stuck brass in SW 41

Just got my new performance center 41 to the range, and  have had a few (3 out of 100) failure to eject
brass situations.  Had to use a plastic rod to remove - is this a defect, or a break in situation?
Shooting Federal match range ammo.  Will try Norma and Aguila and see if they do the same.

Make sure the chamber is squeaky clean. Most here use a .25 cal brush for this.

Totally agree with cleaning the chamber - if I remember correctly, you get a .25 (slightly oversize) brush, and bend it so it only goes as deep into the chamber as necessary, no more, no less, and yes "squeak clean".  Do you have any CCI .22 LR ammo available?  That seemed to work the best.

Some time ago, my 22 ammo was "coated" with something, and I got in the habit of rolling the ammo back and forth on a clean dry cloth to clean it off.  Back then, that was a big help.  I only use CCI and Eley ammo, and I haven't got the nerve yet for trying anything else.

I also don't know much about the newer Model 41 guns - my gun dated back to the 1970's, but I have switched to a competition barrel from Clark.

Is the weather "strange" near you?  Raining, or especially hot or cold?  I assume you're shooting Standard Velocity ammo, right?

How do you clean your barrel, and how often?

Clean per above. CCI standard, is the S&W standard.

Get a stamp pad, oil it lightly, and roll your ammo on it before loading.

See if that works before returning it

With my Ruger if the chamber was perfectly clean and dry the first shot would not eject, with the case left in the chamber. A little lube on that first cartridge seemed to be a simple solution.

there was a series of posts on this forum that said "never use a brass brush on your 22 barrel" or something similar.  The SW manual for the 41 says to first brush out the barrel with a brass brush.  I do drag a patch through it after every trip to the range.  Thanks for the advice(s)

If it were me, the next time it fails to extract. Lock slide back and take a pointe instrument and stick it in the extractor notch/groove in the barrel. See how much effort is needed to extract. You make or may not be able to feel with a cleaning rod. I would do this to see if it might actually be an extractor issue bs chamber issue. Just dotting i’s and crossing t’s.
Jon

I have a newer Performance Center model 41 and had similar issues. It took sending it to Clark Custom to have them perform their reliability package. I was having all kinds of feed and extraction problems. The gun runs perfectly now with CCI standard velocity ammo. I was running Winchester T-22 and Federal Match ammunition. Even after I got the gun back I had to LIGHTLY oil the first round in the magazine to have the gun function properly. By doing this I was able to use up my previous supply and now exclusively use CCI standard velocity.

1) This is what you seek:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DB8D1RW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Chuck it in a drill. Spin it for a couple seconds in the chamber.


2) Keep the chamber clean.


3) A small drop of Rem Oil on the first round in each magazine helps a lot.


4) I replaced the extractor on my M41 with a Volquartsen Exact Edge Extractor. I think it helped? Hard to say since I did the chamber polishing at the same time.

I'd recommend not doing anything  beyond cleaning and trying different types of ammo given that the gun is still under warranty. A year ago I  bought a new, non-performance center 41, and it had all sorts of problems feeding and cycling. But the biggest problem was the stuck trigger guard. The cycling issues were fixed on the first trip back to S&W. The stuck trigger guard required two additional trips, and nearly a third (I managed to get it unstuck myself and now keep it lightly lubed; no problems since).

In any case, the gun is now problem free: 1500 + rounds and maybe one or two hiccups. No more stuck trigger guard. It's a pain, but I'd send in back to S&W if different ammo and cleaning don't help. For what it's worth, the Volquartsen Extractor did not help my pistol.

thanks-I also have the stuck trigger guard-took two of us to get the thing down
for cleaning, and that was all we could do strength wise. You would think they
would check that before shipping such an expensive piece.

L. Boscoe wrote:thanks-I also have the stuck trigger guard-took two of us to get the thing down
for cleaning, and that was all we could do strength wise. You would think they
would check that before shipping such an expensive piece.

