |
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I have a S&W 696 & a 296. The 696 is a great gun. I though the amount metal in the cylinder walls between cylinders iis bit thin, hopefully the S&W engineers have it figured out. Personally I just handload my 44psl loads to the equivalent of 45ACP. The Ti/Al 296 is a hand full (ie recoil and muzzle flip is pretty stout) even with my mild hand loads, so I download it to the absolute minimum level when I do shot this gun. This gun is basically a carry gun not meant to be shot frequently. |
Both of those are built on the N frame. Unless the 696 is just very rare, $800 seems pretty high for a regular production S&W revolver. I'm just not familiar enough with that one to know. Most of the 44's I have are 29/629, Redhawks and Super Blackhawks. I only have the 396 as a special and have owned a couple 24/624 in the past. My 396 is my carry gun. |
According to the article I have written by Keith personally, he used "the old triple-lock Smith and Wesson with my heavy loads". I'm unsure of the gun but maybe another expert on here can clarify. He was pushing 18 1/2 grains of 2400 behind his 250 grain bullet.......very HOT. I've shot that before in a 24 and it's smokin hot!! He got Remington to produce the loads with brass 1/10 of an inch longer (the 44 Magnum) and S&W sent him the first 44 Magnum revolver,"the tool room job", to test it all together. |
It is a no dash. Here is a link to the auction I'm looking at: http://gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=81311906 |
So the 24 and 624 are more likely a bit more durrable the the 696? |
Insofar as the .44 Special goes, I'd be likely to load some slightly heavier loads in the N frame over the L frame, but remember, neither is a .44 Magnum, and trying to make it so will be to the detriment of your revolver. |
Isn't an N frame and N frame? N frames are built for the 44 mag. Not saying I would load the 44 special to mag levels I just want to know where the weak point is on 24 and 624 vs a real 44 mag N frame. Thanks! |
Yes and no. While N-frames are all the same in asmuch as being S&W's "big" frame, it's gone through a variety of subtle changes over the last 99 years. I assume that the improvements made to the 29 models carried over to all N-frames when made, but don't know that to be fact. There's no real "weak point" on the 24/624 models that should be of concern if you're not putting hot-rod handloads in it. John Taffin's article "Smith & Wesson's .44 Magnum" outlines the changes made to the 29/629 models over the years. |
My understanding is that the heat treatment of the frame is different for the 24/624 as opposed to the 29/629. I think the lockwork is heat treated differently, as well. Either way, hundreds upon hundreds of rounds of 20 gr of 2400 and a 250 LSWC will soon make your Model 24 to do fun tricks like spin the cylinder backwards. Remember, even then original 29 had to have strengthened lockwork to handle the loads being used in .44 Magnum. Hence the Model 629-3E, for enhanced. |
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Unless you try to 'magnumize' your .44 special loads, there is NO WAY you can wear out a M24 or a M624 N-Frame .44 special. IF you want a .44 magnum performance, buy a .44 magnum, they're the same darn frame size for cryin' out loud! A 1000fps to 1200fps .44 special load will not wear out an N-frame .44 special or .44 magnum. Handloading a 1500 fps load in either gun WILL. The biggest problems Smith & Wesson N frames had was a combination of softer metals int he older guns and loose tolerances in the gas ring/headspace area. The cylinders would slam back and forth during recoil, eventually peening the gas ring and creating fore-and-adt end shake. This is a viscious circle, as excessive fore-and-aft endshake only allows the cylinder to smash back and forth even MORE during recoil...and endhsake opens up further. This causes the hand/pawl relationship witht he cylinder ratchet to suffer, and eventually timing and lockup is affected...which is one of the reasons that over the years many 'dash' modifications have been made to all of the magnum revolvers. Beefing up parts, better heat-treating, and in the stainless guns, new alloys that resond to heating expansion differently. The 696 is an L frame gun, it is strong and well-made but it is still operating at the limit of its' envelope. 1200 fps with a 250-gr bullet it gonna accelerate wear and tear. 1000 fps won't cause undue stress, and factory loads--app 800 fps-- will NOT wear the gun out, EVER. Smith and Wesson discontinued the 696 because of two factors. One, not enough people bought them. Two, the people who did buy them more often then not, loaded them heavy. .44 magnum heavy. There were wear-and-tear issues with the guns, in the forcing cone area especially. When you take a barrel that was designed for a .357 and you hog out a .44 magnum bore and forcing cone, there ain't a lot of metal left around the barrel shank. The forcing cones could (and would) split under a steady diet of .44 magnum-level handloads. The 396's and 296's are still being sold, they fill a niche, an ultra-light big-bore revolver. The lightweight buns have factory warnings and barrel stamps warnign against using heavy bullets. And in truth, even though you CAN load the 296's and 396's with heavy handloads, I don't thing ANYONE is gonna be firing a steady diet of them in one of these guns, its just too uncomfortable. Am I bashing the 696 ? NO ! I loved mine ! I wish I'd kept it, and I'm gonna have to pony up considerable $$$ in the future if I want to obtain another one. |
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Oh, I don't know if the recoil is that bad now. My 396, using Winchester factory silvertips, feels pretty mild and really is comfortable to shoot all day. When I put in my "target" 44 special handloads using 6gr Unique with a 240LSWC it starts to pound a little harder into my hand. My self-defense loads aren't too bad to shoot, a little stouter than the Silvertips. Bullet weight is everything with the lightweights, at least that's what I've learned. |