Interesting box of ammo

S

spacecoast

New member
I ran into this box of ammo over the weekend while looking at some old guns. I believe it is fired from some type of Derringer and was renowned for its weakness as a defensive cartridge. The Peters company went out of business in 1944 when they were bought by Remington.

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What you have is a box of .41 Rimfire cartridges (also sometimes called .41-100 or .41 Short as is inscribed on your box). You are correct that it was used in derringers the most common and well-known being Remington's famous Model 95 over/under derringer.
 
Colt made a couple of derringers chambered for the .41 Short R.F., and maybe a couple of their cloverleaf revovlers as well.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried a Remington double derringer during WW II.

Bob Wright
 
That box was probably made sometime in the 1930s, as denoted by the RUSTLESS mark on the box. That means that it was made without corrosive priming, was was rolled out commercially in the United States in the late 1920s.

That particular style of Rustless mark, with trade on one side and mark on the other, appears to have been used between 1930 and 1935, but Peters apparently never trademarked the term Rustless.

Most companies dropped .41 Short for World War II production and never brought it back.
 
Seriously. . .there are a bunch of people on here that know a lot of "stuff" about a lot of "stuff."

I am amazed at the things I learn here.
 
Remington bought Peters in around 1933, not 1944.

After Remington became a subsidiary of Du Pont in 1934, the Kings Mills, Ohio, plant continued production under the Peters name and headstamp, but boxes were marked on the back with both Du Pont and Remington and having been made by the Peters Cartridge Division, Kings Mills, Ohio, as opposed to the Peters Cartridge Company.

Du Pont/Remington finally shut down the Kings Mills operation in 1944 (odd that it would have been shut down during the war) and moved all cartridge production to Bridgeport, Connecticut.
 
Remington bought Peters in around 1933, not 1944.
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Thanks Mike, you are truly a fount of knowledge. I guess I should know better than to some random internet source ;)

I'd like to find the gun that goes with that ammo, I may have the chance to do that someday.
 
How about a picture of the back and sides of the box?

Remington Double Deuce Deringers are still widely available, but the prices are literally all over the map.

Make absolutely certain that one you purchase doesn't have a cracked hinge. That's a common problem with these guns.
 
How about a picture of the back and sides of the box?
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Don't have any now, but I'll be going back in about 3 months and can get more then. I plan to purchase some guns and will probably try to include that box of ammo in the deal. Cool stuff.

Thanks for the heads up on the guns.
 
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Kinda looks like the old rim fire rounds used in the first lever guns. But werent they 44? Was there any rifle made for this round?
 
It's a contemporary of the .44 Henry flat and the .56-56 Spencer. They also used copper cases because that's pretty much all the technology of the time could handle.

The .41 Short Rimfire was primarily a handgun cartridge, but I think I've seen references to cheap single shot rifles being chambered for it.
 
Great thread

Thanks guys, for your post and thread as a buddy of mine was recently asking where he could get some .41 RimFire? He has a gun that he still shoots. Now I can tell him where to buy ....;)

Be Safe !!!
 
I'm not sure when the R-P headstamp started, but it apparently wasn't immediately. It might have even been AFTER the Kings Mills plant was shut down and the war ended.
 
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