This article written by Tom Acheson, was published in Fouling Shot #139, May/June 1999.

One of my winter time projects has been the reorganization of my reloading room. A big portion of the effort included the building of a set of bookshelves to store the many books and loading manuals that those who share the hobby of handloading know are easy to accumulate. While filling the shelves with the books, I spent some time going through my collection of CBA bi-monthly publications.

In Fouling Shot #72 (March-April 1988), I came across an article I had submitted, discussing the use of cast bullets for deer hunting with the .41 revolver. It’s hard to believe that these past 10 years have gone by so quickly. Since our journal often includes articles on hunting, I thought this would be a good time for an update on my continued use of the .41 revolver for deer hunting.

The total number of deer I’ve taken with the .41 revolver is now 10. Nine of them were mule deer taken in Wyoming, and one was a Minnesota whitetail.

An S&W Model 57 .41 Magnum was used for the first three deer, and a modified Dan Wesson has been used for taking the remaining.

The Dan Wesson was originally chambered in .357 Super Mag., with the long cylinder. The factory barrel was removed and was replaced with a Douglas .41 caliber 1-14” twist, nine inch long barrel. A new case was developed to take advantage of the longer cylinder. Shortening the semi-rimmed .220 Swift case to 1.6” resulted in a wildcat case that met the need. This round is called the .41 Wyoming.

The twist rate of 1-14” was purposely selected so heavy bullets could be used. The larger case let me shoot heavier than normal .41 bullets to velocities appropriate for hunting. The 296-grain bullet can be pushed to 1325 p.s. in the .41 Wyoming, while the 325 gr. will do 1100 f.p.s.

Historically, the .41 Magnum was introduced as a law enforcement firearm, to fit between the .357 Mag. and the .44 Mag. In this role it did not experience broad acceptance. The .41 Mag. has been embraced by a number of metallic silhouette shooters, but is not as popular as the .44 Mag. and the .357 Super Mag.

Where the .41 Mag. has had reasonable success is in the deer hunting fields. Using the traditional 220-gr. bullet at 1250 f.p.s., this round is difficult to improve upon. It is an effective game stopper for those of the hand held short barreled hunting fraternity.

One criticism of the .41 Mag. was the lack of bullet designs and weights available to the handloader. For some reason, those people supporting this view seemed to ignore cast bullets. There are moulds of numerous shape and weight configurations available for the .41. And if there aren’t enough choices in mass produced moulds, you can have a Hoch or LBT custom made to your design. I know because I have too many of these moulds myself. It’s easy for an experimenter to get “hooked” in this area.

In the S&W, the SAECO 220 grain round nose/flat point works well on deer. Moving up to NEI or SSK you can get a 275-gr. or 295 gr. mould. My current bullet in the .41 Wyoming is a 325-gr. Hoch. The nose pour Hoch moulds produce high quality bullets.

While some of these moulds cast gas check designs, I employ poly wads in all my loads. Using as-cast wheel weight bullets (not heat treated), I have no leading problems, due in large part to good dimensional bullet fit and the “sealing” properties of the poly wad. Tom Gray’s lube has been used for two years in these loads and it works great.

Using an iron sighted revolver in open Wyoming mule deer country places a premium on being well practiced in the use of a revolver. For some a scope might work but I haven’t had the success I desire under these conditions using optical sights. Maybe a scope would work well from a deer stand, where the deer might be moving slowly, if at all.

This article written by Herman Erhart Jr., was published in the #182, July/Aug 2006 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Many years ago a deceased big game hunter’s son gifted me with a 12 pound, T. Bland of London, double barrel, 3” black powder express rifle. It was a top break, doll head under lever, exposed hammers with two triggers. The rifle was in excellent condition, but as no ammo was available at that time I put it in the gun safe and forgot about it.

Some time in the late 70’s I bought 20 each 3-1/4” .577 brass cases from Bell. After a few more years I located a Lyman #585213 hollow base Minie ball mould. Wanting a flat base bullet, I turned down the cone on the base pin. When cast with wheel weights, this gave a flat base bullet weighing 575 grains. The bullets measure .589”, which matches well with the .587” groove diameter of the bores.

I lived close to RCBS in Oroville, California so I had them make up a set of dies, shell holder, inside case neck reamer and a file trim die to fit my RCBS A-2 press that takes the 1-1/4” dies. I prepared the cases and then, not being able to find any loading data for this caliber, and showing a lot of bravado and very little sense, I loaded up 10 cases full of 2F black powder (185 grains) and 10 cases with the equivalent load of Pyrodex Cartridge powder. I tried the black powder loads first; WOW!! I’m not small, 6’ 4” and 275 pounds, but as I did-n’t really lean into it, when the smoke cleared I was about two steps back from where I started. I then opted to try the Pyrodex loads thinking they would surely be a wee bit easier than the black powder loads. WRONG. Though the Pyrodex loads gave a little less smoke they had the same, if not a little sharper recoil than the black powder loads. Since several of the people at the range were interested in the rifle I persuasively talked them into shooting up the remaining eight rounds. After this experience I cleaned the rifle and brass and put it back in the gun safe.

