I have always read that people say not to shoot bulk pack (HV) ammo through a 41. You can read all the rants yourself, high quality target gun fed crap ammo etc. Yet nowhere in the manual does S&W say not to use it. I can’t imagine a newer production 41 (vice a really old, perhaps softer steel 41) would ever actually experience any damage outside of the Internet “stories”.

If S&W actually said you couldn’t shoot HV ammo then I wouldn’t buy it. They don’t though.

Edited. I just reread manual to be sure. No mention of HV ammo damaging gun at all. One sentence that says HYPER velocity ammo MAY increase wear. That’s it. I think you could feed MiniMags all day long for life with no problem. S&W certainly doesn’t agree with the interwebz drama.

My M41 was never what you could call picky about ammo, unless you only ever tried to use Remington .22's. which would FtF often.

Take the 41!

You can swap extra barrels like changing underwear.
And they aren’t the serialized part like the Roger so you can order online without a transfer too!

Love mine, recent production.

Have a Clark barrel and red dot, it’s as accurate as a cz 452 sandbagged!
Rink grips for bullseye league.

I would take the 41. I went the opposite route with my mkiii hunter. I had that and a standard mkii. Sold the hunter and kept the standard.

The hunter was a joy to shoot and never had a problem. I didn’t care for the sights on it so I put a red dot on it.

I would trade into the 41. Its on my want list, someday I'll have one.

HK Ag

I'd trade a Ruger MkIII for a 41 any day.

You can install a good trigger in a Ruger, and I have done it, but it is never as good as a 41's trigger.

All-in-all, the 41 is in another league.

Not even close….the 41 is head and shoulder over the Ruger.

I recently bought a Ruger Mk II slab side target model, and a Smith 41 from a guy,
he said his best bullseye group was with the Ruger,

and seemed sad that the Smith did not give him the same result,


jmho, but the Rugers, esp the Mk II targets, are a bit under rated, (I think mostly to the undeserved rep they get on takedown)


not saying there is anything wrong with a Smith,
they can be finicky, but they have been around long enough that there is a good supply of parts, and a good knowledge base on what to look for and how to correct any issues,

Might just be me, but I would assume a trade that uneven is for a reason.

I agree, the trade is not reasonable. Be careful, something is out of line.

I ave owned a 41 for decades and shoot nothing but CCI minimags in it, no problems.

Get the 41. If you don’t like it I will trade you something for it.
I have a Ruger. It sits in a box at home. Never found ammo it liked

Did you end up making the trade? I probably would do it, especially if you've never been overly fond of the Ruger.

I owned almost 15 Ruger MKIIs and a MKIII at one time. I recently started liquidating some of my collection and sold several of them but still have several and always will. Some of them are stock, some are modded with Volquartsen parts or as suppressor hosts, and one is a Clark build that I use in bullseye competition. All of them are great and reliable. In my experience they're good to great shooters in stock form and can be made even better with little effort or money.

I also own two Model 41s. I've had one since 2009 and use it has a suppressor hosts. With CCI SV ammo it's 100% reliable and it's my favorite gun to shoot. It's a precise shooter and super quiet. I picked up another one a few months ago because I got a good deal on it but haven't been able to shoot it yet. A Volquartsen extractor helped the function of my first Model 41.