41mag....tell me about it please...

I went on a guided pig hunt with my dad a few years ago, and the guide carried a Taurus Tracker .41 mag. It was loaded with 210gr HPs. The nice thing was that is was much lighter than a .44 mag for all day carry in the field, yet packed more punch than a .357 for dispatching downed hogs. One particular 200+ lb hog needed to be dispatched after being hit with several rounds from a .44 mag at close range. The hog was wounded, but kept trying to get up. One well placed bullet to the head ended the festivities.

The moral of the story is that shot placement is critical, and that the .41 mag is enough gun for medium sized big game if you do your part.
 
I've looked at the 41Mag carefully, because my gun (Ruger NewVaq357) could be safely re-chambered to the 41. That would be the most potent round my gun can shoot as a sixgun, being built on the smaller "mid sized" frame.

I've decided against it, for the same reason the 41Mag basically died out as a law enforcement round during the era when US cops were still using wheelguns.

Basically, the 357 got better towards the end as better projectiles came out. Super Vel started the trend, then the Remington 125gr full house load came out, and then several others, and they really have never been beat as manstoppers since, at least in rounds law enforcement used.

The very best 357Mag loads today are better yet but not "hugely" better: the Speer 125gr Gold Dot projectile loaded flat-out by Buffalo Bore or DoubleTap Ammo is a *scary* critter. 1,600fps or more from a 4" tube, able to blow up a bowling ball, extremely reliable expansion and a short fat energy dump with little over-penetration.

It's the sort of thing you really, REALLY don't want to get hit with, and nothing similar exists in a factory load for the 41. Even the Gold Dot rounds in 41 are tuned for deep-punch and hunting.

Now, against boar or piggies or as a bear defense gun, the 41 curb-stomps the 357. No question at all! But as a manstopper? No. The unique needs of biped-stopping means there has to be some high-tech bullets involved and more development has gone into the 357 than the 41.
 
With the .41 Magnum, people fall into three general catagories.
People who don't know about it.
People who know about it and have no use for it.
People who know about it and love it.

As told, it was developed at the urging of several gunwriters, but magnumitis on the makers part doomed it for police use. With the .41 mag only being available in .44mag size guns, and with many police depts not even having access to supplies of the 210 LSWC for testing, only the magnum level load, police opinion in favor of the .41 Mag died before it really got started. The base concept was good, witness the widespread popularity of the .40S&W in an auto pistol. But back when revolvers ruled the beat, we never got a comparable .41, before those that mattered, decided to look elsewhere.

With a smaller and lighter bullet than the .44 Mag, at the same speeds, on paper the .41 is about 15% less than the .44. In the same guns, that means 15% less recoil. Myself, I could never tell the difference with magnum loads.
 
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