A Competitive Shooters Look At Revolvers Everyone Should Own

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Why the .41 and the .45 Colt? Simple: the Colt will be 150 years old in the year 2023, while the .41 Magnum will be 60, almost qualifying for Social Security benefits.If you consider yourself an accomplished or expert pistolero, you really should have a revolver, either a .41 or a .45 in your handgun lineup. Better to have both, and self-loading pistols don’t count. Why? To deliver a goodly amount of drubbing to a target or to game, revolvers rock.

Now, some will say “My really big bores can do that.” Yes. The .460, .480 and .500 all can dish out impressive amounts of energy and/or momentum. But, if you don’t need the T.Rex power, or “shoot a fist-sized hole through a moose” penetration, then you are paying excessively in recoil for that un-needed power. I have a .460, and despite the multiple Mag-Na-Port slots and the factory muzzle brake (which I have to improve on one of these days) I find the top-end loads obnoxious. Too much practice risks building a flinch. And as an extra “negative bonus,” you can only stand to shoot the really big loads in really big guns. As much as I really like my 460 XVR, it is not a daily-carry belt gun, even in bear country.

The two S&Ws I tested are a classic M-57 and a classic M-25-5. The model numbers thing happened back in the 1950s, when S&W started giving up on names. The 57 is such because S&W had run through all the lower numerals by 1964, when the .41 Magnum came about. The models they offered were the M-57, an adjustable-sight model, and the M-58, a fixed sight. The latter? Think a .38 Special Model 10 on steroids. The M-25-5 has the extra designation because S&W had two .45 calibers to contend with. The N frames made in .45 ACP were called the M-25-2, and had shorter cylinders than the .45 Colt models, the M-25-5. (There was also an M-25-3, in .45 Colt, but with a .45 ACP-length cylinder.)

If you want to be able to thump something, but also readily load soft-shooting practice ammo, either of these (.41 and .45 Colt) will serve you well. And if you do need to stoke it up, both can deliver more-than-suitable defensive or hunting performance.

41 Magnum

The .41 and the .45 can deliver plenty of power for hunting in an all-day revolver, specifically the S&W N frame. The N frame came about in 1908. The first modern double-action revolver had been the S&W M&P, in 1898, chambered in .32-20 and .38 Special. That is what we now call the K frame. In 1908, S&W scaled it up and chambered it in the .44 Special, and that was the frame size we now call the N frame. The frame size designations really weren’t known outside the factory until the 1950s, as I mentioned, before that the various models had names.

Okay, a speed-walk through cartridge history: early on, the .38 Special, chambered in the N frames, got a power boost and was known as the .38-44 or .38 High Speed. While this was going on, Elmer Keith was hot-rodding the .44 Special. The development of the .357 Magnum in 1935 put the skids to the .38 High-Speed, and by 1955, Elmer Keith had finally worked out the future of his cartridge. Basically, he made Remington promise to make ammo if a gun maker would make guns, and he made S&W promise to make guns, if someone would make ammo. (He did this without either knowing the other had so promised, a clever ploy.) This led to the .44 Magnum. All of a sudden, there was a new kid in town, and “the world’s most powerful handgun” was born.

But, not everyone wanted that much power. Even Keith himself felt the factory load, settled on as a 240-grain-lead semi-wadcutter at some 1,400 fps, was more than was needed. His .44 Special load had been a 250-grain lead SWC (hard-cast, unlike the swaged bullets in early .44M ammo) were only going something like 1,200 fps. Something in-between the .357 and the .44 would serve well those not looking for earth-shattering power. Skeeter Skelton and Bill Jordan felt a .40 or .41 would be just right. And there had been lots of experimenting done with just that kind of cartridge and load.

So, in 1964 we got the .41 Magnum. And once again, the ammo makers over-stepped the boundaries. The jacketed (by then jacketed bullets in revolver rounds were becoming common) bullet, all 210 grains of it, was listed in the upper 1,300s in fps, and the all-lead SWC was listed at an even 1,000 fps. What Skeeter and Bill had wanted was a lead SWC at about 850 fps, perfect for police work. What they got was suitable for intercepting incoming ICBMs. While all this was going on, the .45 Colt, or .45 Long Colt (start an argument at your gun club on that one, you will) was still chugging along. The original specs, a 250- or 255-grain kinda-sorta pointed lead bullet, went from 800-ish to 900-ish fps, depending on barrel length and any given production lot. Longer barrels were faster, some lots were faster, some slower. As soon as the .44 Magnum came out, the .45 Colt faded out of sight. As long as the choice was between a .357 (158-grain SWC at 1,250) and a .45 Colt (250-grain at 850) the Colt stayed in the mix. But with the .44 Magnum, that choice was done. And by the time the .357 had shifted to jacketed hollow points of 125 grains, the .45 Colt was a memory.

