Yay, I'm Forty-One Today

Turning Forty-One is a strange feeling. It's not a milestone birthday like 40 was and it feels like an ambivalent age.

41 is also a bit ominous if you follow firearms, considering most 41s never really lived up to their expectations.

Take the 41 Action Express cartridge for example. A promising round with a rebated 9mm rim so it would be easy to convert 9mm pistols, it had the bad luck to come out at the same time as the 40 S&W and to suffer from bad marketing. Just as police were looking to switch from revolvers and 9mm pistols they called it the 41 Action Express. If only they had marketed it with the metric name for the cartridge, 10.4, it would have had a fighting chance.

For that matter, take the 41 Magnum. Again, a great cartridge but it just didn't catch on as it sat right between the venerable .357 Magnum and the .44 Magnum. The .44 Magnum got Clint Eastwood, the .41, not so much.

Now, mind you, the S&W Model 41 target pistol has been a decent success and has even been released again as a New Model 41. So there's some upside to 41 at least.

So, I'll take it and I'll make it a great day and a great year.

In addition to today being my 41st birthday, today is also the 68th anniversary of the "We Repeat, Seriously, Don't Start A War If You Can't Take A Joke Day"

Happy August 9th!