The .41 Magnum is surely the Rodney Dangerfield of cartridges: It don't get no respect. But while Rodney is no longer with us, the .41 Magnum continues to gain fans.

I joined the fan club fairly late in life. I got my first one at the height of the Dirty Harry movement--about a decade after the cartridge's introduction--because you couldn't get a .44. It was a very nice four-inch that hurt my hand when I shot it. That was before I acquired some of the shooting skills needed for magnums, and when I still believed that only maximum was good enough.

The original purpose of the cartridge was to provide an intermediate round between the .357 and .44 magnums for law enforcement, and some departments did adopt it, but apparently the cops had the same problem I did, and its tenure as a law enforcement round was short.

SELECT .41 MAGNUM LOADS
Remington 200-Grain Jacketed Hollowpoint
Powder: Hodgdon H-110
Charge	Standard Primer		Magnum Primer
	Velocity (fps)	Accuracy (in.)	Velocity (fps)	Accuracy (in.)
20.0	1,272	2.05	1,363	1.93
21.0	1,338	0.59	1,404	2.07
22.0	1,450	1.88	1,432	1.52
Powder: Ramshot True Blue
10.0	1,097	1.43
11.0	1,173	2.23
12.0	12.0	1.68
Powder: Alliant Unique
8.0	1,049	1.97
8.5	1,138	1.27
9.0	1,178	1.46
Speer 220-Grain Jacketed Semiwadcutter
Powder: Hodgdon H-110
Charge	Standard Primer		Magnum Primer
	Velocity (fps)	Accuracy (in.)	Velocity (fps)	Accuracy (in.)
18.5	1,171	1.42	1,303	2.65
19.5	1,230	0.70	1,334	2.79
20.5	1,326	1.43	1,386	1.59
Powder: Ramshot True Blue
8.5	921	2.51
9.5	1,015	1.76
10.5	1,115	2.00
Powder: Alliant Unique
7.5	941	1.25
8.0	1,042	0.71
8.5	1,119	1.44
Notes: Results are average of 10 shots at 25 yards from a Pistol Perch. Velocity is the instrumental average measured at 10 feet with a PACT Professional Chronograph.

Today it is popular with handgun hunters who think--rightly, I believe--that it can do anything a .44 can and some say even better. The standard factory load is a 210-grain jacketed hollowpoint at around 1,300 fps, but at various times bullet weights from 170 to 250 grains have been offered.

The .41 Magnum comes and goes in the S&W catalog, but the company never quite let it die until this year. When it introduced the Model 657-5 last year with a 7.5-inch barrel, that appeared to be a much better choice than my earlier one, so I ordered it. Almost from the first shot I became a fan. It didn't hurt and was pleasingly accurate.

For me, handloading is where it's at for magnum cartridges like the .41 because you have the option of going flat out or gentling it down a bit for fun. In fact, one of my favorite things is to work up cast-bullet loads that some folks would consider sissy. I've found that lead bullets at 800 to 900 fps generally shoot well in the .41 and are easy on the shooter.

However, with big cases like the .41, powders used for the lighter loads can leave too much empty space in the case and cause powder position to become an issue. There can be significant differences in velocity between powder-back and powder-forward positions.

Powder-forward can, in a worst case, result in squib loads or a bullet stuck in the barrel. Both Bullseye and 231 are susceptible to this, and for that reason I use Titegroup almost exclusively. You can still see some variation due to powder position, but I've yet to see it be enough to cause problems.

Powder selection for the magnums can be something of a challenge any way you look at it, so I usually work up four categories of loads: plinking with cast bullets; and light, moderate and full charges with jacketed bullets.

For the full-charge stuff there is almost a unanimous selection either H-110 or 296. At the modest end of the scale for jacketed bullets there is another consensus choice: Unique. Recently Alliant has made some improvements to it, and the new version is much cleaner burning without necessitating any change in charge calculations.