I recently switched the barrel on my M41 from a 7 3/8" (or 7 1/2, depending on where you measure from, I'm not sure) to a 5" "Sport" barrel. Before the change I had never had a failure to feed or eject with the Blazer 22lr rounds I was using today.

Today at the range, first time out with the short barrel, I had multiple failures to feed and failures to eject. What are the possible causes? I noticed the slide was much harder to retract, and was also binding somewhat about 3/4 of the way through its travel. It can be moved with finger pressure, but was enough to cause the gun to jam. Here is a picture of where the slide is coming to rest on its own:



With light pressure it overcomes whatever is holding it up and goes into battery, but when I fired it it would sometimes fail to eject, again binding in about the same place.

I took the barrel off and cleaned the action area and chamber/feed ramp and, after reassembling, the problem has persisted.

Any thoughts? I really like this barrel; it is light, accurate, and well-balanced. I'm just hoping I can get my M41 to be as reliable with this barrel as it was with the other.

"APPEARS"?? dragging at rear site. The bbl extention can be slightly bent - but may want a gunsmith to bend it (with all the stuff off the bbl). Option (not my choice) is to stone bottom of bbl extention. May want to pull slide and reset bbl to see it matches to frame when locked in and no high spots causing it to tilt back. SMITH4152 may have suggestions also.

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TOMBECK

Thanks. I think you're correct. I took a sheet of printer paper and slid it over the slide under the barrel; it travelled freely until about 3/4" from the rear of the barrel extension on the left side, and about 1/2" on the right side. The barrel extension is definitely contacting the slide.

I put my long barrel back on and the slide travelled freely, as it had before.

Hello,
looking at this makes me wonder if the scope rail is not contacting things that it should not, and in tightening down the scope rail screws, it may be the cause of the bending. Remove it and see if that helps.
Then the scope rail may need to be milled out where it is making contact with the rear sight. It does look like it is being held up there, Just taking a file to put a bevel at the back edge of the scope rail will then clear the front sight hinge, at least this is what I can see here. Let me know if that helps. [email protected]

Smithfan: Your suggestion worked. I took out the rear two mount screws and the slide now travels freely with no binding. I'm not worried about the mount not staying put with just the front two screws, and I moved the dot sight up to the front of the mount just above the two remaining screws. The scope mount isn't contacting the rear sight; it is close, but I think the perspective of the picture above is what makes it look like the mount is pressing down on the sight.

Hi again,
well something is not perfectly flat, or there maybe interference between the holes causing the rail to bow. if the all screws are in loose
and just snug them up evenly, all should be good.
Either way, it should not be a problem if properly mounted. But I'm glad it is working for you now.

You also might have better luck with the CCI SV ammo as well which these guns love to shoot.