FireArm Friday: The Right Idea at the Wrong Time - #2A
The .41 Magnum
If it made big Bill Jordan wince like that, that loading had a just little bit of steam on it. - DD
The .41 Magnum
(The Revolver Dispatch) - In the early 1960s, American law enforcement and handgun hunters found themselves caught between two powerful ideas and two very different cartridges.
On one end stood the .357 Magnum: fast, accurate, and proven, but increasingly viewed by some police trainers as marginal when loaded conservatively for duty use. On the other end loomed the .44 Magnum, spectacular in power and reputation, but far more revolver than most officers or even many shooters wanted to manage.
Between those two poles stood a practical question: Was there room for a true middle ground?
Out of that question came the .41 Magnum.
A Working Lawman’s Cartridge
The .41 Magnum did not begin as a hunting round. It began as a law enforcement idea shaped by men who actually carried revolvers for a living.
Bill Jordan, along with Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton, believed that the ideal service revolver cartridge had yet to be built. Jordan in particular was concerned less with raw power than with controllability. A duty revolver, in his view, had to be…