Smith & Wesson 41 pistol -- one opinion.

First topic message reminder :

Greetings fellow shooters,

I want to give anyone reading this a heads-up about the Smith and Wesson model 41 pistol. I bought one of them new and for $1200, it does not perform anywhere near what it should. I'm getting stovepipes, failure to extract, and failure to go into battery. I've tried a few different brands of ammo, and it's very fussy about ammo. Only two brands that I have tried so far work at all. It won't even function with some brands. The reliability is very poor.

The sights also came crooked from the factory ( I bought it through gunbroker ), and even though I sent the pistol back to the factory, they simply said "could not duplicate problem" and sent it back.

Guys, I thought I was doing the right thing by buying an American made product, but the engineering is poor and this pistol is not a quality product. I'm hearing other reports of people having the same issues, too. For what it costs, this pistol should be a lot better. It's not even as good as a stock Ruger MKII. Please learn from my mistake, and others' mistakes, and avoid this pistol.

If anyone knows a good gunsmith I can send this to to get it working, please send me a message.

I am so frustrated with this pistol. And I might not buy any more S&W products again. This thing is a disgrace to American made products. European engineering must be better, because I don't hear about people having this type of trouble with Pardinis and Hammerlis. I used to always "buy American," but items like this one make me reconsider.

Got second hand M41 PC for dad that has been reliable with anything and everything. Owner said the gun was sent back and tuned by SW PC few times.
At the range 2 people bought new M41 PC, both pistols are not reliable. One lite primer strikes and malfeeding, other stovepiping until Clark barrel was bought
More tales from the range of people having and selling these due to unreliability. Common consensus is that regulars are more reliable than performance centers due to eased tolerances.

Lesson is that sometimes you get lucky, but do not discount unlucky examples.

I am sure others have said this before but 41's seem to come in two flavors. Flavor one is the pain in the butt version that has to be redone by a good gunsmith.  Flavor two is the kind that never so much as a hick-up, mine is one of those it is accurate, great trigger and easy to shoot, the only time I have had a jam is on the first shot after it has been cleaned.  Mine does not care what ammo I shoot in it but I stick to CCI SV.  There are a lot of good articles and posts out there about 41s and if they are problem children they can be made to be sweethearts.

I have a 77ish 41, a 68ish 41 and a 59ish 41.  All are good guns

I am happy with my 41, shots are "on call"; not great out of the box... but very good if you do 3 things.

1. Change to Volquartsen extractor (for 41)

2. Polish chamber (lapping compound, rubbing compound)

3. Use CCI Standard velocity

Whoops 4 things...

4. "Tune" action with lower power recoil spring.

The moderators changed my topic title to "one opinion"   I guess I'm being censored a bit.

I'm curious about polishing the chamber. How does one do that without doing damage that will affect accuracy?

I took the 41 to the range today and fired some CCI SV ammo. Out of 20 rounds, I had two failures to strip a round from the magazine and four failures to go into battery. I had to hit the back of the slide with my hand like the forward assist on an M16. I also had one failure to ignite but I'll attribute that to the nature of rimfire ammo.

I tried ten rounds of Eley and had one failure to go into battery.

Armscor copper plated ammo had a 100% failure rate and would barely go into battery even with me forcing it. 

This pistol is going back to Smith & Wesson. And if they won't take it, it's going to KC Custom Guns for work, or I'll sell it. I can't compete with this thing. I'm embarrassed that I bought it.

I had a bad 41 also; nothing worked. I sent it to S&W many times. Finally I spoke to a rep and told him I want my money back or a new 41. He agreed and sent a new 41. This one is much better, but it was about ten years ago. I thing the CS has deteriorated since then.

I wonder if the chamber is on the small side? Dull reamer or a smallbore type reamer? You wouldn't think they'd set up a semi with a small chamber, but maybe there are no BE shooters in the S&W custom shop. 

Have you tried the plop test with different brands of ammo? (I've noticed .001" - .002" difference in diameters).

Some ammo may be long and jamming into the lands? (CCI Std is long compared to EU ammo - Try Eley). 
Are your magazine lips adjusted properly?
Is the magazine a sloppy fit in the magwell? (I have a Hi Std with this problem and fixed it - 100% reliable).

FWIW - My GSP has a camber on the high end and it's the most accurate 22 I have.
Hope this helps.

I don't have a model 41 but it is easy to understand the OP's and many others frustration with their guns. When you pay a premium price for a target pistol from the "Performance Center" it is not unreasonable to expect it to perform, or at least function reliably. A shooter with a brand new gun should not have to fix, tune, or adjust things just to get it to shoot. The added insult is to have to pack it off to a gunsmith and pay to fix what should have been right from "The Performance Center".

I do have a model 52 I purchased new in 1981. It is very reliable and way more accurate than I am. All I have done to it is load ammo and shoot.
Maybe the older guns were built to a higher standard.
Darrell

Jim Rose was a great friend. He helped me so many times. I talked to someone who worked with Jim, as far as he cal recall Jim would put in a reduced recoil spring and cut a few coils out of magazine spring.

