FWIW, I'll add a few different perspectives, but some are "a bit dated." I was shooting bullseye in the early 80's, and the 41 I had was THE single most reliable semi-auto I've ever owned. If someone had said "you have to bet your life the pistol won't jam on the next mag, now pick the one you want," it would have been the 41 without hesitation.
At the All-Army Championships, I finished the timed and rapid-fire phases at one point, only to find that my extractor had broken sometime that morning! It still functioned flawlessly!! (Aside: A High Standard shooter was stationed to my left in Timed Fire -- 5 shots in 20 seconds.) With unerring precision, he managed to bounce 3 out of 5 of his empties off the top of my pistol, *between the sights,* as I was shooting for score... Man, you talk about an opportunity to work on maintaining concentration despite distractions... that was it!
Over the years, I owned serial 41's which came and went as interests changed and finances contracted/expanded. However, I never had one that gave me any reliability troubles at all, and I really don't recall any friends having problems with them, either. Of course, all mine were the "OLDER" 41's. I have no experience with post-80's 41's; most of mine dated from the mid 70's or earlier, so this is based purely on personal preference (and possibly a little prejudice toward the good old guns...)
The new ones I see in the gun stores now leave me cold. They just don't seem to have the aura of fine quality of the older guns. Hopefully they perform just as well...
It's just a personal preference, but the new style lettering on the new 41's (don't know when it started) makes me want to hurl. So, when I finally got into owning another 41 again it was, of course, an older one.
Don't discount a 41 with the 5" Lightweight Field Barrel as a trail/hunting gun. I got into a big community of squirrels near a swamp one time -- like commuters coming home from work, they all just started appearing from across the creek and heading to their squirrel condo's on my side. I had my 41 5" LW and match ammo and was picking them off of trees as far as 50-60 yards. I don't think I ever even got a shot closer than 40 yards. This was iron-sighted, of course, and back when I could see. I had a "slenderized" set of 41 grips that were much like 1911 grips, and carried it in a GI 1911 flap holster to protect it. No trouble at all. Today, the turn-key approach would be a set of Herrett's "Nationals," which replicate the 1911's feel (with your choice of flat or arched mainspring housing!)
(BTW, I did learn that an exceedingly fine 34-1, 4" makes a fantastic trail/small game gun that's much lighter, more compact and less hassle than the 41 if you're gonna carry it often.)
While in college, in the mid-late 80's, I tried to make a sow's ear ... er, I mean, a Ruger Mark II, 5.5" bull bbl, ajustable rear sight ... into a good, budget-friendly bullseye pistol... twice. I never could get a decent trigger job done at that time, and that was the irredeemable failure of that otherwise excellent pistol.
The Ruger's issue rear sight was "busy" and distracting to the eye for pure bullseye shooting, so I coughed up the bucks for a better rear sight with a target rear blade and more precise adjustments. Mechanical accuracy was superb, on both Rugers. Just shooting irons off sandbags at 50 yards on the standard Slow Fire target, they would easily clean the 10 ring with plenty of room to spare and good X-counts. Again, iron-sighted. Lord knows WHAT they would have done from a proper machine rest! And, that was with Winchester Super X or CCI Mini Mags, whichever was handy (back before Winchester's .22 ammo QC went into the sewer.)
The fatal flaw being a relatively poor trigger, I never considered either Ruger really good enough for the level of competition I was at. They were really fine pistols, otherwise, and totally reliable in my experience.
I evolved into a rifle shooter, and got my Distinguished Rifleman badge as one of the EARLY AR-15 shooters, back when we were looked down on and harassed by the M1A folks. (I started with the M1A, but the AR stock fit so much better that even my prone slow fire 600 yard scores were significantly better with the AR.)
I waited several years, and finally decided to go back and get Pistol Distinguished. It had been 18 years since I'd last fired a Bullseye match.
I got a Kidd-built Beretta 92 (which is just like shooting a little target rifle -- it's SOOOO much easier to shoot well than the 1911's I'd been shooting.) What a work of art!! And, of course, I got another old 41, which again proved fine for the task.
In Ransom rest testing, I found that my 41 bbl didn't much like either of my 2 lots of Eley which were left over from Rifle Silhouette. In the spirit of keeping an open mind, I put a magazine of Win. Super-X in, and it put 10 rounds in a single hole at 50 yards!!
This was the good quality, older Winchester. I'd reflexively bought a case at $1.50 a box when (haaaaawk... ptuie!) Bill Clinton got elected "Resident," and still had most of it left. I left the original target on the backer, stapled a fresh center over it, and shot another 10-shot group. The hole in the bottom target MIGHT have gotten a little bigger -- can't remember.
I wound up shooting 5, ten-shot groups like that, and my ammo quest was done. It kept all 50 rds in a phenomenal group, and that case of Super-X was the ammo I wound up using to go Distinguished. Still had a good bit of it left, too, when I legged out!
After a 3-month train-up -- mostly focusing on my timing in the sustained fire portion, as my Slow Fire scores were already good, I went Distinguished in 3 leg matches. Goal met, the Kidd Beretta 92 and the 41 went away shortly thereafter.
Of late, I started thinking about .22 target pistols, got nostalgic, and traded for a nice, older 41 with a 5" LW field barrel. Man, the prices have exploded since the 80's/90's, or so it seems! As with the others, it is beautifully finished, extremely reliable, and very accurate. I'm thinking this one's gonna wind up being a "keeper."
Hope this "vintage" perspective from a certified "old guy" is of interest to
some of the younger folks, who didn't get to experience the 41's in the way we did.
Best to all of you,
John
