.41 Remington Magnum
The .41 Remington Magnum cartridge, introduced in 1964 and initially offered in the Smith & Wesson Model 57 revolver, was the result of Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan prodding Remington Arms Co., Inc., Smith & Wesson, Inc. and Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. into collaborating to create what they thought would be the perfect law enforcement cartridge. Ken Waters, one of my favorite gun writers, briefly writes of the process the parties went through in the 4th edition of Pet Loads. Once they had all decided upon what they wanted the new cartridge to do and the bullet diameter, the development of the cartridge was left to Earl Larson, an employee of Remington Arms Co., Inc. The idea was to create a cartridge that had more power than the typical .38 Special or .357 Magnum service revolver then in prevalent use but with less power than the .44 Magnum, making for a gun and cartridge combination that (theoretically at least) would be the perfect carry weapon. Smith &Wesson even went so far as to make a fixed sight version of the Model 57, the M&P Model 58 for police use. Unfortunately, like most good ideas, the reality was quite the opposite. While the .41 Magnum was easier to control than the .44 Magnum, the Models 57 and 58 it was chambered for were built on Smith & Wesson’s N-frame, the company’s largest revolver frame at the time. For law enforcement personnel accustomed to a K-frame Model 10 in .38 Special or a Model 19 in .357 Magnum, the Models 57 and 58 were too heavy for daily carry and the .41 Magnum still had too much power for many to handle comfortably. A few hunters found the cartridge ideal for deer and similar sized game but most gravitated toward the .44 Magnum. Since then, the .41 Mag. has led what could charitably be described as a checkered existence with lackluster sales of guns and only a relatively small number of shooters and hunters embracing it. Most ignore it and some have nothing nice to say about it at all. Those that have decided to give the .41 Magnum a try are usually pleasantly surprised at how versatile it can be, at least for those who handload for it.
The .41 Magnum’s bullet diameter is .410” although most cast bullets currently on the market measure either .411” or .412”. The cartridge was originally produced with either a 210 grain lead semiwadcutter (LSWC) bullet that was loaded to about 1,000 feet per second or a 210 grain jacketed soft point (JSP) at about 1,350 feet per second, both figures from the Speer Reloading Manual #14. The 1967 Gun Digest lists factory ammunition fired from a 6” barrel at 1342 fps with a 210 gr. JSP and 986 fps with a 210 gr. LSWC along with velocities with the same bullets from an 8 3/8” barrel at 1,500 fps and 1,050 fps respectively. The lower power round was intended to be used by police officers for daily use while the full power round was meant to be used when more power and penetration was desired or for hunting big game. The problem was, the round meant for daily law enforcement use still had too much power for the average police officer to shoot well with and worse yet, the bullet would sometimes continue to pass through whatever miscreant they tried to put the lights out on. As a result, most cops decided to use a .357 Magnum if they wanted more power than a .38 Special. The .357 Magnum loaded with a 125 grain bullet was once considered by many to be the ultimate police load and if you are inclined to carry a revolver for defensive purposes, it is a good one. Most anyone working as a police officer nowadays though will carry a high capacity, semiautomatic pistol chambered in .40 S&W so the debate about the suitability of the .41 Magnum for law enforcement is moot. The .40 S&W cartridge is similar in performance to the .38-40 Win. cartridge, which was considered a good manstopper 100 years ago, and it is very much like the original .41 Mag. police load, at least in concept. I sometimes wonder if Remington simply dusted off the blueprints for the .41 Special when they were designing the .41 Magnum. The .41 Special was an experimental cartridge designed by Remington and chambered in a Colt New Service revolver in 1932 as a proof of concept. J. Henry Fitzgerald was very enthusiastic about the .41 Special and considered it the perfect handgun cartridge for hunting and personal protection so the idea of a medium caliber handgun round for those purposes is definitely not a new one. I’m not a police officer and never have been so the idea of carrying a gun everyday as a working tool is not something I am concerned with but as a target shooter and hunter, I am an enthusiastic proponent of the .41 Magnum and the guns it is chambered for.
