Why so little love for .41 Mag??

Having owned several .41 magnums and being old enough to remember and shoot the two commercial loads, the jacketed bullet load was very good for hunting, but the problem with the "police" load was that it was still way to hot (read, muzzle blast and recoil), for self-defense and police use. If they had toned down the police load (a soft lead, gas checked bullet), a little more, it may have generated more interest by police.
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In early 1974 my original duty gun, a M28-2 S&W, was developing problems from a year of steady DA practice with Magnum hand loads. I found a 4" M-57 for a good price and started carrying that instead. The Remington factory police load was terrible. Way too hot (over 1000 fps) and leaded something awful. I came up with hand loads which I carried but was not able to find dump pouches for anything but 38/357. Speed loaders were still in development stage at that point and not for the 41 Mag cartridge. I was not at all satisfied with just a belt slide ammo carrier. In April of that year I got off probation and qualified with a Colt MKIV Series 70 Government Model. Never looked back at the revolver for law enforcement, except when I trained deputies and corrections officers shooting revolvers.

I later played with a M-58 and a Blackhawk 4-5/8" 41 but they were just toys at that point. They too went away as I was concentrating on competitive shooting with the 1911.

Dave
 
As a reloader, there just isn't any place for the .41Mag in my stable. I have the .357, .44Spec, .44Mag, and .45 Colt. Fills every niche I can think off. In fact the .44Mag even has lost its appeal as I enjoy my .44 Special revolvers much more now. And yes, I could even drop the .44 Special, as the .45 Colt really does it all.... But I just enjoy shooting the .44 Special too for some reason. I suppose that is the same 'reason' people like the .41 ... cause they like it :) . Nothing wrong with that!

Now I did say the same thing with the lowly .32 a couple years ago ... But did find a niche for that caliber as it became my 'reloadable' .22 during the .22 ammo crisis. I could reload .32 H&R mag cheaper than what .22 was going for and components was always available made the case for me. Load up some 78g round nose at .22 velocities and voila... Now that the .22 is back, I don't shoot the .32 revolvers as much. The o' Single Six .22 is back in action.
 
A couple folks have alluded to it, but I think the 44 is more popular than 41 because there is a commercial 44 Special but no 41 Special, although off the shelf 44 Special is not easy to find either. Brass for the reloader is available for both 41 and 44 Special. Bullet offerings seem sufficient.

Even Clint Eastwood fired 44 Special in his Dirty Harry gun.

The advantage of 41 Special is that it will fit in a 357 platform at 6 rounds, while the magnum requires the larger frame, stouter gun for the pressure levels. While police might have carried 41 Speical in a minimal weight gun, they didn't like the early N-frame 357 magnums either. They got 6 rounds in a smaller, lighter gun. They didn't get that in a 41 because the 40 S&W auto was being developed at about the same time, with revolvers in general about to fade away in LEO use except for bugs in 38 Special.
 
While police might have carried 41 Speical in a minimal weight gun, they didn't like the early N-frame 357 magnums either. They got 6 rounds in a smaller, lighter gun. They didn't get that in a 41 because the 40 S&W auto was being developed at about the same time, with revolvers in general about to fade away in LEO use except for bugs in 38 Special.
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The .41 Magnum debuted in 1964. They could have made a ".41 Special" then. They didn't.

The .40 S&W showed up in 1990, over a quarter century later. After the 1986 shootout in Miami, the FBI went looking for something "better" than the "failed" 9mm (which met every requirement at the time) and decided the 10mm would do the job, and then some. The "and then some" was gun size and especially recoil that was too much for some of their people to manage well. So, they asked for (and got) a reduced load for the 10mm. (aka 10mm Lite).

S&W realized that they could meet the requested ballistics with a shorter case, one which could be fit in their 9mm frame size pistols, and the made the .40 S&W. This met the desired performance levels, had recoil easier to handle, and came in a gun size that about everyone could manage well enough. Instant winner!!!
 
