In the past year, the gun writer community has been hit by a double-whammy of the untimely passings of two all-time great firearms scribes, Mike “Duke” Venturino and John Taffin.
“Duke” passed back on June 9, 2024 following a brief illness related due to complications from heart disease. (I haven’t been able to ascertain Mike’s age at the time of his passing. If any of our dear readers happen to have that tidbit of info, please let us know in the Comments.) Then we lost John on March 10, 2025, a couple of months shy of his 86th birthday. I can’t find specifics on the cause; Massad Ayoob simply describes it as “a period of ill health.”
I first became familiar with John’s and Mike’s writings in the summer of 1990, in-between my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I had less than a year of shooting experience under my belt at the time. That first Taffin reading was a cover story on the .500 Linebaugh Magnum for the July/August 1990 issue of American Handgunner. My first taste of Venturino’s writing skills was an article for Guns & Ammo (or maybe it was the sister publication, G&A Handguns) titled “Big-Bore Revolvers for Self-Defense.” I eagerly both of these writers’ words of wisdom.
Fast-forward to this past May. Given the theme of those aforementioned articles, I thought it apropos to honor Messrs. Taffin and Venturino’s memories alike with some big-bore revolver blasting of my own. The vehicles for this Magnum-powered salute were my Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum and Smith & Wesson Model 57 .41 Magnum.
Commemoration Gun #1: Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum Backstory
The first big-bore revolver I ever fired was the Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 Magnum, doing so in September 1990. However, on that particular day, I wasn’t yet feeling brave enough to try it with full-powered .44 Mag loads just yet (I was 5’6” and 120 lbs. soaking wet at the time), so I instead settled for charging the Smith the .44 Special loads instead, remembering what Mike had written in that aforementioned about the .44 Special packing “plenty of stopping power with less recoil.”
It was two months later that I finally touched off full-house .44 “Maggie” loads for the first time. The launching platform was the Ruger Redhawk, and it left a long-lasting positive impression. I had already experienced the joys of Ruger’s GP-100 .357 Magnum back in May of that year, so a double-dose of Ruger Magnum revolver joys in the same calendar year firmly cemented Sturm, Ruger & Co, Inc. as my favorite revolver maker. (With all due respect to both S&W and Colt, of course.)
But it wasn’t until 2019 that I finally bought my own Ruger Redhawk. (To put that in perseverance, I bought my own GP-100 back in 2003.) By coincidence, that year marked the 40th anniversary of the Redhawk’s debut and the 70th anniversary of the birth of Sturm, Ruger. (In 1949, the company arrived on-scene via its enduring classic .22 LR autopistol).
As I’ve said before, Rugers are:
“[T]he Timex of double-action revolvers; you know, ‘Takes A Licking And Keeps On Ticking’….When you see reloading manuals with sections that state “For Ruger Guns Only,” that oughta tell you something.” They’ll keep right on perking along after firing hot handloads that’ll literally blow up a Smith or a Colt!“
I made two modifications to my Redhawk after acquiring her. First of all, I replaced the factory wood grips with Pachmayr’s rubber 03140 Presentation Grip. Sure, wood grips may look prettier, but they don’t absorb recoil worth a damn. Rubber grips make shooting Mangum loads a far more pleasant experience.
The next medication was the sights. The anonymous previous owner of my gun decided to fix something that wasn’t broke. He/She did so by replacing the original factory sight with a ridiculous bead sight. To remedy that, I went with the Redhawk LightWave Front Sight from HI VIZ Shooting Systems. I had it installed by the fine gunsmithing folks at Sterling Arsenal in Sterling, Virginia. Much better.
The trigger is amazingly smooth in double-action and crisp in single-action. Now, I don’t know if this trigger is factory stock or if that previous owner had the trigger tuned by a gunsmith. Either way, ‘tis an absolute delight.
Commemoration Gun #1: S&W M57 .41 Magnum Backstory
The .41 Magnum is the proverbial black sheep of the Magnum handgun cartridge family. Debuting in 1964, it was envisioned as a happy middle compromise between the .44 Magnum – which many experts considered to be overpowering – and the .357 Magnum – which some experts view as not powerful enough. Alas, the .41 Mag didn’t quite work out that way in practice. Its ballistics were so much closer to the .44 that it didn’t really catch on as a mainstream law enforcement and private citizens’ self-defense round.
