revolvers

For the most part, there are 3 S&W revolvers at the top of my wish list. The N-Framed 520, 544, and a 25 in .45 Long Colt. Those 520's and 544's are about as good as Bigfoot at playing hide and seek.
 
" The N-Framed 520, 544, and a 25 in .45 Long Colt. "

I've never seen a 520 in the flesh.

I saw a 544 many years ago but didn't know what I was looking at or how much of a unicorn it was, so I let it go.

My Model 25 I looked for for over a decade before I found the one that I wanted.

I could have had multiple examples with a 6.5" barrel, but I wanted a 4", and for whatever reason 4" Model 25s in .45 Colt are damned rare. I finally latched onto one through Gun Broker or Auction Arms that was being sold out of, Oklahoma, IIRC.

I paid a LOT for it, over $900 by the time all was said and done, and I was happy to pay that much for something that I wanted that badly.
 
I used to work with a guy who had a 520 (a Model 28 without adj rear sight). Like any N-Frame, it was a joy to do trigger work on, and it shot like a dream until he put huge grips on it. I swear, the man's hands were bigger than anything the Lord ever put on two feet.

Simpson's LTD had a 544 for quite a while, and I should've jumped on it even with it's German acceptance/proof/whatever stamps.

And, like you- I had no idea 4" Model 25's were made out of unobtainium.
 
I love DA shooting with revolvers. Had to learn it for police work and it's a lot of fun (especially when you have speedloaders). Taught my nephews and my niece to do it too and they can walk a can with point shoulder (instinctive aiming) technique.
 
I have too many to list and primarily older S&W revolvers. They range from Pre-WWI up to a recently manufactured Manurhin MR73 (sort of). I guestimate it was produced between Dec. 2009 to Jan. 2010. It is a beauty and of high quality.
 
I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to reload 41 Long Colt. 41 Colt is a forgotten caliber, and probably with good reason, ‘cause it’s very strange and doesn’t seem to shoot particularly well. However, I just happen to have a Colt Bisley in 41 LC, and since I’ve been intrigued with the idea of reloading and shooting my old Bisley, I’ve been trying to figure out a simple easy way to achieve my goal. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the caliber, it’s essentially a 38-40 with a straight cylinder, and so it should actually be called 40 Long Colt. The problem arises in that it was made as a heel bullet, sort of like a 22 long rifle, and so the case crimps into a heel in the back of the bullet, and like a 22 long rifle its outside lubricated. I happen to have an Ideal 38-40 mold that casts a nice 177 grain bullet, and I have an RCBS luber-sizer that’ll size bullets to .381, which is about right for the heel. My first attempt has been lackluster, but I’ll try some hotter loads, and see what that does. More later…..
 

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Schutzenbob - nice looking Bisley. So what is so hard about loading an outside lubed heeled bullet? I do it all the time in 38 Colt Short and Long for use in Colt and Remington Clones with .375 bores for use with conversion cylinders. Take a look at what Old West has to offer in crimp dies for heeled bullets as well as their molds for heeled. For lubing, once I have the cartridge loaded and crimped, I dip the bullet in my melted lube, then run the length of the bullet up into a .375 sizing die and then use a rag to wipe the bose clean - leaves a perfectly lubed cartridge ready to go. Once you have the set up figured for the 41 and have a good mold, it soon becomes "old hat" to load heeled bullets.

Go over to the Castboolits site and do some looking around - I'm sure there are a number of fellows there that load and shoot the 41 Colt with good success.

BTW - Have to mention again your Bisley. I have a Uberti $ 3.4" Bisley in 357. Not a Colt like yours, but I love it - and it soots anything from 38 Colt Short two 357 (with my cast as dropped from the mold .358 to .360) very well - both smokeless and 3F BP.
 
Schutzenbob: By the end of its time, the 41 Long Colt was loading an inside lubed 0.386 hollow base bullet. Like the minie ball, the "skirt" expands to take the rifling. Works fine. But you can do heeled also. I have Montana Precision 0.401 heeled that I lube with Alox and seat using a 40 S&W die. Of course, the inside lubed are a lot less trouble. Elmer liked that old 41!
 
I've always been fascinated by the .41 Long Colt for some reason. I've always wanted a J-frame or Colt Detective sized revolver chambering .41 Long Colt. I think that would be the bee's knees, so to speak.

Elmer Keith was quite fond of the .41, and considered it to be better than the .38 Special for a fighting cartridge.

Quite a few have opined over the years that you can emulate the .41's performance by loading 200 gr bullets in .38 Special. Maybe so.

The hollow-base skirted bullet was Colt's way of adapting the cartridge to use a single diameter "modern" bullet in a cartridge that originally started out using a heeled bullet.

It worked... sort of, occasionally, sometimes, but not so great....

Some years ago I read one guy saying that skirted bullet cartridges loaded with black powder were better because the pressure curve of black powder gave a more uniform skirt expansion into the rifling, but that wasn't as sure a thing with the early smokeless powders and the skirted bullet.