This article written by George Damron, was published in the March/Apr 2009, #198 issue of the Fouling Shot.

I recently came into a 4-cavity version of Lyman’s 311466 at a reasonable price. While not a design I had luck with in the past this recent one seems to be working quite well. Weather it was the inexperience I had 20 years back or the dimensions of my current mold are better I can’t say. This current mold casts .312” out of a Linotype/WW mix and if I remember my old one cast .315” out of a similar alloy.

This 4-cavity is a gem and drops its bullets the instant the blocks are opened, a fortuitous situation indeed for a four cavity Loverin style design. The choice of Unique as “the powder” in the loads was due to recent use in the 7.65 Mauser in an 1891 Argentine. Joe Gifford of the CBA has shot one for years quite successfully and recommended 12.0 grains with any bullet over 150 grains. It has matched (or bested) my “standard” 2400 and 5744 loads in the 7.65 Argentine. I haven’t regretted re-trying it and figured it deserved another chance in other calibers. When I “found” 2400 12 years ago I never went back to Unique in .30 caliber rifle loading. Now I’m glad I gave it another chance.

So the first try with the new mold was in the 1891 “Argie” (as Joe calls it). Other than the 4” shortened bar-rel and ramp ft sight the gun is “as issue” with open sights and original stocking and hardware. The 311466 was cast in a Lino/WW mix, bottom poured and lubed in a .313” die in the Lyman 450 with a Hornady gas check. I lubed the first three grooves with Jake’s NRA style. I dropped 12.0 grains of Unique capped off by CCI 200’s in reformed 30-06 cases and seated the bullet three bands deep in the case. They were shy of the rifling a bunch due to the large throat in the rifle, but I found that the “running start” worked fine in the 7.65 with other loads and designs.

Using Lyman’s 311284 and the 12.0 Unique load it’s usually a 2.0”-2.75” gun for 10 shots at 100 yards and a bit over 5.0” at 200 yards. The rear ladder sight has a notch that is good for a zero for 200 yards with my load. I use it primarily for offhand practice on steel gongs at the end of my bench shooting sessions. Even 4 MOA is good enough for the 12” 200 meter gongs so that’s at least what I wanted to see with the new bullet. The 31466 load with the same charge shot near identical sized groups as the 311284 the first time out and I was pleased and surprised.

With that I decided to leave the measure be and stuff the bullet and load into an ’06 case. I picked my 1903 Springfield with Lyman target peep sights for test #2. This gun is consistently accurate with 16.0 of 2400 and the 200 grain Eagan MX3-30-US. Many times has it shot 5-shot MOA groups at 100 and 10 shot groups are in the 1.8-2.5 MOA range out to 200 yards. I seated it three grooves deep just like the 7.65 and it responded nicely. Groups were about 1/2 MOA larger than my Eagan load and I couldn’t complain a bit with my new high production molds accuracy. One 10 shot group at 100 was 1.65” with 9 of the 10 into 1.2”!

With this minor success I decided to try my new “universal bullet/powder” in a different style rifle. I chose a “new to me” truck rack worn, repaired stock, beat-up Marlin 336 30-30 RC with Micro-Groove rifling. I had no idea what to expect in MicroGroove as it has been 10 years since I owned one. I seem to recall having decent success, but really couldn’t remember the details. But I doubted the horror stories of MicroGroove and cast bullet shooting.

This article from Ed Harris', "Tales from the Back Creek Diary", was published in the Jan/Feb 2013 #221 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Frank Marshall spent many pleasant afternoons plinking with his Savage 340 or Winchester 94 rifles in .30-30 as he reloaded rounds with an Ideal Tong Tool. Until the late 1960s Lyman’s 310 tool was the portable reloading outfit of choice at the range or deer camp.

The original Ideal tong tool which was patented March 11, 1884 had its dies machined integral with the steel handles. These tools featured a single-cavity bullet mold on the end and a bullet-sizer hole in the tool handle. Ideal’s No. 1 was adapted to pistol cartridges from .32 S&W through .41 Long Colt. The No. 4 was for longer cartridges from .25-20 through .44-40 and .45 Colt. The No. 6 tool was a rifle tool for .32-40 through .50-110 Winchester. Before WWI they sold for $2.25 to $3.00, depending upon caliber.

After World War II today’s familiar threaded-handle design with removable die sets was adopted and desig-nated as the New Model 310 tool. The Tru-Line Junior press used the same dies, which were available for most then-popular calibers. According to http://the310shop. com/ boxed sets with steel handles were sold from 1947 to 1957 under the same “Lyman Ideal.” Aluminum han-dles were introduced in 1958 and sold into the early 1970s. The 310 was reintroduced when Cowboy Shooting became popular.