Yes, you'd sure think that. You'd also think that it wouldn't take three trips to fix it. They ended up spending probably $200 on postage alone to get it sorted out; an extra hour at the factory would have been more economical, but I really don't know what's going on at S&W. On the bright side, the 41 is a dream once the bugs get sorted out.

CCI STD VELOCITY

Volquartsen Exact Edge Extractor


Polish chamber (once) , lapping compound works too


Ditto on 1 light drop of oil on the 1st round of each mag

brdrgrd wrote:I have a newer Performance Center model 41 and had similar issues. It took sending it to Clark Custom to have them perform their reliability package. I was having all kinds of feed and extraction problems. The gun runs perfectly now with CCI standard velocity ammo. I was running Winchester T-22 and Federal Match ammunition. Even after I got the gun back I had to LIGHTLY oil the first round in the magazine to have the gun function properly.  By doing this I was able to use up my previous supply and now exclusively use CCI standard velocity.

I had Clark do a trigger job on two MKII Rugers, and the triggers are as good as my M41!




The gunsmith who did my MKII trigger jobs was very proud of his ability to make M41's work. Even M41's that S&W Performance shop had worked on, and yet not fixed.  He told a number, in the hundreds, of the number of M41's he had worked on. Some shot so much, the slides rails were curved like a banana.

He did have a comment about the latest S&W M41's. He said, they are the best machined, and built out of the best materials, to date. That does not mean they are necessarily reliable or accurate, but that they are made of the best materials and have the best machining.

He claimed the older the M41, the softer the materials. I can believe that, it probably did take time for advanced alloy materials to gain acceptance at an old manufacturer.

Slamfire wrote:
I had Clark do a trigger job on two MKII Rugers, and the triggers are as good as my M41!




He did have a comment about the latest S&W M41's. He said, they are the best machined, and built out of the best materials, to date. That does not mean they are necessarily reliable or accurate, but that they are made of the best materials and have the best machining.

He claimed the older the M41, the softer the materials. I can believe that, it probably did take time for advanced alloy materials to gain acceptance at an old manufacturer.

A lot of this has to do with the modern machining now used. Up until about 1990-something most machining was done using high-speed steel cutters on machines set to do one or two cuts. Then the part would be placed into another machine. For that to work steels had to be soft and the machining was good but imprecision was common. Now cutters are coated micro grain carbide and computer controlled. The parts spend a little more time in the machines but multiple operations are done in one setup.

Seem odd that case can stick in the chamber. Being that .22 is blow back the pressure in the barrel should push the case back. Maybe the slide does come back but not enough and the bass pushed back in. Also case might bulge a little if head space is incorrect and gets tight when pushed back in. I would try HV .22 to see what happens, one will not harm the gun but many over time will.

I had this and other problems with my new 41.  A couple of suggestions:

1. As mentioned make sure the chamber is clean

2. It should pass the "plunk test": With the barrel off drop a fresh round into the chamber.  It should seat all the way ("plunk"), and should drop out easily when inverting the barrel.

3. If it doesn't pass (or even if it does), check the chamber under magnification where the rim of the round seats.  There could be a dent, bur, flash, etc that is dragging against the brass case hanging it up.

4. Try a lighter recoil spring.  Alex Hamilton (Ten Ring) indicated that the stock recoil spring can be too strong for SV ammo, and suggested changing to 6#.  After I did this most problems went away (though I did have him do a trigger job and reline the barrel).

Alex Hamilton is great to work with. I also recommend KC Crawford at https://kcskustomcreations.com/ . I bought a used 1978 S&W M41 that jammed all the time and KC made it run right. I've run it to 700 rounds CCI SV between cleanings just to see what happened and never oil any rounds. After cleaning it will often not pick up the second round but that occurs during Slow Fire or practice so I don't worry about it. The firing pin hasn't marked the chamber rim yet so either it was trimmed or has happy dimensions.