True or not I don't know, but the .41's reputation for relatively poor accuracy seems to have really gotten started when the heeled bullet was dropped and smokeless powder was adopted.
 
Mike Irwin said:
I've always been fascinated by the .41 Long Colt for some reason. I've always wanted a J-frame or Colt Detective sized revolver chambering .41 Long Colt. I think that would be the bee's knees, so to speak.

Elmer Keith was quite fond of the .41, and considered it to be better than the .38 Special for a fighting cartridge.

Quite a few have opined over the years that you can emulate the .41's performance by loading 200 gr bullets in .38 Special. Maybe so.

The hollow-base skirted bullet was Colt's way of adapting the cartridge to use a single diameter "modern" bullet in a cartridge that originally started out using a heeled bullet.

It worked... sort of, occasionally, sometimes, but not so great....

Some years ago I read one guy saying that skirted bullet cartridges loaded with black powder were better because the pressure curve of black powder gave a more uniform skirt expansion into the rifling, but that wasn't as sure a thing with the early smokeless powders and the skirted bullet.

True or not I don't know, but the .41's reputation for relatively poor accuracy seems to have really gotten started when the heeled bullet was dropped and smokeless powder was adopted.
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I am a 41 magnum nutt, but the L.C. has never done anything for me.
 
Schutzenbob said:
I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to reload 41 Long Colt. 41 Colt is a forgotten caliber, and probably with good reason, ‘cause it’s very strange and doesn’t seem to shoot particularly well. However, I just happen to have a Colt Bisley in 41 LC, and since I’ve been intrigued with the idea of reloading and shooting my old Bisley, I’ve been trying to figure out a simple easy way to achieve my goal. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the caliber, it’s essentially a 38-40 with a straight cylinder, and so it should actually be called 40 Long Colt. The problem arises in that it was made as a heel bullet, sort of like a 22 long rifle, and so the case crimps into a heel in the back of the bullet, and like a 22 long rifle its outside lubricated. I happen to have an Ideal 38-40 mold that casts a nice 177 grain bullet, and I have an RCBS luber-sizer that’ll size bullets to .381, which is about right for the heel. My first attempt has been lackluster, but I’ll try some hotter loads, and see what that does. More later…..
Click to expand...
There may be an obvious reason, but it is not immediately coming to me. Why not use 41 magnum bullets? The .41 Magnum is a crazy accurate round. From my experience, with the proper bullet, any straight wall center-fire smokeless can be accurate.
 
"There may be an obvious reason, but it is not immediately coming to me. Why not use 41 magnum bullets? The .41 Magnum is a crazy accurate round. From my experience, with the proper bullet, any straight wall center-fire smokeless can be accurate. "

Well, the obvious reason is that the old style heeled bullet for the .41 Long had a maximum bullet diameter of .406, which matched the outside neck diameter of the case.

When it was switched out to a single-diameter bullet in the 1890s, it went down to .386, but the outside neck diameter remained .406, or thereabouts.

The .41 Magnum uses a .410 single diameter bullet, which is way too big to seat in the .41 Long case.

The .41 Long and .41 Magnum have no commonality at all.
 
The 41 Long Colt was developed for Colt's first double action revolver Model of 1877. In addition to double action, it's a very compact gun. The cylinder on mine measures 1.385, and I load between 1.34 and 1.35 when I am (rarely) shooting mine. I could only fit 17 gr of FFg under the 200 gr. heeled bullet, yielding 600 fps. I'm sure the original used FFFg, and I understand they loaded 20 gr. Supposedly gave 750, but I have never seen such data.

If I want to play with the round, I use a sturdy Army Special. Those allow a longer COL, and I got close to 800 fps with a 0.386 HBRN (Buffalo Arms) over Unique.

Elmer Keith mentions seeing a cowboy with a pocket sewn to his chaps to carry his "Thunderer" (a term Colt never used). It wasn't for snakes or desperados, it was for braining an angry steer if your horse went down. John Wesley Hardin and William Bonney are reported to have carried 1877s.
 
This was just my first attempt at loading a 41 LC, and I wasn’t sure that my ideas would actually work, but then things started coming together. I went out to my local range and tried out my load, which was 5 grains of WSF, but it wasn’t hot enough. However, the pistol seemed to function OK, and next time I’ll load it a little hotter. My projects are always long term, I guess that’s why I like them.
 

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The original cases for the .41 LC were either balloon head or semi-balloon head and held several grains more powder.

And from what I'm reading, original cases for the .41 were longer than they are today, which means that the cartridge held more powder.

As for Lightning, Thunderer, and Rainmaker, those terms were coined by one of Colt's distributors for their advertising.

IIRC the same distributor also tried calling the Model 1878 double action the Optimizer or something equally silly.
 
"tried out my load, which was 5 grains of WSF"

Uhm... were any of the 1877s ever rated for smokeless powder? I don't think they were...
 
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