A gunsmith at Clark Guns, who may be their "M41" gunsmith, told me, "new M41's are better made, and made of better materials than old, though not necessarily more accurate or more reliable"
He had worked on over 200 M41's and got some running that the S&W Customer shop had worked on, shipped out, and failed.
This is a 1968 vintage M46. Smith and Wesson would not drill and tap it for an optical sight, because they don't have the parts to fix the thing if they broke it.
Smith and Wesson did drill and tap this 1988 M41. This is something to consider, you will want to shoot optics at some point and older M41's are not drilled and tapped. You can expect to spend $100 to $200 on shipping, drilling, etc. Factor that in.
Notice the slide rib thickness difference. That may be one reason S&W would not work on the M46.
A shooting bud, brought out his Dad's first year production M41 and shot it in a club match. Don't know how much Dad shot the thing, but it had been used. As long as the M41 appears to be little used, I doubt very much that it will have any problems. The head of the All Guard military team said the common problems he had seen were extractor spring problems, he had seen a number of where the firing pin block (6508)
had worked loose. When the block is loose, wiggles lets say, the round will fall off the breech face. He peened the block ribs till it fit tight again.
My own experience, even with the 1988 M41, change the recoil spring and the mainspring. All sorts of malfunctions due to weak ignition and a weak recoil spring. Both are easy to replace. Buy OEM mainsprings. I also make it a practice to blow out the firing pin block with compressed air. I press the firing pin forward, with a chop stick for example, and blow air at the tip. Always find oil coming out. You don't want the firing pin floating in oil, takes away from ignition energy.
I think the All Guard team leader had 60,000 rounds through his M41. He had log book, recommended I keep one. There are shooters who have been using their M41 for decades and have shot cases of ammunition. An interesting experience from the Clark gunsmith, he had a M41 slide that had been used so much "it was bent like a bananna" That may have been one of the older M41's.
It is my recollection Clark guarantee's their M41's to shoot under an inch at 50 yards. Clark installs a Walther barrel and then has a range tunnel.
I think the average M41 shot ten shot groups from 5/8" to 3/4" at fifty yards. Accuracy was highly ammunition dependent, with the gunsmith commenting on how much better "fresh" match ammunition shot. And he had seen some awful groups from a "tipped box". He said the best group ever was a ten shot 3/8" group at 50 yards. That was probably a statistical aberration, if you ever have your 22lr match tested, match ammunition varies a lot.
He had worked on over 200 M41's and got some running that the S&W Customer shop had worked on, shipped out, and failed.
This is a 1968 vintage M46. Smith and Wesson would not drill and tap it for an optical sight, because they don't have the parts to fix the thing if they broke it.
Smith and Wesson did drill and tap this 1988 M41. This is something to consider, you will want to shoot optics at some point and older M41's are not drilled and tapped. You can expect to spend $100 to $200 on shipping, drilling, etc. Factor that in.
Notice the slide rib thickness difference. That may be one reason S&W would not work on the M46.
A shooting bud, brought out his Dad's first year production M41 and shot it in a club match. Don't know how much Dad shot the thing, but it had been used. As long as the M41 appears to be little used, I doubt very much that it will have any problems. The head of the All Guard military team said the common problems he had seen were extractor spring problems, he had seen a number of where the firing pin block (6508)
had worked loose. When the block is loose, wiggles lets say, the round will fall off the breech face. He peened the block ribs till it fit tight again.
My own experience, even with the 1988 M41, change the recoil spring and the mainspring. All sorts of malfunctions due to weak ignition and a weak recoil spring. Both are easy to replace. Buy OEM mainsprings. I also make it a practice to blow out the firing pin block with compressed air. I press the firing pin forward, with a chop stick for example, and blow air at the tip. Always find oil coming out. You don't want the firing pin floating in oil, takes away from ignition energy.
I think the All Guard team leader had 60,000 rounds through his M41. He had log book, recommended I keep one. There are shooters who have been using their M41 for decades and have shot cases of ammunition. An interesting experience from the Clark gunsmith, he had a M41 slide that had been used so much "it was bent like a bananna" That may have been one of the older M41's.
It is my recollection Clark guarantee's their M41's to shoot under an inch at 50 yards. Clark installs a Walther barrel and then has a range tunnel.
I think the average M41 shot ten shot groups from 5/8" to 3/4" at fifty yards. Accuracy was highly ammunition dependent, with the gunsmith commenting on how much better "fresh" match ammunition shot. And he had seen some awful groups from a "tipped box". He said the best group ever was a ten shot 3/8" group at 50 yards. That was probably a statistical aberration, if you ever have your 22lr match tested, match ammunition varies a lot.
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, and thus the competition got much more interesting. No one ever had any reliability or accuracy issues with theirs. I have never changed a recoil spring. These day I shoot CCI std. velocity only in all my .22's. I would never buy a new M41. The older ones are best. Be sure to check the breach face for wear. It will be very obvious.
