Revolver

This large-frame revolver is built on the Smith & Wesson Model 629, the stainless-steel, .44 Magnum double-action wheelgun that descends from the cartridge Dirty Harry made famous. It headlines Ultimate Edition promotion as a matched his-and-hers pair for Jason and Lucia, and reporting notes the two guns carry engraved serial numbers referencing the release dates of Vice City and Vice City Stories.

The lineage is worth getting right, because the film and the gun are usually collapsed into one another. Smith & Wesson built the Model 29 in 1955 around a new cartridge developed with Elmer Keith, a hunter who had spent years overloading .44 Special cases and wanted a factory round that would do it safely. It sold moderately for sixteen years. Then Clint Eastwood pointed one at a bank robber in 1971 and called it the most powerful handgun in the world, and Model 29s disappeared from dealer shelves for years, changing hands well above list price.

The 629 is the same gun in stainless steel. Smith & Wesson prefixes a 6 to a model number to denote the stainless version, so 29 becomes 629. The practical difference is corrosion resistance, which is why it is the sensible choice for a game set in a humid coastal state. The in-game name is not settled. The community calls it the Morgan; Rockstar has not published a name. The weapon and the promotional pairing are official, the label is not.