.41 Rem Special

[dek]

Not to be confused with the .41 Long Colt cartridge, this is a new case being produced and sold by Starline Brass for use in the .41 Rem Mag pistols. Does anyone have any experience in reloading these cases? Can you use .41 Rem Mag loading dies or do you have to shorten them? Since I haven't found any specific loads for the .41 Special, except for Taffin's article, I'm guessing that most of the light - medium powder loads for the Mag can safely be used in the special case (within reason of course). Taffin's article uses 2400, unique, blue dot, AA9 and H4227 for med and greater loads - 900+ fps. My powder of choice (available) is Alliant's Power Pistol at about 7 - 7.5 gr which will give me a fairly comfortable load to shoot at targets from 25-50 yds.

[Minerat]

I ordered 500 of them Thursday and got notice yesterday that they were shipped and would get here on Wednesday. They are stamped 41 Special so I'm going to treat them like 44 specials and load down accordingly using a percentage or ratio of 44spl/44mag for a given powder. Then use taht ration to calculate a load from the 41 mag data. I will probably start with 1/2 loads of powder as listed in the Speer #10 book for the 41 mag using 2400, Unique and SR4756 and go from there. Maybe even using Trail Boss due to the chance of a double load being remote. There is some discussion on the 41 Magnum Thread regarding loading for this brass.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?276144-41-magnum-special-data-center (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?276144-41-magnum-special-data-center)

[Lloyd Smale]

I shot either 6.5 grains of unique or power pistol with a 220 cast out of mine. Mine was built on a single six just like the one John had and even by the same builder. Built on a gp 100 or an L frame smith you might sneak up a bit hoter

[RJM52]

Since most of the .41s out there are already rated to take Magnum ammo there isn't much to worry about using .41 Special brass. Where this brass comes in handy is for those with dedicated .41 Special custom handguns and those .41 Magnums with short cylinders like the Freedom Arms 97 and Taurus tracker. Other than that there is no real advantage to having the brass except maybe for loading VERY light target loads for the .41 Magnum to take up more of the air space.

When I owned several .44 Magnums I never owned one piece of .44 Special brass. Just made light loads using .44 Magnum brass and never saw any accuracy disadvantage over using .44 Special brass...

But to each his own....Bob

[Rodfac]

Just curious Dek...why would you want to use shorter brass in a magnum cylinder or do you have a custom revolver in that shorter length caliber? I've used regular .41 magnum brass for very light loads in two Ruger .41 Magnum BH's as well as a 35 yo S&W M57. Accuracy runs down at just over an inch at 25 yds from rest...with the shorter brass you run into the powder/lead/lube ring just short of the cylinder's forcing cone as in .44 Magnum/Special and .357 Magnum/.38 Special usages. Rod

[FN in MT]

The Freedom Arms M-97 has a fairly short cylinder. One can't load some of the long nosed Keith style slugs in a standard .41 mag case and stay under the max COAL. Hence the beauty of these .41 Special cases.

[Minerat]

I choose to buy the 41 special cases cause I could load mouse fart loads in the short cases and rip snorting in the 41 mag cases and not have to worry which loads I have. My BH will handle longer booltes even the Mehi 413265 so I did not have to worry about OAL exceeding my cylinder length.

[dek]

I choose to shoot short cases in all my mag calibers, .38 spl, .44 Russian, .45 Schofield, ACP or Rimmed and I've never had any problems with the lead ring. Thanks for all the replies, suggestions and links. My questions have been answered. Happy new year.