And right up until the very early 1970s, S&W made them all in the N frame, and you could buy whatever you wanted. Then Clint Eastwood made the .44 Magnum famous, and all bets were off. Everyone wanted a .44. But curiously, S&W would still do production runs of the N frame in the other calibers. And so, they stayed in use, and ammo makers kept making ammo for them.

The N frame is, to my mind, an ergonomic masterpiece. It is the biggest frame that those with average hands can comfortably and readily handle, that can handle the .44 Magnum, and other big bores as well. S&W has built N frames in .38, .357, 10mm, .41, .44, and both .45 Colt and .45 ACP. All of the manufacturing, engineering, R&D improvements and upgrades that S&W lavished on their bread-and-butter line, the K frame for law enforcement, were applicable (and quickly applied) to the N frame. While the size of the parts meant the N frame could be slicked up but not quite made as light in trigger pull as the K frame, the N could still be impressive. Jerry Miculek and I used slicked-up N frames in .45 ACP to garner team Gold medals at two IPSC World Shoots. He has more on his own.

As a result of the basic design, and it being used in both frame sizes, a good pistolsmith who is familiar with the S&W action can make it amazingly smooth in both K and N frame sizes. The best can make them so good you wonder why you ever bothered with a plastic striker-fired pistol. By changing grips, you can be as fashionable, or comfortable, or both, as you wish. And the advances in bullet technology, like the advances in build S&W did, have been applied to the .41 and the .45.

The .41 Magnum uses jacketed bullets of .410 of an inch diameter, and lead, plated or coated ones of .411". Unlike some other cartridges, there are no other uses for bullets of this diameter. But you have a huge variety of choices in weight and construction. On the low end, if you want lightweights for softie-recoil plinking, you can find 175-grain lead wadcutters. Push those to a mere 750 fps, and your felt recoil will be in the “this is fun” range. That’s a 131 Power Factor, and there are 9mm loads that will push you harder. At the top end, you can find 265-grain Wide Flat Nose bullets, hunting bullets that when pushed to 1,200 fps or more, will shoot through pretty much anything, maybe even a moose.

That isn’t even the top end of the load data for the .41 Magnum to be found in that bullet weight, but trust me, a 265-grain lead slug at 1,200 fps out of something without a shoulder stock is likely more enjoyment out of an N frame than most of you will want to experience. At least not more than a couple of cylinders full. I shoot for a living, and I don’t find it all that much fun. In jacketed weights, you have choices from 170 grains up to 210 in the standard weights, and custom makers can offer some heavier options. The maximum pressure the .41 is rated for is 35,000 PSI, which is the same as that of the .44 Magnum.

Unlike the .38/.357 and the .44Spl/.44Magnum, the .41 Magnum is not a longer and higher-pressure version of the .41 Colt. The .41 Colt is a real dinosaur, dating to the black powder era, and used outside-lubricated, heeled bullets. Originally, the bullet for the .41 Colt was made exactly like that of the .22LR: the case crimped into the heel, the lube and lube grooves were outside the case, and messy. When it became obvious that such a design would not fly, Colt made the case longer and the bullet smaller, (down from sorta-40 to kinda-38) but with a gaping big minie-ball type base. That way it could expand and grab the rifling, which was left at the old dimensions. (What were they thinking?)

The .41 Colt bullet, when made as a heeled bullet, was .402" or .406" or so. When it went inside the case, it had to be made smaller, and became .386". But it still had to match up with the bore and rifling intended for .402"+ bullets. Oh, what a mess.The .41 Magnum was brand-new and started with a .410" bullet. Thank goodness.

Reloading ammo for the .41 is easy. Despite the unique bullet diameter, and case that is used in no other cartridge, finding components (well, when you can find anything, anywhere, these days) isn’t difficult. Every jacketed bullet maker makes at least one .41 offering, and the cast and coated bullet people do as well. Rainier and Berry’s Bullets both make plated bullets for the .41. If you don’t shoot factory ammunition to generate your case supply, Starline makes .41 Magnum brass, pretty much in any quantity you desire. And, they also offer .41 Special brass as well, should you wish to load up specifically-plinking ammo and know for sure it is soft-recoiling.