The .41 Magnum doesn’t have the power of the .44 Magnum but then again, it doesn’t have the recoil or muzzle blast of it either. It is also an accurate cartridge and I find myself shooting my .41 Mag. Ruger Redhawk far more often than my .44 Mag. S&W Model 29. That’s not to say that I don’t like the .44 Magnum. It is still my favorite handgun cartridge but a quick perusal of my reloading bench will show that I load far more .41 Magnum cartridges than .44 Magnums. Oddly enough, I saw a small missive in the editorial section of the February 2010 issue of Precision Shooting that mentions an article written for another gun magazine excoriating the S&W Model 57 as being a very unpleasant gun to shoot. A brief commentary by Mr. Jeff Munnell in the editorial points out that it is unlikely a S&W Model 57 .41 Magnum will recoil more than a S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum, assuming that the two guns are identical, and anyone that has shot a .44 Magnum will know how hard they can kick. I haven’t read the article in question and it is undoubtedly written by someone who knows enough about guns to be paid to write about them, but I have to concur with Mr. Munnell. The Model 57, at least in my personal experience, does not kick so hard that it makes the gun unpleasant to shoot. I originally started shooting .41 Mag. revolvers about 18 years ago because their prices were very low (mostly as a result of a lack of shooter interest) but also because everything I had read about the cartridge up to that point stressed the 20% reduction in recoil as compared to the .44 Mag. It turns out that the folks who wrote about the reduction in recoil were pretty much dead on in their observations and I was very surprised to find out how much fun the .41 Magnum is to shoot, especially in a big revolver like the Ruger Redhawk. I eventually managed to find a Smith &Wesson Model 57 in pristine condition and found it to be every bit as much fun to shoot as my Redhawk. I stand about 6’ 2” and weigh close to 200 pounds so I can understand someone of small stature or with small hands complaining about the recoil the .41 Mag. dishes out but I don’t find it objectionable at all.
The only complaint I can honestly lodge against the .41 Magnum is the relative lack of suitable powders and bullets available for handloading, at least in comparison to the .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum. I tend to shoot my .41 Magnums with either a 215 grain LSWC loaded to approximately 1,000 fps, which makes for a very pleasant load to plink with, or a 210 grain JSP loaded to about 1,300 fps. I don’t hunt with either of my .41 Magnums so I generally load either the 215 gr. LSWC by whomever happens to offer the best deal on cast bullets and the 210 gr. JSP offered by Remington in their bulk packs as they are very economical. As I write this, the Graf & Sons website shows a good selection of .410” bullets for sale weighing from 170 grains to 265 grains so there are other choices available for those inclined to experiment. If you handload for the .41 Magnum (or any cartridge for that matter) use the latest loading data as published by the powder manufacturers on their websites or buy a couple of good loading manuals as references. They are offered by Lyman, Speer, Hornady, Sierra and many other bullet and powder manufacturers, with some being free so get as many as you can afford as it is cheap insurance. The last thing you want to do is reload any cartridge without up to date loading data as any mistake made tends to have dire consequences. If you’re new to the game, don’t start reloading any ammo until you get some instruction from someone knowledgeable enough to show you how to do it right. The .41 Mag., like most big bore handgun cartridges, is fairly easy to load for, notwithstanding the aforementioned relative lack of suitable components. There is still enough out there to keep me interested but most shooters will shy away from the .41 Mag. for just that reason. Which is really a shame since most of them are missing out on a really great cartridge.
If you decide to give the .41 Magnum a try, there are still a few new revolvers that readily come to mind that are offered by Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Taurus and Freedom Arms. I’ve never owned one but the Freedom Arms Model 97 is probably one of the best bets if you are looking for a very high quality, single action revolver but it does have a price that reflects its workmanship at around $2,000 brand new. It’s a bit smaller than the Freedom Arms Model 83 which is also cataloged in .41 Mag. making for a much easier gun to carry in the woods. Ruger offers its excellent Blackhawk single action at a very reasonable price and Smith & Wesson’s website as of February 2010 shows both the Model 57 and Model 58 as part of their Classics line. I haven’t had the chance to look at any of the .41 Mag. revolvers made by Taurus but they are listed in their catalog. If you own a Thompson Center Contender single shot pistol, or are planning to buy one, Bullberry Barrel Works offers brand new barrels in .41 Magnum. If you don’t mind buying a used gun, you can include the Magnum Research Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol which was offered for a short while in .41 Magnum. Dan Wesson also once offered their big revolvers with switch barrels in .41 Mag. and of course, Ruger offered Redhawks with either a 5 1/2” or 7 1/2” barrel in .41 Magnum. Naturally, you can always hire someone to build a .41 Mag. for you but it doesn’t make much economic sense unless you want something that is truly custom made with some sort of unusual features on it. If you decide to go that route, there are a lot of pistolsmiths that would be happy to do the work with my favorite being Bowen Classic Arms. I sent a 5 1/2” Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Mag. to them years ago to have a trigger job, action tune and base pin lock installation done and they did a truly wonderful job. I don’t shoot that particular gun with full power loads all that much but when I do, I at least know that the base pin won’t come loose and move forward under recoil. They work on Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers too so if you have a handgun that you would like to customize, they are an ideal candidate for the job. On a final note, for those that want a rifle to fire the same cartridge as their handgun, Marlin offered their Model 1894 lever action in .41 Magnum a few years back but regrettably, it is no longer part of the company’s product lineup.
