Why? Caliber curiuosity. BIG bores!

[Josey]

I know. I know. We have some strange big bore newcomers in the 454 Casull, 480 Ruger and the S&W 500 to my way of thinking. I wonder why the existing big bores weren't developed into modern loads? The British used the 455. If it were loaded with a hot powder and magnum primers with a 250 gr bullet, it could be a screamer! The 476 Eley comes to mind. The 450 Adams could have been updated. We could go overboard (destructive device) and develop the 577 into a true hand cannon. Is this new cartridge development just a fad? I see a memorial to Mr. Ruger in the 480 Ruger. The other cartridges we have been given? They just seem like an answer to an unasked question.

 

[Marshall]

I think S&W just wanted to answer the others and have the biggest. Nothing but a PR/advertising move.

 

[Majic]

The older cartridges would need the cases beefed up to handle the high pressures, but the main reason would be they would destroy the fine old handguns that originally chambered them.
Unless the law was changed the .577 would be ruled out by law. A handgun can't be chambered in a caliber over .500" in the US.

 

[Josey]

What got me going was my memory of a JP Sauer & Sohn 45 Magnum single action. They developed the 45 Long Colt into a Magnum. Remember too, the 38 S&W was developed into the British 380/200, then the 38 Special, 38/44, 357 Magnum and then into the 357 Maximum. I think I got that chronologically correct. I recall seeing some Peters armour piercing 38s in the past.

 

[Majic]

And the 38/44 lives on today known as the .38sp +P. S&W used the cartridge in their Outdoorsman, a .38 caliber handgun on the .44 frame.

On a different note I wish the ammo makers would do an about face from their usual developments and make a true .41 Special. There's a caliber with plenty of potential, but has been historically ignored. Provide bullets ranging from say 165gr for a .41sp thru 285gr for the .41mag and a lot of people would be surprised at what the caliber can do.

 

[Stainz]

The best attribute of a .454 Casull chambered revolver, utility-wise, is it's ability to handle .45 Colt ammo, a la the .38 Specials in a .357 Magnum and the .44 Russians & .44 Specials in a .44 Magnum. 'Brushing between meals' is even more important with the .454's when you've used .45 Colts in those chambers. A second 'choice' is non-existent in the new S&W 500, possibly a very limiting factor in it's appeal... well, at least to us el-cheapo recoil weenies!


The .454 Casull is an answer to a question... my so-chambered SRH has kept pachyderms off my street for several years now! Oops... there is that neighbor's wife...


Stainz

 

[cxm]

Judging from sales it was a good marketing move too...

V/r

Chuck

I think S&W just wanted to answer the others and have the biggest. Nothing but a PR/advertising move.


__________________
Marshall

 

[Old Fuff]

Majic:

When the .41 Magnum was developed the principal advocates (Bill Jordan, Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton) wanted a .40 caliber cartridge with non-magnum performance to be used in a middle-framed double action revolver for law enforcement officers. Jordan and Skelton were experienced lawman themselves, and they saw an updated .41 Colt as a better choice then either the .38 Special or .357 Magnum, which were "the" police service cartridges at the time.

Smith & Wesson were very interested, but they knew that a true .40 caliber round could fit in a Colt Python, and they didn't want to give their arch competitor any openings.

So they upped the bore size to .410 rather then .400, which would insure that Colt couldn't use it in any guns they were making at the time. But this forced S&W to chamber the new cartridge in their N-frame, so while they were at it they raised the performance to Magnum levels. This turned out to be what Jordan, Skelton and Keith didn't want. In private, they were not happy campers.

Meanwhile Colt was working on an update of the old .41 L.C., but they didn't do anything with it. Unfortunately Colt's management was brain-dead at the time. For their part, the .40 advocates made a mistake in working with S&W instead of Colt, but then Colt might have not been interested at the time.

The .41 Magnum is a good cartridge in its own right, but it is not a particularly good one for law enforcement.

It is unlikely they're be any further development in this direction. The police have gone to automatic pistols chambered in .40 S&W or 10 mm Auto. The .40 S&W offers performance that is close the what "the advocates" recommended in the first place. What I think we may see (as we have already) are revolvers chambered for the popular .40 automatic cartridges using 1/2 and full-moon clips. It is not necessary to shorten the case of a .41 Magnum to "special" length to obtain lower velocity. One simply has to lower the powder charge.

I had a number of conversations with "the advocates" at different times. All were disapointed at the way things worked out. Of the three, only Elmer Keith personally used the .41 Magnum to any degree, and of course he still prefered the .44 Magnum.

So it goes ...........

 

[cxm]

Colt & .41

I will never understand why Colt's simply trashed the tooling for the New Service... It would have been VERY useful for them.

FWIW

Chuck

 

[Old Fuff]

Bad management. At the start of World War Two Colt removed the tooling, which was mostly worn out because they hadn't replaced or upgraded it during the Great Depression when money was in short supply. After the war it was junked because management believed there would be little or no interest in large-frame revolvers or calibers larger then the .357 Magnum. Stupid and short-sighted? You bet. But that's the way it was.

