I recently acquired a Colt 1877 Thunderer .41 LC. The gun is mechanically superb. The reputation on these early DA’s is that the double-action mechanism is a little fragile. Mine is in perfect working order. It’s timing is excellent and it locks up tight as a drum. So, I’d like to at least put “a few” rounds through it to experience it. But…. .41 LC is more than a little difficult to find these days. Precision Cartridge, Inc. is the only company I’ve found that even lists a loading and nobody has had it in stock for at least a year. Does anyone have a lead on ammo….or components so I could make my own?

There is unfortunately no existing case that can be easily adapted to do the job. You could put a new body on a .38 special case or have the cases turned from brass stock on a lathe. It is a straight-walled rimmed case so technically it would not be hugely difficult, just time consuming and probably expensive. maybe haunt a few gun shows and try to find some ammo or brass at one of them. You might pick up a copy of HANDLOADER magazine. Lots of people in there advertise oddball cartridges for sale.

Some time ago I bought two full boxes of .41 LC from the last lot of one million rounds loaded by Western. It all went to one distributor in West Texas. The idea was that I might someday find something nice to shoot them in. So far, that has not happened. As stated previously, the cartridge conversion references don't provide any help other than re-body of .38 Special cases with tubing. And any full boxes of originally manufactured .41 will be very to extremely expensive. I have been offered $100/box for mine several times, but I want to hang onto them a while longer.

Knowing that someone has the last 100 rounds, of the last million ever loaded, no gun to fire them in, and won't sell them probably helps him a lot.
And then, I'd guess that reinforcing the fact that he can't load any either, would be what they call "the icing on the cake".

Several years ago I went through adapting other cartridge cases to .41 LC for a .38 Spl. Army Special which I had converted to .41 LC. There are actually three ways to make .41 LC that work well:

1) Since .41 LC is an extremely low pressure cartridge you can simply expand the case to accept the .41 bullet and use as-is with no problems. It looks sort of odd, but works and is safe. If you only want a few rounds this would probably be the best way for you.

2) Sleeve the head of .38 Spl. cases with tubing and fire-form. The sleeve should be secured by soldering or the sleeve will stick in the sizing die and be pulled off the case re-sizing the case to near original diameter when withdrawn from the sizing die. Believe me, this is a real issue!

3) I found a reference in a "Cartridge conversion" (Not Nonte) book that was current at the time. The case used for this conversion as the 7.62x39 Russian! This seemed odd to me at the time, but I tried it and found this is the absolute best solution! The case is lathe-turned to .41 LC diameter from the extractor groove forward and trimmed to length. That is all that is needed and the result is a near-perfect .41 LC case. The rim is even the right diameter. I made several hundred this way and still have them, they work perfectly.

Before anyone gets upset about my converting the original revolver it had already been "Bubbaed" For some reason I have never been able to understand, he had drilled a hole through the right recoil shield. The only thing I have ever been able to think of is so he could view the primers of the loaded cartridges so he could tell if they had been fired. It seems that simply opening the cylinder to look, like normal people do, would have made far more sense if this was the reason for the hole!!!!

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Gunsmithing since 1961

Tremendous post, Alk8944! What more could anyone ask for?

P.S. MidSouth has unprocessed "once fired" 7.62 x 39 brass available @ $0.25 each: a hundred might well be a lifetime supply for the OP...?

Starline sells .41 Long Colt brass, bullets are available from a few venders, dies are sold by Redding.
.41 Long Colt is what got me started in reloading after I purchased Colt's Army Special in the round.
Your 1877 Thunderer is a black powder revolver, don't shoot smokeless rounds through it.

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OGCA Member.

My father gave me a DA .41 Colt when I became Eagle Scout. We had a couple of boxes of ammo for it and I think there is still some of those rounds here abouts. I still have the revolver. Saw two boxes for sale back around 1993 at a store in Sacramento, Ca. Both the store and ammo are gone now, wish I would have bought the two boxes. I think Starline brass is the best bet.

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Kevin in Oregon

Good Call !
Starline makes it , it may not be in stock but you can place an order and they will ship it as soon as available ...
I would place an order and then look for reloading dies , bullet mould and Lee Hand Press Kit if you don't already re-load ...
41 LC ammo is going to best be resolved with handloads and cast bullets .
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

No reason not to reload black powder rounds for your 1877, the components are the same, just use black powder instead of smokeless.

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OGCA Member.

I used to shoot black powder pistol and rifle. The clean up was very time consuming and messy. If there is a better and easier way to clean up after an afternoon of shooting, I would like to know. Thanks.

Pyrodex is, I understand, a much neater powder than actual black powder. Never tried any personally.

I appreciate all the advice and suggestions. I’ve place an order for some Starline brass and a quantity of cast lead bullets. As for powder, I’m a firm believer in using American Pioneer black powder substitute. It measures just like real BP and cleans up a whole lot easier. Again….thanks for all the help.

Just an FYI...

Precision Reloading shows a 100# bag of STARLINE Brass IN STOCK for $69.99!

This is less per round than the per round Starline website backorder quantity of 250#...

Cheers!