Terminology?

[DasBoot]

"In the early days of metallic silhouette, the .41 had a following."

I saw this in an article about the beginnings of the .41.
What does it mean?
Tx.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[ron8903]

.41 magnum, I think.

[Redneck Repairs]

For silhouette it is speaking to the .41 mag . A fine ctg. that for some reason just never really caught on as well as the .357 or .44 mag .

[DasBoot]

For silhouette it is speaking to the .41 mag

I'm still missing the mark on this.
To me, "silhouette" just means how something looks from the side, or the outline.
Most everything has a sihouette of some sort.
And "metallic" just describes the material.
??

[Redneck Repairs]

metallic silhouette was a competition fairly popular in the 80s where you shot at steel critters ( chickens , pigs , rams , ect.. ) stationed from IIRC 50 to 200 yards away ( pistol ) The rams out at 200 were heavy and took some " oomph" from a handgun to knock over ( only downed targets scored , hits did not ) and a .357 really was not up to the task . It lead to some really " out there " single shot pistols in rifle ctgs and funny shooting positions such as the creedmore .

Here is the offical site http://www.ihmsa.org/

and here is the wiki page on it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_silhouette

[HotGuns]

It is there that the Thomson Center Contender reall made its mark with barrels that could be had in virtually any caliber.

It was also responsible for the creation of a few calibers, the .357 Maximum, and the .445 Mag. come to mind.

Its really a fun day at the range. If you've never tried it you should.

We do the 100 yard silhouette at our range every Thursday night. We have 6 targets each at 25,50,75 and 100....and is shot with handgun only...so the targets are reduced size. Still a lot of fun though.

[DasBoot]

OHHHHHH!
So

metallic silhouette

only refers to the cutout targets, not the gun itself!
I couldn't figure out how the term related to handguns.
Picking up lots of good info around here.
Thanks much!