Besides the New Service they also canned the Single Action Army and their whole line of .25, .32 and .380 pocket automatics. From then on it was downhill.

 

[Sean Smith]

Smith & Wesson were very interested, but they knew that a true .40 caliber round could fit in a Colt Python, and they didn't want to give their arch competitor any openings.

So they upped the bore size to .410 rather then .400, which would insure that Colt couldn't use it in any guns they were making at the time.

If that was their thinking, they miscalculated: you CAN make a Python in .41 Magnum. Colt never bothered, but it has been done. The Python is basically a .41 caliber revolver design "down-bored" to .357.

 

[Majic]

Really I could care less about the LEO use of the .41mag. The private citizen use of the cartridge is what kept it alive. They do rember us as we have new cartridges today that serve no Leo purpose. It's along those lines I was thinking.
I do cast and handload to make the .41mag do what I want, but others aren't as fortunate. If they provide a lower velocity "Special" cartridge then the handguns chambered in .41mag would then be as versatile as the .357mag, .44mag, and the .454. That could show an increase in interest in guns chambered for it. To produce a new gun chambered specifically for a .41 Special probably wouldn't be profitable, but to just provide a new load for existing guns certainly would.
No one really asked for the Ruger .480 and certainly not the S&W .500, but over the years many have asked for a .41 Special.
As much as Mr. Keith liked the new .44mag, most shooters back then were still trying to come to grips with the .357mag. What really made the cartridge popular was 1) a movie (of all things) and 2) the availability of several different bullet weights at varying power levels.

 

[schromf]

Colt Python 41 mag, it seems Colt did a few Pythons in the 41 mag, what the production numbers ( or non production numbers to be exact ) were I have not been able to figure out. But somewhere out there squirreled away in someones safe is at least one.

They are not listed in any gun blue books, but if anyone has any information on these rarest of the rare Colts I would like to hear the story. Actually I count this as one of two 41 mags I would buy. I really only want double action revolvers in this caliber, but I guess the Freedom Arms single action would make another desirable.

EDITED: Or maybe the Python 41 mag is like the Bigfoot or Yeti something we just want to believe in.

 

[Majic]

There was that Texas gunsmith who did excellent work converting Pythons to .41mag. There has always been stories of Colt actually building a few models, but I haven't seen any hard evidence. I too would like one of the mysterious Colt's, but I'm too attached to my arm and leg that surely would be part of the price.

 

[Old Fuff]

.41 cartridges vs. Colt's Python.

Colt never chambered a Python in .41 Magnum. They did however make several experimental revolvers chambered to use an equally experimental .41 cartridge of their own.

It's true that Colt's "I" and "E" frame revolvers were both so-called "41 frames." But the "41" in question was the old .41 Long Colt, not the .41 S&W Magnum. The rim diameter of the .41 LC (.431) is smaller then the body diameter (.434) of the .41 S&W Magnum. For the record, the Magnum's rim diameter is .492, and you can't put that into a 6-shot Python cylinder without removing substantial metal from the ratchet, not to mention the cylinder's walls.

Could they have made a 5-shot cylinder? Possibly, as other custom builders did, but again they chose not to. Colt wasn't interested in pushing anything that was associated with S&W, and at the same time lacked the foresight to develop anything for themselves.

They did make some prototype Single Action Army's in .41 S&W Magnum, but chose not to market them.

While the .41 Magnum didn't make it with law enforcement users it is, as Majic pointed out, an excellent round for sportsman.

 

[Mannlicher]

the old Brit handgun cartridges had very short cases. I don't think you could get much more performance out of them.

 

[Josey]

Somebody forgot that at Glock. GAP is a short case.

 

[schromf]

Ol Fuff,

Ok I'll bite who reworked the Pythons with a 5 shot cylinder for the 41 mag? I don't want to hijack this thread but it sounds like the best excuse I have had in a long while to get another Python.

 

[Old Fuff]

Good question, but it's been so many years I'm not sure anymore as I believe it was back sometime during the 1980's. I'll do some research and see if I can find out. I don't believe it was very popular at the time.

It occurs to me that Taurus makes a mid-frame, 5-shot, .41 Magnum today that might be a possibility for someone that wanted a revolver of this description and didn't want to pay custom gun prices.

 

[schromf]

Yeah but a Taurus is " NOT " a Python. Actually my next 41 caliber is a .414 Supermag from Dan Wesson, figure I can use the 41 mags as plinking ammo. But a Python in 41 mag

 

[Josey]

HIJACK!! Oh well, I guess I would like to see a Ruger Vaquero in 41 Magnum.

 

[munk]

One of the designer's of the 500 Smith said in an article in Shooting Times that they could have gone beyond .50" but that there were reams of paperwork to do and hoops to jump through with the Government and they did not wish to do that. As I've always read that we can't have a handgun round over a half inch diameter I was surprised to read this.

.. ...

As for the N frame and Smith and the .41- it was the easiest and cheapest way to go.




munk