Very cool score on your part!! I had always heard the original .44 for Dirty Harry was the ridiculous 8 3/8 barreled 29 for the camera affect of bigger looks smaller on film, but always thought that was BS as it didn't look anything like that length more like 6-6.5". If anyone knows you probably do........
As to MY understanding there were #5 MGM prop S&W model 29's produced for the Dirty Harry series ,as I spoke with the Hollywood firearms Guru connected to the studios . I found out about the " prop " becoming available for sale from our neighbor at the time , Marty ( Martin) Milner . I later purchased his Mercedes ,when they moved . I know where #3 are but don't know where all #5 went ??.
It's funny because I could have purchased #2 that very day ,yet figured one was Good enough .
Factual ; NO Model 57 .41 mag. was ever used in any Dirty Harry sequel ,as the West Coast S&W Rep supplied the studio with a Model 29 .
Read below :
This is the gun Dirty Harry should have used,” Milius told me at his home a few years ago, as he reached into his desk and pulled out a 4-inch barreled Model 29 with ivory stocks. Indeed, his Sept. 23, 1970, movie draft calls for exactly such a gun in nickel finish. But, as previously noted, Model 29s were in short supply at the time (due to lack of demand, not popularity, as is commonly believed) and there were no 4-inch models to be had. Consequently, according to S&W historian Roy Jinks, Kelly Lookabaugh, S&W’s West Coast Representative who had close ties with Hollywood, brought a 6½-inch blued model to the Warner Brothers studios. The gun had been assembled in the late 1960s by Archie Dubia, foreman of S&Ws hand-fitting department. Studios normally like to have at least one backup gun and preferably two, in case the primary gun gets damaged during filming. Thus, Milius lent, gave or brought (the details vary, depending on who you ask) two 6½-inch Model 29s to the studio. Later, he presented one of these guns to Clint Eastwood, who, last I heard, still has it. **
** According to Clint this isn't true as he had NO model 29 or didn't acknowledge it ,when I contacted him back in the late 90's and explained how I happened to have purchased it from the studio . He agreed there were #5 ,6.5" and a 4" along with that long barrel .
He also told me the shoulder holster was sold with one of the Smiths .
But a different version of the first “Dirty Harry” Model 29s is chronicled by the Internet Movie Firearms Database (IMFDB). According to it, when a 4-inch Model 29 proved unobtainable, Eastwood personally contacted S&W representative Bob Sauer, who in turn had Fred Miller (who originally had helped develop the production model of the .44 Magnum) at the factory assemble two guns, one with a 6½-inch barrel and the other with an 8 3/8" inch, from parts on hand. **
** I've Never seen that Model from Dirty Harry but believe in a couple of scene's it may very well have been used but NEVER holstered or carried . The Holster rig was made for a 6" and Clint's 6.5" rode high as a result of encapsulated rig ..
