Is this 41 barrel toast?

Is this Barrel toast? It doesn’t extract reliably but it does if you oil the ammunition. So that tells me more pressure is required. So is this thing beat up and possibly head spacing is bad? 

Do rounds just fall in and out?
Are they excessively loose in he chamber?
What is the hook like on the extractor?

Nope, many look like that but as suggested above, do the plunk test.

My son had similar issues . At Perry Dan Norwood looked at it and put n a stronger spring under the extractor. That's the easiest thing to start with

The extractor hangs on to ammunition. I can hand cycle the gun with ammunition and it functions fine. When you attempt to shoot it, the gun does not extract. Sometimes the slide moves back only a little bit and doesn’t even come close to moving back far enough to extract. Like it’s under powered. There is a six pound spring in the gun and it’s been cut down some. So there isn’t enough pressure for some reason to get this slide to blow back is what I’m thinking.

Do you have ability to install another barrel on this lower?  That will identify problem location between barrel or lower.  You then can progress in troubleshooting.

AP

PhotoEscape wrote:Do you have ability to install another barrel on this lower?  That will identify problem location between barrel or lower.  You then can progress in troubleshooting.

AP

I wish I had another barrel to test but unfortunately I do not.

My 41 was also quite beaten up. Accuracy was poor and function was spotty at best, regardless of ammo.
Pre-KC


A trip to KC, with a liner from Ten Ring, fit bolt to slide and his work to ejector/slidestop and trigger and it now eats any good ammo without a hiccup and is VERY accurate.

+1 Take it to KC he is awesome with those 

He will tell you if you need a new Barrel Liner maybe worth the investment any how. I think TenX is running low on liners so call them,

rich.tullo wrote:+1 Take it to KC he is awesome with those 

He will tell you if you need a new Barrel Liner maybe worth the investment any how. I think TenX is running low on liners so call them,

I’d hate to reline it. It shoots great. Just isn’t reliable in terms of function. Very accurate. Just doesn’t cycle.

KC knows those the best if anyone can get that 100% he can and have him do a trigger job as well, it will shoot like a 208.

There are many other things that can go wrong with a M41 that are not the barrel.

This year I deposited my two Ruger MKII's for a trigger job at Clark's Custom Guns .  The gunsmith who did an outstanding trigger job on both, also knows M41's in and out. He said he has worked on 2000 M41's, and was proud that he got M41's working, even after they still had issues even though sent to the factory. 

I talked with the gunsmith, there are breech face parallelism, loose breech block, extractor issues with M41's.  He has even seen M41's with the slides bowed like a banana! He recommended, Standard Velocity ammunition only.  If you have issues, you might as well send the pistol off to someone you trust. Since Clarks did such a great job on my Mark II's, and they have lots of M41 experience, they might be worth considering.

And, they have custom barrels. I had an interesting talk with them about their accuracy experience. I am glad to say, they acknowledged that ammunition has the most variability when it comes to ultimate accuracy. Match ammunition varies by lot, and it varies a lot. If I recall correctly, their guarantee is that their pistols will hold the X ring at 50 yards. The average accuracy of one of their tuned M41's was ten shot groups around 0.75 to 1.0 inch at 50 yards. The gunsmith reported an exceptional ten shot of 0.40 inches, but given the variance of ammunition, such things might be more of statistical happenstance. Takes more rounds to find out. And people do win the lottery.

Accuracy is of little interest if your pistol is not reliable. I hope you get it sorted out.

The last time I corresponded with KC, he wasn't taking on any new work.. perhaps he can chime in here?

Pinetree wrote:The last time I corresponded with KC, he wasn't taking on any new work.. perhaps he can chime in here?

That is correct. I have closed my books for any work.  Because of my double knee replacements I've been off my bench since the last week in February.  I'm just now starting to be able to stand for a little while and trying to get some things done on the list of back orders I have currently.

Tim I would recommend sending the barrel to Alex Hamilton at 10 Ring Precision in Texas.  I understand the barrel shoots great, but if the chamber is not in spec and it won't function reliably, it's worthless.  Line the barrel and you get a new chamber and an extremely accurate barrel that you'll be able to use for tens of thousands of rounds.

No doubt you have gotten good advice already, but one thing wasn't explicitly mentioned.  When my M41 became unreliable a good scrubbing of the chamber cured it.  It seems a ring of hard material builds up in the chamber and can cause difficult chambering and extraction.

Boxturtle wrote:No doubt you have gotten good advice already, but one thing wasn't explicitly mentioned.  When my M41 became unreliable a good scrubbing of the chamber cured it.  It seems a ring of hard material builds up in the chamber and can cause difficult chambering and extraction.

As KC has said about 41s in other threads, periodic scrubbing of the chamber with a .25cal brush is necessary to reliability.

Something a bit more complicated may be at play...the back pf the breechblock may have a sharp edge that contacts the hammer down low, lke a square firing pin stop used in Ball guns to keep them shut longer. This has a large resistance to cockng and ejection. An easy way to test it is to put a weaker mainspring in place. The firing pin force and trigger weight drops but recocks easier. This part can be rounded to get contact up higher but you usually have to take the block out which means a new rivet in the slide. The right width file will work but it's tedious

bruce martindale wrote:Something a bit more complicated may be at play...the back pf the breechblock may have a sharp edge that contacts the hammer down low, lke a square firing pin stop used in Ball guns to keep them shut longer. This has a large resistance to cockng and ejection. An easy way to test it is to put a weaker mainspring in place. The firing pin force and trigger weight drops but recocks easier. This part can be rounded to get contact up higher but you usually have to take the block out which means a new rivet in the slide. The right width file will work but it's tedious

Where can reduced power hammer springs be ordered from for a M41? I’ve only ever seen factory replacements.

Boxturtle wrote:No doubt you have gotten good advice already, but one thing wasn't explicitly mentioned.  When my M41 became unreliable a good scrubbing of the chamber cured it.  It seems a ring of hard material builds up in the chamber and can cause difficult chambering and extraction.

I spun one of these in my rough M41 chamber and it polished it up nicely. Functions well now, though I still get some FTEs if it's dirty and I skip the drop of oil on the 1st round in the magazine.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DB8D1RW/

Check your PMs. I have a 1978 M41 with two barrels and we can spend some time swapping parts to isolate the fault. 

I also recommend KC's M41 charm school for making M41s run right and Alex Hamilton for barrel liners. My Clark Custom barrel runs great too.

Have you tried a Volquartzen extractor? + 1 on 10 Ring Precision for relining and K.C. as the M41 master. I bought a trade in S&W barrel off Clarks table at Perry a few years back and had it relined by 10 Ring. Outstanding result. My M41 is the only pistol I own that has never had an alibi. K.C. tuned it up.

I will try a VQ extractor. But I also think it’s got more serious problems. This gun probably just needs to go to Ten Ring and have the works done on it.

Tim:H11 wrote:I will try a VQ extractor. But I also think it’s got more serious problems. This gun probably just needs to go to Ten Ring and have the works done on it.

I trimmed my Volquartsen extractor so it could cam over a round in the chamber like a Hammerli X-esse, which allows loading of single rounds without a magazine. (This can be useful in using a M41 in 50 Meter Pistol events.) Originally it would not do that and I was afraid of possible out-of-battery discharges. Jerry Keefer also had some comments on this website on fitting extractors.

All of these are good suggestions, I am running the Volquartsen extractors in my 41’s and use the Flexhone when chamber scrubbing does not do the trick. I have looked into having a barrel relined, the Clark optics ready barrel is about the same price unless you want to preserve the original looks of the 41.