As it is now, the .41 Magnum will probably never break any sales records but there is still enough interest for guns and ammunition to be offered to the shooting public for many years to come. I am always on the lookout for any .41 Mag. revolver although with two of them in my collection, it would have to be something rarely seen or something that is better than either my Redhawk or Model 57 in some way before I will add it to my collection. Davidson’s recently offered a stainless steel Super Blackhawk Hunter in .41 Mag. as a limited edition with either a standard grip frame and round trigger guard (catalog #KS-417NH) or the same gun with a Bisley style grip frame (catalog #KS-417NHB) and although I was tempted to buy one, I decided neither could do anything much better than what I already have so I passed on them. I will probably regret not buying both in a few years but life sometimes gets in the way of buying new guns. I would be very interested in a vintage Smith & Wesson M&P Model 58 though, especially if it is in pristine condition but I’ve never seen one in the flesh, so to speak, so I may be in for a long wait on that one. Unfortunately, since I live in the People’s Republic of California, I cannot buy a new S&W Model 58 since it isn’t currently on the California Department of Justice’s list of approved handguns. For those of you that live in free America, I would suggest that you fight tooth and nail any effort to make guns “safer” as it will create more useless government bureaucrats that will use their power to keep you from buying the guns you want. What always amazes me about our government, and it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the federal, state or local government, is the relative ease with which they can eliminate essential civil servants such as cops, firefighters, nurses and pretty much anyone else that can keep a city safe and clean. Yet all the various levels of government never seem to get around to thinning the ranks of the administrative personnel that don’t seem to do anything besides find ways to justify their questionable existence. In case you’re wondering why I feel this way, I was a civil servant for over 10 years so I have a pretty good idea of how illogical and wasteful government can be and as such, I have no desire to work for any government, anywhere, ever again. My fervent desire is for our government, especially the Feds and the State of California, to shrink in size until it resembles what it was before 1900 or so. Till then, I will just shoot and enjoy what I have and try to keep the government out of my life as much as possible.
The 2010 general election will be this November and from all indications, the Democrats are going to take quite a shellacking from the American public for their errant ways. Republican Scott Brown has just won the U.S. Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy, an ardent gun control advocate that has gone to meet his maker, and he did it largely by touting himself as the 41st vote against Obama’s healthcare plan to the voters of Massachusetts. His victory was something of a minor miracle, at least in my opinion, and I hope he continues to oppose Obama’s attempts to institute universal health care as it can be used to dictate every aspect of our lives if it ever passes. I also hope Sen. Brown won’t be as anti-gun as Ted Kennedy was but considering the late senator’s record on that issue, it shouldn’t be too hard for Brown to better him on that one. That does not mean that we as shooters, hunters and collectors can rest on our laurels. We have to keep up the fight and help elect those who are receptive to the preservation of our rights. Join the NRA and help them and other like minded groups such as The Firearms Coalition fight for your rights. Getting involved in the tea party movement is another good way to help America find its way back to greatness. I don’t believe in creating a formal third party as that will only help Democrats but I do believe in finding conservative candidates for office in the mold of Ronald Reagan that can run as Republicans. Seek them out, give them money and volunteer to help their campaigns. Ideally, we as gun owners should try to install candidates that are friendly to our cause to even the lowest levels of government as the local seats are the stepping stones to higher office. I don’t generally support Republicans in Name Only (i.e. RINOs) as I don’t feel they deserve my vote or money but I held my nose and voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in the last election because I didn’t want to vote for the Democratic candidate and I couldn’t vote for Tom McClintock, who I am happy to say has gone on to serve in Congress. Don’t be afraid to take a stand and don’t fall for the tactic of reaching across the aisle or compromising with those who would destroy our great country. That will only give our enemies an excuse to blame us when things go wrong as they inevitably will when we listen to radical liberals and embrace their failed philosophy. The worst thing to do is nothing and if that is the path we who own and use guns choose, then we will all deserve whatever sorry fate is dealt to us. -- John Swikart (3/4/2010)
Copyright March 2010 ALL ABOUT GUNS
