So I brought the .44 home. After looking at it awhile I decided to begin using it some. I set it up with a sling on it since it was too long to carry comfortably in any kind of holster other than a scabbard on the horse!
I had gotten several bullet molds from JD Jones at SSK Industries. JD had just recently developed a heavyweight bullet for the .44 and had sent me a couple bullet molds. The 320 gr. bullet was wonderfully accurate and easy to load so I built some loads that ran it around 1350 fps from the six-shooter, and I began carrying it every time I walked out into the hills.
One day I was out in the brush looking to see what I could see when I spotted movement about 200 yards across a small canyon. I thought it was a coyote so I sat down in some brush and got my call out and went to work. I called for awhile and was thinking of giving up when suddenly, right in front of me maybe 20 feet away this pretty little fox materialized out of nowhere!
I had nearly given up on anything coming in and was not even holding the gun. I put the call down, picked up the .44 and the fox looked at me. I said "Hey" and he just looked. So I put a 320 gr. SSK slug through his shoulders and that was that. I brought him home to skin out 'cuz his hide was so pretty. The big slug encountered no more resistance going through him than if I shot through a couple slices of bread, so there was no real damage to the hide.
I did not care for the extra-long barrel. It shot OK but destroyed the handling qualities of the single action sixgun. Seven and half or eight inches is as long as I want the barrels on mine.
I have had experience with even longer single actions.
Back to the 44 SBH ... my friend Marlin kept it for quite awhile but did not use it much. He sold it to another friend who had the barrel shortened and the gun engraved with gold and silver inlay, custom grips etc. It was beautiful! Sadly, it was destroyed in a house fire. I looked at what was left of the gun after it was recovered out of the ashes. The fire had been so hot it melted all the aluminum parts on the gun, melted the inlays and left a warped twisted relic of a sixgun. It was sad.
