Do We Need a New 40 Revolver Option?

The 40 is a good cartridge from an auto and should be fine from a revolver provided that its grip distributes recoil well and its barrel/cylinder gap is not excessive.

I initially welcomed the .40 Charter snub, then learned of its inability to accommodate quick reloading via common methods- speed loaders or moon clips. That was my 'wothehell' moment and I lost all interest.

Rimless cartridges create their own set of problems when used in revolvers. When the benefits outweigh the problems, you go with it. The 45 ACP/AR is a prime example of a win in that equation. The 40 S&W? Not so much. I kinda doubt we'll see a rimmed version as we have been down that road before.
 
Stephanie B, if your question was aimed my way, there is no .41 Special. A lot of old timers had pushed for a .41 revolver, pushing a 200gr bullet at 950fps, as being ideal for police work. When the .41 Magnum came out, it was marketed to LE, but didn't take off - too much power and recoil for the majority of customers.

Some handloaders would load .41 Magnum down to the 200@950 level; relative to a .41 Magnum, the relationship is similar to that of .44 Special to .44 Magnum.

I am not sure why commercial manufacturers never came out with an official .41 Special. There was a time it could have really sold.
 
I wish S&W would bring back the 646 in a 3" barrel, with a Stainless Steel Cylinder, a pined front sight, and a Pro Model without the Loc. Smith & Wesson seems to quit on some new models a little too quickly. This was a good example.
I have owned a 610 for 20 years. I also own a 310 Night Guard, and conceal carry it in my rotation.
I like the 40 S&W cartridge. I like Moon Clips, and I also like the L Frame S&W revolvers. I would buy a 646 as described above at a reasonable price.

Bob
 
Stephanie B, if your question was aimed my way, there is no .41 Special. A lot of old timers had pushed for a .41 revolver, pushing a 200gr bullet at 950fps, as being ideal for police work. When the .41 Magnum came out, it was marketed to LE, but didn't take off - too much power and recoil for the majority of customers.
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Actually, there is a .41 Special but it's a wildcat. New component brass can be had from Midway:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/559371/quality-cartridge-reloading-brass-41-special-box-of-50

However, no one that I know of makes factory ammo in this caliber, so it's for handloaders only. Also, no one makes regular production revolvers though custom 'smiths like Hamilton Bowen can make one.
 
41 Special looks interesting. I think I would like to see it tapered to use a .401" bullet so it could run bullets in the 150gr range at 1200 fps.

. . .or maybe, I need to find a donor model 13 and see if we can make this thing for real as a 41 special!

Actually, sense it will launch a 200gr bullet at ~1000 fps, it seems a bit large.
 
Just checked my M13 and the barrel is fat enuf to re-cut and accomadate a 40 S&W cartridge, but re-cutting the cylinder chambers to match would leave the chamber walls too skinny. Ditto the 41 special.

Too bad, would have made an interesting custom shop variant. Just have to live with the M310 I guess.
 
Just checked my M13 and the barrel is fat enuf to re-cut and accomadate a 40 S&W cartridge, but re-cutting the cylinder chambers to match would leave the chamber walls too skinny. Ditto the 41 special.
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Even if you could shoehorn a .40 into a K-Frame, you'd likely have the same problems as the K-Frame .357 Magnums did unless you stuck with heavy bullets. A great deal of the problem with K-Frame Magnums and light bullets was that bullet under 140gr are generally too short to fully seal the chamber mouth before the base has left the case. This allows super heated gas and burning powder to flow around the bullet and into the forcing cone and barrel thus causing forcing cone erosion and eventually cracking at the six o'clock position where the forcing cone is thinnest.

Because of it's larger diameter, a .400" bullet is going to be shorter for a given weight than a .357" bullet. An easy way to compare this is with sectional density. A 125gr .357 Magnum, which was the most common loading to cause forcing cone problems in K-Frames, has a sectional density of 0.140 while the heavier 158gr loadings, which are far less likely to cause problems, have a sectional density of 0.177. If we compare the sectional density of .40 S&W bullets, we find the following: 180gr-0.161, 165gr-0.147, 155gr-0.138, and 135gr-0.121. Based on that, I would expect a .40 S&W K-Frame shooting 155gr or lighter bullets to have the same issues as a .357 Magnum K-Frame shooting 125gr or lighter magnums and I wouldn't be surprised if 165gr .40 bullets caused the same issues too.

The .41 Special, if loaded mildly enough with fast-burning powder might not be quite as problematic as a .40, but its larger diameter would really make the forcing cone quite thin. If you really want to do such a conversion, I think an L-Frame would be a much better starting platform.
 
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The Colt Official Police and that model's predecessors were sometimes referred to as having a .41 caliber frame and in fact were chambered for the .41 Long Colt. The Colt Official Police did have a large frame and cylinder than the S&W M&P revolver. The S&W L-frame was the same size, that is, the cylinder was the same size and used the same speed loader as the Colt.

The .41 Long Colt used a 200 grain bullet and on paper was no more powerful than a .38 special in a 200 grain load. If nothing else, there has clearly been a trend towards lighter bullets since the time you could have purchased a .41 Colt revolver. Nevertheless, some writers claim it was popular and had good stopping power.

There was also a .41 Short Colt but you wouldn't want one of those.
 
Hadn't considered it but Nathan's idea of a 5-shot unfluted 40 cal cylinder should work, ditto for a 5-shot unfluted 44 spl cylinder. Just measured the 6-shot M13 cylinder vs the Charter Arms 5-shot cylinder 44 spl, 1.448 vs 1.449.

Seems like the K-frame has a lotta untapped potential here. Could do a 5-shot 40 cal and/or 44 spl, with big bullets of course. Short barrels too...
 
We have .357, .44sp. and.45acp DA revolvers. Some 6, some 5, unfortunately not many in 3", the ACP is fed via moonclips so what exactly does anyone gain by a .40? I see advantages in a semi auto platform but none, nada, zero in a revolver. If I'm only gonna have 5 in the platform your wanting than make mine one of the big bores.
 
I wonder if the fluting makes any difference. However, with a five-shot S&W revolver, the indent for the cylinder stop (if that's the proper name) will lie between the chambers. With a six-shot revolver, they will be over a chamber. I suppose they might be between chambers with a seven-shot, too, but the trend seems to be to push the platform, if you follow me.

If I am not mistaken, the slide stop on Colt DA revolvers were a little offset.
 
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