1958 S&W M41 vs. Nelson dedicated lower

Because I am like Curious George, I decided to try out my two non-Pardini rimfires this morning. I received a 7" barrel of unknown age from an Ebay purchase yesterday. I fit this barrel to my recently acquired 1958 M41 this morning. I paid $380 for the barrel. It came with an old Aimpoint1000 installed in front of the stock rear sight, which looks like the rear sight that came on my M41, only in much better condition with respect to screw heads that are straight and not Bubba'd up. Surprisingly, the Aimpoint1000 turned on and had strong dot resolution. Good thing, as the CR-1/3N battery isn't available in my area that I can tell. The barrel fit snugly in the receiver. It took me 20 rounds to get it on paper at 25 yards. Once zero was established at 25 yards (see the nice group below), I raised elevation 2 clicks and was dead-on at 50 yards. The Nelson has an Iron Sight rail and a Red-Dot rail, so I used the Red-Dot rail and its Burris FastFire II. It sits on an old Jim Clark commercial Colt lower with a 3.2lb trigger pull (M41 trigger pull is 2lbs). Ammo was Wolf MT and Midas, which is priced like his Gold, but is my go-to for best groups ahead of Tenex, mainly because I have some of it.
The pictures tell the tale. The M41 Ebay Barrel was a very pleasant surprise. Yeah, I jiggled a round or two, but for a 50 yard test, the groups looked OK to me. Plenty good enough for the pesky Chickens at 50 yards. I assume plenty good enough for Bullseye too
A scope with enough magnification or a Ransom Rest would be interesting. While the M41 can never match the Pardini's groups, I believe it will equal and maybe edge out the Nelson, if only by a small margin. I shoot the M41 better, probably because it has a nice barrel weight installed and feels more stable than the Colt with its Nelson upper. Either way, any mistakes cannot be blamed on either of these two pistols. The M41 was even able to school the guy next door on his own metallic silhouettes  
I felt like I hit a small Lottery today with the EBay barrel. I didn't want to D&T the original 7" barrel, and now I don't have to. Plus it shoots quite well and I had no failures with it functionally at all. BTW, the Nelson target below was shot for group size at 50 yards, but is on a 50' target paper, as I had run out of the real stuff. The Orange circle is smaller than the 10-ring of a B-6 50 yard target.

Why do you say the 41 could never equal Pardini groups? I've seen some really great 41 test targets and have shot some 41's that are hard to equal for group.
Jon

I am glad the ebay barrel is working out. Those types of shooting gear purchases always make me sweat just a little.

Jon Eulette wrote:Why do you say the 41 could never equal Pardini groups? I've seen some really great 41 test targets and have shot some 41's that are hard to equal for group.
Jon

Pardini hype much like Steyr is worth 10 points

That pistol really likes that ammo. I'd buy more of the same lot number if I were in your shoes.

Hi Amanda,

A quick search on "CR-1/3N cell" turned up many sources.  I like Battery Bob:


https://www.batterybob.com/


Take care, Tom

Tom,
I ordered some batteries after the local merchants didn't have any. I assume they are not very common. Thanks for looking!

Looks like the M41 is a keeper

Whats your secret to shooting that lil group?.....I still haven't found it

I have several Aimpoint 3000s that use the same battery, bought 50 off EBAY for less then a buck apiece close to 10 years ago and still have some left. Just looked and they are quite reasonable, the ones with the green wrapper are the ones I got.
Tom Ginovsky

A Sandbag, no wind and 20:15 vision are the only things I had going for groups. Didn't hurt that the M41 did the work. Even cheating, I drop too many from failure to maintain my focus

teg2658   you might have enough given the 50,000 hour battery rating on the 9000 

I have drilled out caps so each sight takes 2 batteries. A week at Camp Perry and it was time to replace a set. The Aimpoint 3000 has to be used turned all the way up outdoors and is hard on battery life. The Aimpoint 3000 is a light sight, 5 oz or so, prior to that Aimpoints were heavy,12 or 13 oz. To buy single batteries would sometimes be $5 each so buying 50 of them was worth it.I own 8 Aimpoint 3000s, 2 of them still new and have 9 new batteries left out of the 50. They were purchased in 2012, the receipt is still in the box.

I saw that barrel and sight on Ebay as well, almost bid on it, glad it worked out for you.

Love my new to me 9000sc.. you are right about turning it up outdoors.

May just have to search eBay for some more myself

Just curios if you guys have been looking in my safe. I guess there are only so many great combinations. Old 41 with long barrel and 9000sc. Check. Nelson conversion on a dedicated lower with Aimpoint 3000. Check. The 41 shoots better groups. The Nelson is more fun to shoot.

I guess a statement like this groups better then that needs some backup. Here our a couple of test groups at 25yds. The best of the Nelson and the only one I found of the 41on the computer.

Nice! Give that one to the S&W