model 41 firing pin

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mario57

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Finally got to start shooting my 41. Purchased in Dec it is a 60,s era 7 3/8 barrel #293×× . Ever 15 to 20 rounds i get a failure to fireafter waiting 45 seconds to make sure its not a miss fire i eject the round apon inspection there is no mark on the casing. I put that round back in the mag rack it and it fires. Is there a adjustment that can be made or do i have to replace the firing pin.
Thanks Mario
 
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mario57 said:
Finally got to start shooting my 41. Purchased in Dec it is a 60,s era 7 3/8 barrel #293×× . Ever 15 to 20 rounds i get a failure to fireafter waiting 45 seconds to make sure its not a miss fire i eject the round apon inspection there is no mark on the casing. I put that round back in the mag rack it and it fires. Is there a adjustment that can be made or do i have to replace the firing pin.
Thanks Mario
Click to expand...

Until someone else comes along I'd speculate its either the spring and or gunk that has built up in the firing pin cavity causing the firing pin to hang up - just my $0.02. : )
Flush the cavity with a cleaner degreaser and blast it out with air.
 
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You should probably drift the retaining pin out of the slide and remove the firing pin, firing pin spring, extractor & it's spring, and the breechblock itself. Clean everything and reassemble. There's lots of nooks and crannies for gunk to build up.
The 41 can be pretty finicky without being provoked!
 
It could also be the ammo you are useing as sometimes the caseing does not sit sit correctly in the magazine. Remember the CCI SV ammo is the M41's favorite food.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I was feeding it that rare cci standard thats why i am suspecting its something else it was doing it with the federal orange pack standard as well. Also that i put the exact same shell back in tbe top of mag and pow it went off every time
Mario
 
If its doing it on a reg basis I might also suspect your magazine could have a weak spring in it as well. They do get tired after many years of usage. Some of my older ones do this even with CCI SV ammo. I have ten of them now and rotate them all the time.
 
Missfires with my Model 41

I seem to have cleared up most of my FTF issues with magazine cleaning, extractor replacement with a volquartsen extractor and a steady diet of CCI Standard. My only problem is aliby causing miss fires. I get about 1 every 100-200 rounds. After clearing, there appears to be a reasonable firing pin hit. A few times I have tried turning the case and firing it again to no avail. Is it a firing pin problem or is the Ammo the culprit? Is anyone else having a problem with miss fires with CCI Standard? I never seem to have the problem Slow fire. Only seems to happen in Timed or Rapid. Any thoughts?
 
I’d probably wonder also about the treatment if the gun before you bought it. If someone has been dry firing it the damage to the firing pin and/or to the breech face could be the cause, or at least a big contributing factor.

It’d be worth checking the breech face for damage in way of an indent or crack to see if that may be the case.

Krash 51 - likewise for your failure to fire problems, though I think from your thread yours may be a new gun, so unless you or someone who has used your gun has dry fired it a few times.....?
 
There is also the possibility that the slide has not closed completely. This is often hard to see because the hammer fall will close the slide but there will be no firing pin strike. This is a safety feature to prevent the pistol from firing out of battery. The model 41 has a tight chamber and a buildup of residue that the bullet has to pass through can cause problems.
 
ammo

mario57 said:
Thanks for all the replies. I was feeding it that rare cci standard thats why i am suspecting its something else it was doing it with the federal orange pack standard as well. Also that i put the exact same shell back in tbe top of mag and pow it went off every time
Mario
Click to expand...

Current production CCI Standard Velocity I get one that doesn't go off first try every few hundred rounds. Old stuff was maybe one out of 10,000.
 
Dry Firing Damage

Larks said:
I’d probably wonder also about the treatment if the gun before you bought it. If someone has been dry firing it the damage to the firing pin and/or to the breech face could be the cause, or at least a big contributing factor.

It’d be worth checking the breech face for damage in way of an indent or crack to see if that may be the case.

Krash 51 - likewise for your failure to fire problems, though I think from your thread yours may be a new gun, so unless you or someone who has used your gun has dry fired it a few times.....?
Click to expand...

