Sexy .44 Special with pretty wood grips almost upsets Nightguard plans

My plans to save up for a Smith & Wesson Nightguard revolver almost jumped the tracks this week. My job at the gunshop where I work is to take photos of new and used guns and list them in auctions on gunbroker and what should I find waiting on me but a S&W 296 AirLite Ti Centennial .44 Special with a beautiful set of wood grips.

I'm a sucker for .44 Specials and nice wood grips and this one has both of those fine qualities. But thankfully I have already experienced the laws of physics in motion with another S&W AirLite Titanium/Scandium alloy .44 Special revolver, the S&W 396 Mountain Lite, at bottom in the second photo which I stole from John Taffin's article on .44 Specials in Gun Digest.

I got a chance to test-fire a S&W 396 I found in a gun shop in Wagram, NC, and after 15 rounds I understood why one gun writer said it should have been called the "Mountain Bite."

I test-fired it with .44 Specials of 200 grains or less as it says right on the barrel and decided against that purchase. I fired it right-handed and left-handed and either way, she bites.

So the temptation to grab the S&W 296 was one I managed to resist. Yes it's light as a feather and great to carry. But IMHO it's too light for .44 Specials of any more potency than Cowboy loads and I just don't want a carry gun I can't also enjoy shooting regularly.

I believe Tamara has mentioned on her blog that a S&W 296 lives in her purse, but since she also carries a full-size 1911 IWB, she's obviously more man than I am when it comes to both carrying and shooting pistols. 

I've only got one "carry a lot, shoot a little" pistol, my Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm and that's enough. I do enjoy shooting the PF-9 but with hot loads it is a bit snappy, plus Kel-Tec's small pistols are not built to be range guns. I've heard some complaints that after 200+ rounds they start falling apart, but that is not the case with the two I've owned, PF-9 and P-11, both of which have managed 200+ just fine.

Anyway, the plan for my first Nightguard goes forward. They are light, but not too light, with steel barrels and cylinders to go with the alloy frame and from all reviews I've read, they're also eminently shootable.

Now if I could just sell my S&W 469 "Mini" 9mm and Dan Wesson .22LR Revolver to finance the purchase of a Nightguard, whatever the model I decide upon. Anybody who wants to help me out with those sales would be appreciated.

And thanks also to all who have voted thus far in the poll at top left on which Nightguard model I should choose. There's only been one vote thus far for the S&W 396 Nightguard .44 Special and that vote was mine. It also just happens to be the only model in the poll that we actually have or have had in stock at the gun shop where I work, so that may be what I buy, not being terribly long on patience when it comes to waiting for a gun on special order. The jury is still out.

Smith of the Week: Tam's purse gun, S&W 296 DAO .44 Special

It's no surprise to my faithful readers, all dozen or so of you, that I love Smith & Wesson firearms. During the past year+ that I've working in a gun shop, I've had quite an education in the bewildering nomenclature of Smith handguns with two, three and four digit ID numbers established since the line got so large in 1958 that all models got numbers instead of names.

"They've given you a number,
"and taken way your name"

goes that song of the '60s from the TV show, "Secret Agent Man."

So I have decided for furtherance of my own education, as well as my faithful readers, that I shall henceforth begin a regular feature I shall dub "Smith of the Week" or maybe day or month or whenever inspiration strikes.

This inaugural post is dedicated to Tamara, who confided in a comment post when she visited my humble blog that a S&W 296 .44 Special has a permanent home in her purse.

Bluebook sez:

MODEL 296 AIRLITE Ti CENTENNIAL- .44 S&W Spl. cal., L-frame, 5 shot, 2 1/2 in. barrel, similar to Model 242 in construction materials, alloy frame and titanium cylinder, Uncle Mike's Boot grips, 18.9 oz. Mfg. 1999-2002.

Bluebook doesn't supply a photo and Tam didn't give me one, so I stole a couple of images from an auction on gunbroker for this post. It was available for a mere $999, so that puts if out of my league.

Aside from the fact that I love Tam from afar and greatly admire her gun knowledge -- what's not to love, a good lookin' woman who has a lot of guns and shoots them regularly and shares her knowledge? -- I also got the chance to actually hold and dry-fire a S&W 296 this week.

One came into the gun shop and when I picked it up and snapped it, lo and behold it has a great double-action-only trigger. It also has a really nice set of combat finger-groove checkered wood grips of the type used on Talo and other special-edition S&W round-butt revolvers.

But alas, it was purchased by a customer from afar who had it shipped to our shop for a transfer. My hope was I would be able to shoot it and perhaps add it to my humble collection of Smith's, but that is not to be, at least immediately.

The boss lady gave me hope after informing me it is for transfer and not for sale. She said this customer often purchases guns off the Internet, tries them out and then brings them back for resale. So maybe I'll get a shot -- literally -- at this 296 yet.

It's one of Smith's alloy frame, Titanium cylinder creations that is remarkably light for its size and shooting a respectable cartridge, certainly a lot more potent than .38 Special, and I am one of the many who love .44 Specials.

My hope, if I ever to get a chance to try it out, is that it will be more shootable than the S&W 396 Scandium-Titanium "Mountain Lite" that I once tried out at another gun shop that had a range.

One writer I read termed it the "Mountain Bite" and after five rounds of full-house .44 Specials I had to agree with that assessment. It had a serious bite on the back end as well as the business end.

The 296 differs from the 396 in two regards, it is double-action-only not traditional double/single like the 396. And despite that Bodyguard-looking hump, it does have not a shrouded hammer but a fully enclosed hammer of the Centennial-Smith style.

And is seemed some gunsmith worked some magic on the trigger as it was very light and eminently shootable. Who knows if the recoil is "biteable"?

Tam likes it so it can't be too bad. Time will tell as to whether I ever get a chance to shoot this 296. But if not, it's something else I can be on the lookout for future acquisitions.