REVIEWS
Smith & Wesson Model 58
This heavy-frame .41 Magnum may just have been the best service revolver ever built.
|
|
For those who have never seen a Smith & Wesson Model 58, try to imagine an older square-butt, four-inch, heavy-barreled K-frame Model 10 on steroids, featuring the same minimalist unshrouded ejector rod, matte blue finish, checkered walnut service grips, pinned barrel and counterbored cylinder.
Smith & Wesson's N-frame .41 Magnum Model 58 Military & Police enjoyed a production life that lasted from 1964 to 1977. Something in excess of 20,000 units were produced. This represents a chronological span that began when the double-action .38 Special/.357 Magnum revolver ruled the law-enforcement market and ended when the double-action auto had begun its inevitable ascent.
Like the 34-ounce .38-caliber Model 10, the 42-ounce Model 58 was a no-frills service revolver from the ground up. The company--perhaps hedging its bets with the new revolver--also offered the sporting-oriented Model 57, a deluxe, adjustable-sighted number that was basically a .41 Magnum version of the legendary Model 29.
Since it's impossible to discuss the history of the Model 58 without delving into the parallel story of the .41 Magnum cartridge, we'd better get that out of the way first.
The .41 Magnum was introduced by Remington back in 1964, ostensibly at the urging of Elmer Keith (in concert with, as the story goes, Bill Jordan). Keith's disdain for the .357 bore size was well known.
The .41 was, in fact, a .40 caliber, neatly splitting the difference between the .357 and .44 magnums, neither of which, by Keith's reckoning, was an optimum police service cartridge. The .38 Special was too wimpy. The .357 Magnum was overpenetrative and difficult to control in rapid double-action fire. And the .44 Magnum was, well, out of the question.
The choice for Keith was simple: a big-bore lead semi-wadcutter at around 1,000 fps. In fact, he wanted to name it the .41 Police. Problem was, this was the 1960s and the marketing buzzword of the day was "magnum."
In retrospect, that nomenclature might have alleviated some of the confusion that arose when Remington introduced two loads simultaneously for the new cartridge. The first was specifically tailored to the Model 58 and featured a 210-grain lead semi-wadcutter at around 1,000 fps. It was (and still is) an optimum service revolver load, boasting considerably more throw weight than today's hugely popular 180-grain .40 S&W loading--at roughly the same velocity.
The lead loading was powerful, controllable and accurate. Not to say that a .44 Special couldn't have done the same thing, but the .41 was shiny-new and cool. And it had been the beneficiary of some serious promotion by S&W and Remington, not to mention the awestruck gun press.
Even 1911 guru Jeff Cooper had nice things to say about the .41 Magnum Police Load (and the Model 58) in his seminal Jeff Cooper on Handguns.
"This is a very superior defensive round, and since an excellent utility revolver is made for it by Smith & Wesson, the combination is far and away the best choice for any law-enforcement agency that is limited to the revolver concept."
The problem arose with the second load, which was a different creature altogether. It consisted of a 210-grain jacketed hollowpoint at a semi-scorching 1,300 fps (from a four-inch barrel). Now, obviously Remington had intended this load to be used in conjunction with the target-stocked, premium-grade, adjustable-sighted Model 57 as an outdoorsman's tool. But from the Model 58, with its skimpy service stocks, the jacketed hollowpoint number would've been a handful for a seasoned big-bore handgunner, let alone a police recruit.
© 2009 Intermedia Outdoors. All rights reserved.
