41 colt to 38-40 ?

[radkins]

3 That is why I was thinking I could get away with the 38-40. For some reason I thought they had the same bore. I was confused…

Maybe not so much at all, unless you have a very early version then the barrel should be essentially the same bore.

[andy_b]

If you can find a second cylinder, ream it out as needed. I would make up some dummy cartridges with bullets the proper diameter needed for your barrel (groove dia. + .002") if it is larger than the throat of the chambers. You can, if necessary, open up both the chamber throats and the necks with very careful use of chucking reamers. If necessary, open up a sizing die to accomodate the larger diameter bullets.

David
Montezuma, IA

that's exactly what i would do.

andy b.

[weestrommer]

they both have the same bore dia. so all you change is the cylinder that is what mike venturino did in his book shooting the colt single actio

skeeter skelton also talks of doing the same thing. he even had a .41 that some one reamed the cyl. out to .38-40

there was more to this, the gun you mention (Venturino) was done by me when I worked in a pretty famous shop, this gun had a .403 bbl. actually if you look at enough old guns you see bbls. for the .41 colt ranging from .397-.413(groove) the best plan is to slug your bbl. now that you know its size. get a .357 cyl. and rechamber it for .41 special(you just shorten .41 mag brass.100) and shorten your .41 mag seater by .1. (this is for a bbl. that comes in at .410ish) if your gun has one of the .403 or .400 range bbls then fitting the .38-40cyl. and honing the throats for the larger bullet dia. is the way to go. you can load up to about a .403 in the typ. colt cyl. till the neck dia is too small.

there are actually 2 chambers used in the .41 colt, the old one that had no throat and has to have a heeled bullet too shoot well, and the latter pattern that had a conventional throat for the hollow base inside lubed version. I have had in my hands an originalSAA that was shipped from colt with the later style chamber for the later ammo that had a .413 dia bbl. and .397 throats in the cyl. and to top it off a lot of that hollow base .41colt ammo had .386 dia bullets. I know it had a hollow base bullet but did they ever think it would shoot well that way? (it would not hit a target box 2 feet square at 15 yards with any regularity and if it did the holes were profiles not round!!!!)

by the way the winchester .41 colt ammo loaded in the 1980s was loaded with black powder. The gun I mention above was owned by a gun writer that had "come into" so 40k rounds of this ammo and wanted to use it up, and sent us the gun because it shot so poorly.

as to loading the .41 colt I have loaded several thousand rounds using whitehorse .41 cal heeled bullets and winchester cases. you just need to have a collet crimper. they are easy to make or Lee witll make you one for about $25.