I have owned a bunch of guns over my lifetime, but I never had any inclination to get a “Dirty Harry” Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver. Too big, too heavy, and I’m not a revolver fan.
But - a table mate of mine at a gun show last year had a really cherry M29 with the 8 3/8 inch barrel, blued and the price was attractive, so I bought it.
I had to at least try it out, so I bought a box of older Remington ammo and headed for the range.
I loaded it, aimed in, and squeezed the trigger.
That dang thing roared, with a huge muzzle flash and everybody around me stopped shooting to see what made that noise. It felt like first time I fired a big pistol when I was a kid - complete with that feeling of being just plain big for me - but the recoil was comparatively mild and after six shots, it grouped like a match pistol at 25m!
I’m keeping this one!
When I used to shoot, we once rented an S&W .44 mag at the range, and bought some range ammo. It did not seem like such a big deal, but that may have been the range ammo.
I have a model 29 and a colt anaconda both with 8 inch barrels. The 29 is very light compared to the anaconda and despite the size of both they are very comfortable to shoot. I just inherited my dad’s taurus 2 inch 44 which is awful to shoot.