^ An instant winner for 1990, but today that .40 is just "too expensive" even though when bought in bulk, I've seen that the prices are maybe $10 more for 1000 rounds when buying .40 over 9mm.

I think the reason .41 Special never came about was the .41 Mag case itself, with the right powder and amounts thereof, was capable of that 950 FPS with a 200 grain bullet all the writers of the day were clamoring for. So, why make a new cartridge when guns chambered in .41 Special would never be made? Just use the .41 Mag and load it light.

Problem is it has Magnum in the name and people always feel the need to push it to the limits. Somebody buys a box of that "reduced power" .41 Magnum and it feels like shooting a .38, people go around and spread the word that that hot new .41 Magnum is about like shooting a .38, so everybody goes on thinking .41 Magnum is a bunch of hooey.

Back in the days before the internet, word of mouth spread fast. There are still people that believe the .45 ACP is the greatest pistol cartridge ever made, even though all the ballistic evidence of today shows that 9mm and .40 are equally capable of stopping a threat.
 
It's the 10mm Auto of the revolver world.

Controversial ... loyal following, ... accurate, ... versatile, ... effective.

That said, I love my Model 58 anyway.
 
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The .41 Magnum debuted in 1964. They could have made a ".41 Special" then. They didn't.
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That sounds perfectly logical, except that significant time had to pass for demand for a smaller, less punishing gun to be generated. And few things happened with double action development without interest by LE.
 
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I think the reason .41 Special never came about was the .41 Mag case itself,
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I think you've missed that 41 Special does not have the pressure to demand the larger gun platform. It is very much its own thing...big bore in a mid size gun, holding six rounds.
 
Charter certainly does with their .44 Special that costs half as much as what that theoretical Smith revolver would sell for.

The Model 69 is a five shot .44 Mag on the L frame already. Why anyone would want a .41 in the same gun is alien to me.
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For the same reason they make a .41 on the N-frame, and people buy them... because some people like different things. Also, the .44SPC is not a .41 Magnum, although you can probably handload it there... for a while.

Henry also brought the .327/.32 H&R Big Boy out last year, but the .32 has a lot longer of a history and, IMO, a larger following than .41 Mag does.
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The .32 has a longer history than the .41? You'll have to explain that to me...

I'm not sure what, if any .41 revolver could be made that would make me buy one. A 10mm Magnum revolver OTOH, that immediately has my attention and the ballistics are essentially the same between the two.
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So, you aren't interested in a .41 Magnum revolver, but you are interested in an autoloading cartridge in a revolver that almost mirrors the .41 Magnum? Uh, ok. As I said above... some people like different things.
 
That sounds perfectly logical, except that significant time had to pass for demand for a smaller, less punishing gun to be generated.
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The "demand" (such as it was) was already there. It was what the gunwriters (who had police experience) had asked for. They felt a 40-ish (.41) caliber, 200gr-ish bullet at 900-ish fps would be very good for police work, and superior to the .38 Special. That was what they were asking for, but what Remington gave them was the .41 Magnum, and only the .41 Magnum.

Remember the era, late-50s, early 60s, semi-autos for police use (and the 9mm Luger) weren't even seriously considered. Another 20+ years had to pass (and the US military adopting the 9mm in the mid 80s) before the semi-auto began to dominate the police market.
 
So, you aren't interested in a .41 Magnum revolver, but you are interested in an autoloading cartridge in a revolver that almost mirrors the .41 Magnum?
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Actually, the ballistics of the 10mm Magnum, as tested by John Taffin, exceed the .41 Mag in many loadings.

But the more interesting consequence of a 10mm wheelgun whose cylinder chambers have been reamed to 10mm Magnum specs, is that you can shoot three cartridges out of the same gun using the same moon clips: 10mm Mag, 10mm AUTO, and .40S&W.

Until the .41 Special came along, there was only one cartridge you could shoot out of any 41 mag revolver, whereas with a .357 mag you have two choices, as you do with a .44 mag.
 
