During a recent trip to my local gun store, I happened upon a S&W M41 (5.5"). While these are not rare, I've neither shot nor seen one at my local sportsmen's club. Everything I've ever read about them has been positive and the damn thing just kept pissin' and moaning until I bought it. I still need to get a purchase permit before I can bring it home, but I'll do that at my earliest convenience. Any personal experience with these would be greatly appreciated.

congrats - you just bought perhaps the finest 22 target pistol made (IMO) mine took me almost to the olympic team years ago (missed by 2 places)

I'll have to concur with Butch, an excellent gun with a crisp trigger and flawless fit of metal-to-metal.

You can "trick out" the gun with a barrel extension, weights, etc., but the plain 5.5" barrel model is a wonderful (if somewhat pricey) gun for casual shooting. It will spoil you compared to a Ruger .22 Auto or other current-production .22 Autos.

Wonderful shooter but a wee bit spendy for a lot of us. Hopefully you got the good guy deal.

some of the Target models Rugers have approached the similar accuracy performance at a lower price point, MKII's, but you have also purchased an heirlom.

I've had mine for many years. I'm amazed at how well I can shoot with it compared to other handguns.

Mine is one of my all time favorite handguns. It's VERY rare to hear anyone complain about anything except the price.

No olympic experience with mine, although I've won a couple local matches with it, but my proudest acheivement was two head shots in a row on couple bashful ground squirrels at about 40 yards each. I sure can't blame the gun when I miss.

I've got a couple tricked out Rugers and a few other .22 handguns, none of them even come close. You'll have a great time.

Kyler

This is all excellent news. It is a bit pricey, but with the proceeds from the sale of a Kimber Rimfire Target it was vertainly doable. Thanks for all your input.

I bought my 22 Model 41 in the early 1970's. After putting several wheelbarrels of ammo through it for 35 plus years, I had to take it to the gunsmith yesterday to get new extracters put in it. It finally got so it did not eject all the time. The smith said about fifteen dollars for the extracters plus a small fee for labor. It should be good for another 35 years when I get it back. I wish this old hunter had that much time left. My 41 is the finest gun that I have. It always liked any ammo and will still shoot way better than I can. You did well, you will be happy with it. Now start stocking up on ammo and keep yer powder dry.

I've been shooting S&W 41s and 46s for over 40 years without any issues. I have been thinking about buying a buffer for the 46 that gets shot the most, but we've probably put 20K rounds through each of 4 that we have without any repair. The only feeding failures that I have every had were due to the ammo, not the pistol.

Jeff

I think the S&W model 41 is one of the best off the self target pistols available to the general public. The earley High Standard's were in the same league and the two were always seen in competion. I happened upon a High Standard Citation at a gun store many years ago and that is my favorite. If it had been a S&W 41 I would have been just as pleased.

I picked the M41 up last week, got it registered, topped it with a 1X30mm red dot, and took it to the range. Aside from its preference for pricey ammo, the gun far exceeded my expectations. With CCI green tag, 5/8 - 3/4 inch groups at 25 yards were the norm off a rest, and I was able to ring a 1/5 scale pig at 50 yards (again, off a rest) with boring manotany. Fit and finish are perfect and the trigger is the best I've had on a pistol. I can't wait until squirrel season. Again, thanks for all of your input.

Another vote for the M41.....

I've seen test targets from an M41 that was clamped in a Broadway machine rest and shot at 50 yards with some good match ammo. Around 3/8ths inch groups most of the time. Once in a while, it would group well under 1/4th inch.

Not many rifles shoot that well.