41 magazine assembly

[hmeier4799]

The 41 magazine, old or new style, are not difficult to disassemble. But, what is easy method to assemble one?
Trying to control the spring upon installation ends up with buckling the spring several times before finally getting it installed.
Had to clamp the magazine down to control it.

 

[gmborkovic]

Yea, a padded vise is an extra set of hands.

 

[chief38]

The only way to disassemble them is to pull the bottom floor plate out. Most of the time they are a bit tight but will come out. Putting them back together might be a little easier if you put a tiny dab of grease on the floor-plate while sliding it back in. You can try pushing in the floor plate with the top of the workbench - in other words push against the wood surface.

While the older steel follow style magazines are far superior to the new ones and a bit more robust, it is my opinion that none should be disassembled too many times as they are relatively thin and somewhat fragile compared to standard centerfire mag's. Once every 3-5 years seems like a good period and that is only if they are used a lot and really need a thorough cleaning. A light lubrication of the follower with a thin oil that mostly evaporates and won't collect debris is what I do every so often between disassemblies. An air compressor is also useful in keeping them clean. I shoot my M41 quite often and I find that the Mag's don't get all that dirty with the CCI standard Velocity 40 grain ammo.

 

[Oldsalt66]

I bought a bunch of them at MidwayUSA for $27.99 each, so I consider them consumables.

My model 41 gets taken to the range at least twice a week and I clean the magazine tubes and feed lips with Q-tips after every use.

 

[McGregor]

Heres what I do. Insert spring and follower in mag body. Insert a stiff wire. straw etc. into the spring.
Push down the spring, the wire or whatever will keep the spring from buckling. Hold the spring down once inserted and remove wire, put retainer button on the spring and replace baseplate.
This works good for me unless some how I loose control of the spring and parts fly.

 

[hmeier4799]

Not so difficult after all. Fabricated a hook and was able to easily pull the spring back far enough for installing the Floor Plate.
It was an old magazine, and the inside was filthy.

 

[Rowlf]

Just a note. A friend gave me several M41 plastic follower magazines after he sold his M41 (He wanted to concentrate on the 1911 platform.)

Several magazines were too wide to drop free so I had to carefully squeeze them to match good magazine dimensions. One magazine had a base plate with two tack welds to the magazine body. I destroyed the baseplate disassembling the magazine and gave the parts to a friend that has a Hammerli 208.