early hunting handguns

I recently posted photos of my current hunting handgun collection and I thank you for all your positive reply`s. This picture shows my battery a few years after I began to hunt with a handgun. Clockwise from top left: S&W 22 lr/mag - S&W M-19 - Colt Python - S&W 44 Spec. that I had made with 44 barrel and cylinder for more power then my 357 - Dominator 30-30... Took deer with the Python and 30-30... What were your early hunting handguns????

Very nice James. Thanks for posting these pics. You truly are an ambassador for handgun hunters.

My very very first hunting handgun was a Smith and Wesson 460 XVR. Thought since it could shoot three different chamberings, it would be my one and only hunting handgun.

WRONG!!!!!

My first was a Ruger Blackhawk in .357. My first SUCCESSFUL hunting handgun was an 8 3/8? Smith Model 27. It accounted for at least 4 whitetail and, I believe, 3 javelina IIRC. That was a long time ago and that gun is gone, but it was a good one and showed me what a well placed .357 Magnum slug could do. It also ruined me for really enjoying hunting with a rifle

Same for me on all counts!

x2

A S&W 63 22lr for small game. 4? Python for varmints around the farm and when Illinois allowed pistols for deer an early target grey SRH 454

I started with a Super 14 Contender with a 22 LR Barrel and a 7-30 Waters barrel. This would have been in the very early 1990's or possibly late 1980's.
A short time later Mark Hampton fixed me up with a 14" 375 JDJ Contender barrel. I added another 2.5-7 Burris scope to it.
Next came another barrel from JD this time a 6.5-30JDJ. I was concerned way back then that 225 brass would get hard to come by.
Then came a 35 Bullberry again in 14". The 375 JDJ now belongs to another member of this forum. The 7-30 was traded off at some point. I still have all the other barrels, and a few more by MGM added later.

I owned a few 29's and 629's back then, but did not hunt with them. Most were 4".

Bob R

Its so very interesting to hear what handguns you guys started with.... Only in America.....

My first was a TC encore with a 12? .44 mag barrel. Killed several animals with it before buying a second barrel for it which was a 15? 7-08.

S&W 29,and a Encore in 308.

In 1980, my first handgun deer were with a S&W model 29 8 3/8" barrel. The next hunting season I hunted with a Ruger.41 Magnum. My third handgun deer season started with a Dan Wesson 44 mag with an early Aimpoint red dot sight, but before the 1982 season closed, I switched to a TC Contender chambered to 30-40 Krag by J.D. Jones. The Contender was my main hunting handgun for the next twenty years. I recently started hunting with revolvers again. Wish I still had those early guns.

My first hunting handgun was my Dad?s S&W model 17 (k22) I shot a groundhog with it when I was 15 or 16 and I was hooked. I thought I was the king of the woods! I got a T/C Contender in 218 Bee when I was 17 (1976). Mounted a 1x Herters scope on it and proceeded to shoot groundhogs and squirrels with regularity. Next I got a 44Magnum Hotshot barrel and I was in business for Anything that walked or flew. These are the guns that made me a ?real? handgun hunter. I shot pheasants and grouse on the wing with 44 hotshot capsules along with squirrels and rabbits. I dispatched a wounded Whitetail and took a nice Exotic Sheep with the 44 mag. I thought that I had all the firepower I needed for hunting. Then... the sport of silhouette shooting caught my attention and along came a 10 1/2? Super Blackhawk, more Contender barrels, a Dan Wesson 44 and so on and so on...

My first hunting handgun was a 8 3/8" Taurus Model 44 44 Mag (blued)

My first hunting handgun was a 10.5in Ruger Super Blackhawk w/ 2x scope back in the early 80s. Then a Ruger Single Six for squirrels.

In the early 90s, I got into Contenders

The early 2000s I got into other Rugers and Encores.

By 2010 I was using bolt action, falling block, and an ever increasing number of revolvers.

The saga continues.

My first handgun kill fell to a 10 inch Contender in 30/30 when I was 17. 25 years later, I am still a TC Contender guy, and still like a 30/30.