I'll confess that I have dry fired my 41 a few times when putting it away to get the hammer off the sear. I can see no firing pin damage on the breach face. I'm not going to tear it apart to measure firing pin protrusion, but I thought I would ask knowledgeable armourers here if dry firing a 41 truly damages it by peening the breach face or the firing pin retainer pin. I know the age old answer, but what is the real mechanical consequence, not tribal lore passed down for generations.
 
dry firing

ggibson511960 said:
I'll confess that I have dry fired my 41 a few times when putting it away to get the hammer off the sear. I can see no firing pin damage on the breach face. I'm not going to tear it apart to measure firing pin protrusion, but I thought I would ask knowledgeable armourers here if dry firing a 41 truly damages it by peening the breach face or the firing pin retainer pin. I know the age old answer, but what is the real mechanical consequence, not tribal lore passed down for generations.
Click to expand...

My old (1980ish) and new (2012 or so ) 41s have been dry-fired thousands of times, no noted ill-effects so far. I do currently use a dry-fire plug, it makes dry-firing easier and eliminates likely-needless worry about its effects.
 
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ggibson511960 said:
I'll confess that I have dry fired my 41 a few times when putting it away to get the hammer off the sear. I can see no firing pin damage on the breach face. I'm not going to tear it apart to measure firing pin protrusion, but I thought I would ask knowledgeable armourers here if dry firing a 41 truly damages it by peening the breach face or the firing pin retainer pin. I know the age old answer, but what is the real mechanical consequence, not tribal lore passed down for generations.
Click to expand...

Definitely not “tribal law”. Any .22LR pistol or rifle can be damaged by dry firing - broken firing pins and dented breech faces.

Our club had 22A’s for club pistols for a long time and my previous club had Ruger MkIV’s and I've seen both of these problems on each from them being dry fired by new members.

(This pic is from another forum, there seem to be two different types of mark, round and square. I don’t know about the two round ones but I’d say the square one would likely be from dry firing).


mod-41-5-1-2-a-jpg.42683


xhFWW.jpg
 
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ms said:
My old (1980ish) and new (2012 or so ) 41s have been dry-fired thousands of times, no noted ill-effects so far. I do currently use a dry-fire plug, it makes dry-firing easier and eliminates likely-needless worry about its effects.
Click to expand...

I’d love to see a photo of your breech face, thousands of dry fires without a mark would seem quite incredible.
 
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Larks said:
I’d love to see a photo of your breech face, thousands of dry fires without a mark would seem quite incredible.
Click to expand...

Since the firing pin cannot reach the breach face, it is not remarkable at all. No modern rimfire is designed so that the firing pin can reach the breach face. The only risk is a broken firing pin on some designs. The Model 41 does not seem to be one of those.
 
I believe most shooters are just repeating the warning from Smith and Wesson concerning the company's admonition not to dry fire rimfire firearms. The warning concerns go beyond just possible damage to the rear of the chamber area in the model 41. This is in fact a bona fide message from S&W, so we can't really categorize it as "folklore".

Overall damage can also include hard closing of the bolt on empty chamber, which can cause peening and excessive wear and tear on the breechface/bolt interface. This peening closes the gauge between the front of the bolt and the breechface/chamber mouth, and along with repeated dry firing, can combine to cause surface damage to the chamber face/chamber mouth by the firing pin when the gun is dry fired on an empty chamber.


 
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It's incredible.

Larks said:
I’d love to see a photo of your breech face, thousands of dry fires without a mark would seem quite incredible.
Click to expand...

They have no firing pin marks, just the standard marks from the slide hitting the back of the barrel. In each pistol, the firing pin forward travel is limited several thousandths of an inch from the barrel.
 
JudgeColt said:
Since the firing pin cannot reach the breach face, it is not remarkable at all. No modern rimfire is designed so that the firing pin can reach the breach face. The only risk is a broken firing pin on some designs. The Model 41 does not seem to be one of those.
Click to expand...

If only that were reliably the case - unfortunately it is not and I have seen enough “modern” rimfire rifles and handguns with damaged breech faces and firing pins to attest to it.
 
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