Brownells Gun Tech™ Steve Ostrem takes us on a little detour from our usual FTV fare of historic / classic firearms and instead discusses the "middle child" of magnum revolver cartridges - the .41 Magnum. It was developed in the early 1960s by two famous gun writers and great cartridge developers, Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan. Jordan wanted a medium-power load with a bigger bullet than the .357 Magnum for law enforcement use, a ".41 Special" that lobbed a 200 grain bullet at 900 fps. Keith envisioned a more powerful .41 caliber hunting load. When Smith & Wesson and Remington got hold of the idea, however, they decided to go full magnum with a cartridge that rockets a 210 grain bullet at a blistering 1,500 fps. That much oomph requires a big, robust revolver, so S&W's resulting N-frame revolver was just too big and heavy for a patrol officer to carry all day. There was a silver lining: the .41 Magnum is an outstanding hunting round, though its bullet weight is nearly that of a standard .44 Magnum and the velocity is the same. You can handload .41 Magnum ammo with even heavier bullets, up to 265 grain - that's a big bullet with a LOT of penetration! So if you're a handloader and you come across at .41 Magnum revolver at a good price, go for it!
VIDEO HERE (3:40 minutes)
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My dad tried to talk me out of it, saying that the bullets and loaded ammo were just too damned limited and hard to find. He told me my best bet was a 44 magnum, but damn, everybody and their mothers shot a 44 and I wanted something a little different. I did a little research on the ballistics and liked what I saw. I also did a little checking around about ammo availability and yup, Pops was right. I couldn't find that shit anywhere. I finally found a single dusty box of 170 grain HP in a bait shop in Angels Camp. No big deal, I reloaded anyway so I started buying components before I even got the gun.
Pops was also right about bullets being limited. All I could find at gun shows were either 210 or 215 grain hardcast semi wadcutters.
I didn't care, I bought the gun anyway. I'm stupid like that sometimes.
In all the years I've owned that gun, I have never fired a single factory round through it. Everything that's ever been shot through it, I loaded.
I enjoyed loading for it, but there's only so much experimentation you can do with the lack of bullet weights and styles, but one day at the Cal Expo gun show in Sacramento I ran across a guy selling 280 grain 41 caliber hardcast bullets. A 280 GRAIN BULLET? Are you fucking kidding me? I'll take 10 boxes and a business card, please.
Dude told me using his favorite load, his chrono showed 1350 fps out of his Blackhawk using 20 grains of H110 under his bullets. His favorite load turned out to be my favorite load. Great accuracy and a decent velocity. I've stuck with that recipe ever since.
Recoil is stout with the 215 grain bullets, I'm not gonna lie, but in a Blackhawk it's more of a roll than anything else. A roll with a jolt. Or a jolt with a roll. Whatever.
It's not unbearable though - my girlfriend Dana loved shooting that gun as much as I did and she was just average size. Big tits, though.
I did put some Pachmayr grips on it, not for felt recoil reduction but because the damned wooden grips would shift on me during recoil.
It's one of my favorite guns. It's been a real workhorse - it's spent God knows how many hours on my hip up in the Sierras and Trans-Sierra and the dings on the gun and scars on the holster can attest to that. I've ran hundreds and hundreds of full house loads through it and it shoots as good today as it ever has.