.45 Colt

The .45 Colt came about when Colt offered the Single Action Army, the Peacemaker, in 1873. Yes, 1873. As a capacious black-powder case, it has the dual problem (if such can be viewed problematically) of running at a “too low” pressure, and having way too much room. The MAP ceiling for the .45 
Colt is 14,000 PSI which leaves lots of empty space for suitable charges of smokeless powder to slosh around in. The good news is that you can generate some pretty amazing performance, at “only” 14,000 PSI, and modern powders are quite forgiving of dead-air space. The advances in factory bullets 
have also come to the .45 Colt, as the SIG loading can demonstrate. They make a 230-grain V-Crown JHP, at a listed 850 fps. Depending on barrel length and specific barrel used (even barrels of the same length can show variance in velocity), I’ve gotten just over 900 fps out of this load. That’s .45 ACP+P performance, out of a revolver, and under 14,000 PSI obviously.

Since the S&W N frame is clearly capable of handling magnum pressures, you’re probably thinking you can up the chamber pressure in a .45 Colt. A bit, maybe, but not a lot, since the chamber walls are thin. However, since you can find loading data using a hard-cast lead semi-wadcutter bullet of 250 grains, with muzzle velocities that edge over 1,000 fps, do you really need more? A load like that will shoot through two whitetails, and mostly through a moose, so how much more do you need?

Now, the world these days is all stainless, hi-tech coatings, and camouflage patterns. Back when we wanted something a bit more durable than hi-gloss blued steel, the choice was nickel. I started shooting with single-action revolvers, and with a brief period of metallic silhouette (8-3/8-inch blued M-57s, by the way) pivoted right into IPSC and 1911s. The only white finish, socially allowed, was hard chrome. I really didn’t warm to nickel at first, but they just seemed to accumulate. Then, Smith & Wesson re-issued the classic M25-5, with a tapered barrel, and I told them to send me one, not expect it back, and bill me, as long as they offered it in nickel. So, they did.

I now have what would have been an embarrassing number of nickel revolvers in the reference library. If you find that you have, or want, a nickel revolver (or pistol, for that matter) but can’t keep it clean, I have one word for you: Simichrome. I learned of its existence one day when Mike Karbon, the owner of The Gun Room, handed me a grubby-looking nickeled M-19, a tube of Simichrome and a shop cloth, with the instructions “Don’t forget the cylinder face.” When I was done (That first one took a lot longer than later ones would in a few months, after I had polished every nickeled gun that came in) it looked like new and sold the next day even though marked “Used.” Pearl grips may be for pimps in New Orleans whorehouses, but nickel is the classic stainless.

I am torn, on the subject of the S&W N frame, between the four-inch barrel and the six-inch barrel version. My first competition use of the .41 was in the days of the IHMSA, metallic silhouette with handguns. I used an eight-inch (mostly likely 8-3/8-inch barrel, this was probably before they dropped the fractional extra length) M-57 and factory 210 JHPs because it was what was available to me then.  And I used the then-trick method of sight adjustment for long-range shooting: feeler gauges. To set the rear sight to a given distance we didn’t count clicks, we would crank the rear sight up, insert the appropriate thickness of feeler gauge for the distance (And we kept a range card with thicknesses noted, close at hand) and then tighten it down. Pull out the feeler gauge, load up and get to work.

But I left IHMSA to go shoot IPSC, and then bowling pins. In the early days of pin shooting, wheelguns were head-to-head with pistols in winning. So much so that I toyed with the idea of going to revolvers from my 1911s. I was already running an N frame in .45 ACP in the eight-pin event. Either the .41 Magnum or the .45 Colt would also have served me well on pins. A good pin load needs a Power Factor of 195, which both are readily capable of handling. The .41, with a 210-grain bullet needs only 930 fps to make that, and a .45 Colt with a 250-grain bullet needs a mere 780 fps. And both could be loaded with full-wadcutters, so I’d be launching bullets with big flats on them, for a better “bite” into the pins. In the end, I already had all the 1911s I needed to shoot in every handgun event at The Pin Shoot, then called Second Chance, and now back on again up in Central Lake, MI.

In the end, I solved the barrel length problem of .41s and .45s by owning several of each.

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