Charlie_98 said:
For the same reason they make a .41 on the N-frame, and people buy them... because some people like different things. Also, the .44SPC is not a .41 Magnum, although you can probably handload it there... for a while.
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Yup.



The .32 has a longer history than the .41? You'll have to explain that to me...
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.32 S&W Long was developed in 1896, the .41 Mag in 1964. The Henry .327 rifle is able to shoot .32 S&W Long and feed it from the magazine so long as it's not a wadcutter.



So, you aren't interested in a .41 Magnum revolver, but you are interested in an autoloading cartridge in a revolver that almost mirrors the .41 Magnum? Uh, ok. As I said above... some people like different things.
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Doesn't almost mirror, it's virtually identical.

http://www.sixguns.com/tests/tt10mag.htm

The only thing that holds the 10mm Magnum back is it's stuck using the same bullets that .40 S&W and 10mm Auto use, which means unless you have a custom mold and cast, a heavy lead bullet like a 240 grain isn't available.
 
That sounds perfectly logical, except that significant time had to pass for demand for a smaller, less punishing gun to be generated.
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The "demand" (such as it was) was already there. It was what the gunwriters (who had police experience) had asked for. They felt a 40-ish (.41) caliber, 200gr-ish bullet at 900-ish fps would be very good for police work, and superior to the .38 Special. That was what they were asking for, but what Remington gave them was the .41 Magnum, and only the .41 Magnum.

Remember the era, late-50s, early 60s, semi-autos for police use (and the 9mm Luger) weren't even seriously considered. Another 20+ years had to pass (and the US military adopting the 9mm in the mid 80s) before the semi-auto began to dominate the police market.
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But the process included time and experience showing that forcing the caliber into a large frame gun was not acceptable. The .41 Special, in S&W terms, would have required an L-frame for a better chance of being what an LEO might actually want to carry.
 
I was just thinking that I have to keep my .41 Magnum no matter what...it is the only caliber I still have a lot of Silvertips left for. Should work on Zombies, and certainly on Werewolves.
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You need to shout "these are silvertips!" neither one will figure out that it's just plating.
 
The .41 Mag was designed for police use from what I remember. It was supposed to have less recoil then the .44 Mag and more power then the .357 Mag. Reality is it is a good cartridge that came along to late as most LE depts were leaving the revolver and transitioning to autos at the time the .41 came along.

It's a dying cartridge regardless of what others say. Seems like less manufacturers offer less for it now than they did 10 years ago.
 
But the process included time and experience showing that forcing the caliber into a large frame gun was not acceptable. The .41 Special, in S&W terms, would have required an L-frame for a better chance of being what an LEO might actually want to carry.
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This shows how long and tedious it has been getting the right military and police weapons. During the vietnam era the snipers used plain old hunting rifles with better barrels and tuning. During the thirties and earlier they moved to the .45 because suddenly people were in cars. we worked out the .38-44 and the .357 as law enforcement guns, at least as reported by some of the people who were part of the process. The .41 magnum was intended as highway patrol or rural patrol weapon, again as reported by some people who were involved. Too big for hip carry but powerful enough to cause a vehicle to stop.

It absolutely should have been released in lightweight loads, and probably should have been released as a short cased special round in lighter frame if possible. Why set such limitations when a downloaded version would have been the more popular seller? (probably) If anyone wonders if that is true, just think about the number of small frame .38 specials have sold in the past forty years and then think about the number of .357 in all combined frame sizes.
 
Actually, what Taffin said about the 10mm Magnum was:

The 10mm Magnum has definite applications as a hunting pistol and a long range silhouette pistol. Shooting informally at long ranges of 100 to 200 meters and using rocks as targets convinced me of this. Anything the .41 Magnum can do, the 10mm Magnum can also do and perhaps do it even a little faster and a little better. That is a tough confession for an old sixgun man to make.
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