It’s still with us today with a small but loyal cult following. My Facebook friend and fellow gun enthusiast Dennis West says that “.41 Mag is one of the most overlooked, underrated cartridges in existence.” As I’ve also said in the recent past:
“I’m reminded of that designation at every gun rental range I’ve been to, past and present; they have rental guns in all sorts of other Magnum calibers, from .357 to .44 and even .45 Win Mag and .500 S&W. But goshdarnit, never are there the .41 calibers available!”
Well, as the saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Or in this case, “If you can’t rent one, buy one!” So, that’s exactly what I did to satiate my .41 Mag curiosity. Coincidentally, I bought the M57 the same year I bought my Redhawk, i.e. 2019. As was the case with the Redhawk, I replaced the masochistic wood grips with Pachmayr rubber grips.
No other modifications were necessary, as this gun, unlike my Ruger, was purchased brand-new. Ergo, the top-notch factory sights and trigger were still in place.
Commemorative Range Performance Part 1: Rockin’ the Ruger
After six years and several hundred rounds of excellent performance from both guns, we fast-forward back to May 2025. Both my Ruger and my Smith had been sitting around unfired for several months, so they were undoubtedly feeling neglected. Well, what better way to end the two wheelguns’ isolation than a range session in honor of Duke and John? So, I was merrily off to the excellent XCAL indoor shooting range in Ashburn, Virginia.
First up was the Redhawk and 50 rounds of Freedom Munitions (LAX Ammunition) so-called “Desert Eagle” 240-grain roundnose flat-point (RNFP) ammo. (Obviously, the Redhawk ain’t the same as a Desert Eagle, but they’re both big-bore “birds of prey,” so there! Nyuk nyuk!) I evenly divvied up the ammo box between 7-yard head shots and 25-yard center-torso shots. The 7-yard shooting was done entirely in double-action mode, and the 25-yard shooting was done entirely in single-action mode. All shooting was conducted from the Classic Weaver Stance.
Part 1A: Redhawk at 7 Yards
Man oh man, I simply couldn’t ask for a better 7-yard performance than what this Redhawk gave me! As you can see, it perfectly chewed out the center of the bridge of the nose of the paper bad guy. Only one round, straying low left by maybe half an inch, kept me from having a perfect one-hole group. (Always gotta be that one damn black sheep that strays from the frickin’ flock, eh?)
Part 1B: Redhawk at 25 Yards
Now to test out the long-distance dialing (so to speak) capabilities…
The first round landed a bit low-right, missing the heart but still breaking the plane of the A-Zone. (American football analogy: If the nose of the football breaks the plane of the end zone, it’s a touchdown.)
So I took the appropriate “Kentucky windage,” with these pleasing results:
Once again, there had to be that one proverbial “black sheep” straying outside of the A-Zone. Still though, 24 out of 25 rounds in the A-Zone, with roughly half striking the heart.
Just another reminder why I like the Redhawk—and Ruger wheelies in general—so goshdarn much.
Commemorative Range Performance Part Deux: Swingin’ the Smitty
So, now it was time to continue my live-fire memorial session with the .41 Maggie. Same distance/targeting area/trigger mode/stance combination as with the .44. Ammo this time was the Underwood Ammo 150-gr. Xtreme Hunter loading, but this box only came with a m
easly 20 rounds as opposed to 50.
Part Deux-A: M57 at 7 Yards
While the accuracy was more than adequate, it didn’t give the superb center-punching that the Ruger did. Instead, it went noticeably low at both the 7- and 25-yard lines.
For example, at 7 yards, all shots struck the head, but four of them landed below the rectangular “kill box.”
Part Deux-B: M57 at 25 Yards
At this distance, the low pull became even more pronounced, even with extra Kentucky windage applied. A measly two A-Zone hits, with one just barely clipping the heart.
Still adequate for combat purposes though, Ah reckon.
Parting Shots, er, Words
All-in-all, ‘twas a very fun way to bid farewell to two great gun writers. Not to mention finally getting some much-needed stress relief in the process! Nothing vents stress quite like ventilating the target with multiple .40-plus inch holes!
R.I.P. and God bless, John Taffin and Mike “Duke” Venturino, gone but not forgotten. Here’s hoping both the range session and this article make you smile down up there in Gun Writer’s Heaven.
NOTE: This article was initially published on the author’s Patreon page, “The D’Orr-senal of Democracy.” Be on the lookout upcoming first book, “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series,” which will hopefully be published sometime this summer! Stay tuned, dear readers!
