41 Remington Magnum
by Clay Oldham
The 41 Remington Magnum is defiantly the redheaded
stepchild of the magnum handgun world. Introduced by Remington and Smith &
Wesson in 1964 to fill the void between the 357 Magnum and the 44 Magnum. The
cartridge has been mostly overlooked and dismissed by law-enforcement officers,
hunters, and shooters for various reasons. I must admit my own thoughts at
one time were why would anyone want a 41
Magnum when the 44 Magnum is a much better cartridge. The truth of the matter
is, the 41 Magnum is a wonderful round in it’s own rights. It is a true 41
(.410”) caliber where the 357 Mag is a 35 (.357”) and the 44 Mag is actually a
43 (.429”-430”) caliber. The 41’s larger frontal diameter and greater powder
capacity leaves the more popular 357 Magnum in the ballistic dust and it is
almost on par with the 44 Mag with bullets weighting up to 240-grains. Shooting
both the 41 Magnum and the 44 Magnum side-by-side in guns of equal weight and
barrel length, the muzzle blast and noise of the 41 is, in my opinion comparable
to that of the 44, but the felt recoil and muzzle lift is noticeably less
abrupt.
Bullets for the 41 Magnum
commonly range in weights from 170 to 265-grains, with a 210-grain bullet being
the standard. Given the muzzle velocities this round is capable of producing
with these bullets it is a well balanced round for hunting deer and similar
game. The best factory load I have used is Winchester’s Supreme Platinum Tip.
This is a 240-grain premium hollow-point bullet at an advertised 1250 fps. This
load produced excellent groups of 2.38” at 50 yards and 3.09” at 100 yards out
of my 7 ˝” Smith & Wesson 657 from a sand bag rest. The choices of factory
ammunition are limited and sometimes hard to find so it’s nice to see a quality
factory load with a premium bullet. Hand loading for the 41 is just like any of
the other strait-walled magnum handgun rounds. Utilizing large pistol (standard
or magnum) primers and the usual suspects such as WW296, H110, and 2400 powders.
To date my best hand load consist of a Hornady 210-grain XTP hollow-point bullet
seated a-top a maximum charge of WW296. This load is capable of producing groups
of just inside 3” at 100 yards. Either of the loads mentioned here make
excellent hunting loads for White-tailed deer.
