Loading a .41 special. What OAL?

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Dudemeister

Dudemeister

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As the title says, I'm doing some .41 special loads, and I'm finding conflicting information, especially regarding the OAL.

I'm using Starline .41 SPL brass, and 210gr Berry plated flat point over 7gn of Unique. I found an article that said the OAL is 1.625" I think that's way too long. It's actually longer than the SAAMI spec for the .41 magnum. I've heard it should be the same length as the 38.Spl (1.55"). And Wikipedia says it should be 1.465".

Which one is right?
 
I just looked at the sammi specs and they show 1.590" max. Found a wiki article that states the same, although I would be very leery (I wouldn't use it) of any loading info from a wiki page.

Alliant doesn't give a loaded length, but Hodgdon shows 1.580" with a 210gr jacketed xtp, and 1.585" with a 215gr cast lfp. Lyman's 50th shows 1.580" for a 170gr jacketed and 1.585" for a 210gr jacketed. Verify this info for yourself in case I've made a mistake.

I don't load for a 41mag, but do load for a 357mag and I load the mouth of the brass to the center of the crimp groove. Just loaded my first fifty 480 Ruger rounds yesterday and did the same. Oal will be pretty close to load data found in books or online. Don't know if Berry's has a crimp groove.

Make a dummy round or two and check to see that they fit in your cylinder, then start low and work up your load.

chris
 
Brian Pearce/Handloader magazine did a two part series on the 41 special some time ago that had a great deal of load data.
 
From Berry's webpage. This is on the "Loading Tips" tab toward the bottom of the page.
Bullet O.A.L.: .648"

Cartridge Name: .41 Caliber
Cartridge O.A.L.: 1.575"
Max Velocity: 1250 fps

  • Load data for our Superior Plated Bullets® can be found in any manual or on any powder manufacturer’s website.
  • Cast or jacketed data with the same grain weight and profile will work with our bullets.
  • You can use a taper or a roll crimp.
  • Don’t over crimp the brass after seating. This causes bullet core separation, leading to increased copper fouling and accuracy issues.
  • Don’t exceed the recommended maximum velocities listed. This creates bullet core separation and accuracy issues.
 
Thanks for the replies.
@tightgroup tiger The link you provided was the first one I found too, but that is the one that I believe is completely wrong. The listed OAL 1.625", which I did try, and unfortunately it's way too long. If you were to use it, the bullet will only be seated 1/8" in the case, the rest of it would stick out . In fact what makes it look wrong from the onset is that the 1.625" OAL is longer than the SAAMI spec for the .41 Magnum. That lists the Max OAL at 1.59". AND the .41 Magnum has a case that is longer 1.290" vs 1.155" for the .41 SPL.

Starline, who makes the brass has a few loading data samples, but it does not give any OAL length. John Taffin also has a lot of good loading data, but again, no seating depth information.

The closes thing I found in some articles was the mention of seating the bullet down to the crimping groove, which is fine, if you have cast bullet with a crimp groove, but in my case, it doesn't. Some articles suggested that since the .38, .41 and .44 SPL are all the same length case, they should loaded to the same OAL, but those have quite a large variation, from 1.5 to 1.6.

Here is a photo that Starline has showing a .41 Magnum vs. a .41 special. You can definitely see the difference, so I seated mine to something similar, which is 1.50".

41-mag-vs-41-special.jpg

Anyway. Even SAAMI specs seem to be conflicting on some loads. If you take a look at the .44 magnum, vs. .44 SPL, even though there SPL case is shorter, they show the OAL slightly longer for the SPL, which really doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe someone can explain it.

upload_2020-7-2_8-10-40.png

@RKRCPA Thanks for that article, I'll give it a good read this afternoon.
 
Dudemeister said:
Here is a photo that Starline has showing a .41 Magnum vs. a .41 special. You can definitely see the difference, so I seated mine to something similar, which is 1.50".
Click to expand...
That looks good, you should be fine mimicking that one on the right. Are you going to try to lightly roll crimp, or taper crimp?

Here is a plated bullet (Powerbond) in .44 Spl with a taper crimp.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/44-special-taper-crimp-die.853929/#post-11184017

index.php
 
Here are a couple of photos of my rounds. I don't have the factory crimping die, so I'm using the regular seating die, which applies a slight taper crimp. Since these bullets don't have a groove, Berry's suggests applying a light crimp or risk core separation.

upload_2020-7-2_11-50-30.png

upload_2020-7-2_11-50-49.png
 
Since we're on the subject of reloading the .41 special, I'd like to share a little bit of mod I had to do that might help someone else.
The .41 Special cartridge case is a bit shorter than the Magnum, and since the only available dies are for the magnum cartridge, I found that I couldn't bell/expand the cartridge neck using the standard expander die that comes with the Lee die set, it couldn't reach down to properly do the job.

I have a Lee universal expander die, which comes with 2 neck plugs, a small one and a large one, but couldn't find the larger plug, so I tried to figure out a workaround.

So what I needed to do is add about 0.13 mm to the expander plug, so that it can properly bell the cartridge. It turns out that #12 washers are just the right diameter (.55"), and the thickness is .07". 2 Washers, glued using CA glue together and to the plunger were just about perfect.

upload_2020-7-2_13-52-2.png
upload_2020-7-2_13-53-32.png
upload_2020-7-2_13-54-0.png

Hope this helps the next guy trying to use the standard dies for a .41 Special

Note: I do not use the neck-through powder dropper, I manually charge each cartridge directly from a layman powder dropper. But if you use one of the automated droppers, the washers may prevent all the powder from reaching the case.
 
Elmer Keith developed the .44 magnum out of the .44 special. he was trying to develop a more powerful load for the .45 LC, but found that the cases (walls) were too thin to withstand the pressures he was going after, so he turned to the .44 Special and worked up his loads.
Click to expand...
Yeah I know, I was just trying to think out load about why the 44 spl is spec longer than the 44mag is.
The post by Uncle Nick on the Firing line does a pretty good job of explaining why the brass is longer on a 44 mag but it doesn't explain why 44 spl was originally spec with such a long OAL. It is what it is.
The OAL that is listed in the article I linked to is the max OAL length for 44 spl. It's just always been that way. That doesn't mean you have to load that long.
The good news is that if you happen to load over actual 44 special pressure, your 44 Magnum revolver will handle it.
44spl.jpg
This is from Lyman's 3rd edition Cast bullet loads that is downloadable off the internet. You can see the length of the nose of that bullet is no where's near what your loading.
Notice the OAL that is listed.
Your Flat point TC bullet will make a much shorter load. This pointed bullet may have been the original bullet that 44 spl was spec'ed with.
Like others have said, you don't have to load as long as the Max over all length that 44 spl is spec'ed from. I don't remember where I down-loaded this from but at
http://marvinstuart.com/firearm/Manuals/Reloading/Reloading Manuals/
You can download other manuals, like Lyman's 48th edition that has loads with shorter bullets than the one in the diagram above.
 
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