Exactly. I shouldn't have to do anything. I'm not the manufacturer. I'm the customer. The manufacturer should be doing those four simple things before selling the item. If he doesn't, I have the right to alert other bullseye shooters that this item is a bad product.

I don’t know what the gun industry was or is like, but if they are anything like what’s currently in other industries, there’s a cultural issue contributing to this.  

I worked in the aircraft design, build and maintenance for my adult life.  About 15 or so years ago there was a cultural shift in the employment pool.  Few applicants had any mechanical skills or experience.  They knew what a screwdriver was, but that’s about it.  When I first started, most manufacturing techs were “mechanical” people coming in.  They knew how to “do stuff” before they got hired.  Now, only about half if that.  So you hire a person and then find out if they have any aptitude.   The ones that don’t have the “mechanical” gene just muddle through.

That being said, I do appreciate your advice. If S&W doesn't fix it up, I'll go through with the chamber polishing. I have polishing compound already. I'll have to set up a patch on a cleaning rod, and attach it to a drill and set it on low speed.

Wobbley wrote:I don’t know what the gun industry was or is like, but if they are anything like what’s currently in other industries, there’s a cultural issue contributing to this.  

I worked in the aircraft design, build and maintenance for my adult life.  About 15 or so years ago there was a cultural shift in the employment pool.  Few applicants had any mechanical skills or experience.  They knew what a screwdriver was, but that’s about it.  When I first started, most manufacturing techs were “mechanical” people coming in.  They knew how to “do stuff” before they got hired.  Now, only about half if that.  So you hire a person and then find out if they have any aptitude.   The ones that don’t have the “mechanical” gene just muddle through.

I think you are 100% correct. But worse yet is another problem: the laziness of the younger generation in America. And yes I'm painting with a broad brush and not everyone is like that. But from what I can see, most guys who are in their 20s think they are doing their employer a favor just by showing up to work with a heartbeat. So you can forget about them being interested in tracking common points of failure and giving input to try to reach a solution. Next pistol I buy is either going to be a Nelson or a European model.

My problems with my Model 41, and how I fixed them:

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t10413-smith-wesson-model-41-rounds-damaged-in-magazine-prior-to-feeding

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t12133-lead-deposits-in-chamber-of-sw-model-41

This wasn't a Performance Center gun, just one I bought off the retail shelf one day at Green Top.

I also put in a Volquartsen extractor. I think I'm about 7000 rounds into this gun now, and it runs really well on CCI SV. Occasionally get a FTE if I let the gun get really dirty. I still do the drop of oil on each magazine.

I’ve got two wonderful 41s, and Pardini, in 22, 32L, and 32 ACP. One of the Smiths and the Pardini both have Rink grips, the same red dot sites, and the same trigger weight. The 41 are wonderful guns, I purchase both of mine used, they are 100% reliable and very fun to shoot. That said, for me, the Pardini is a little bit better. Hard to describe. With practice I’ve come to like the ergonomics  and the angled grip a lot. The triggers are both really excellent I really don’t see much difference. However, if I could only have one it would be the Pardini.

Wobbley wrote:I don’t know what the gun industry was or is like, but if they are anything like what’s currently in other industries, there’s a cultural issue contributing to this.  

I worked in the aircraft design, build and maintenance for my adult life.  About 15 or so years ago there was a cultural shift in the employment pool.  Few applicants had any mechanical skills or experience.  They knew what a screwdriver was, but that’s about it.  When I first started, most manufacturing techs were “mechanical” people coming in.  They knew how to “do stuff” before they got hired.  Now, only about half if that.  So you hire a person and then find out if they have any aptitude.   The ones that don’t have the “mechanical” gene just muddle through.

As an employer I 100% agree, being in the custom automotive field its a sea change from when I started 30 years ago. I dont know if its because my generation was able to tinker with their cars and appliances etc and learned the same things from parents and grandparents and there was need for "mechanically inclined" people. At the same time the schools started pushing more computer and service oriented schooling, and trades were suddenly looked down upon for the next 20 years as the "dirty plumber" or "dirty welder" etc. Now kids cant fix anything (because really not much is meant to be fixed and the technology is too complicated for most anyone to do repairs at home on common goods, even todays autos are mostly beyond the everyday Joe to repair more than an alternator or brakes, and the "dirty plumber or welder" may be making 100k while the IT guys of the 90's make 1/2 that. 
I can imagine hiring 30 new guys at SW and wondering how many have even handled a gun to start? The days of the old guy at the parts counter who knew everything, or the gunsmith who shot 500rds a weekend as his hobby are long gone and we're worse off for it.

Wobbley wrote:I don’t know what the gun industry was or is like, but if they are anything like what’s currently in other industries, there’s a cultural issue contributing to this.  

I worked in the aircraft design, build and maintenance for my adult life.  About 15 or so years ago there was a cultural shift in the employment pool.  Few applicants had any mechanical skills or experience.  They knew what a screwdriver was, but that’s about it.  When I first started, most manufacturing techs were “mechanical” people coming in.  They knew how to “do stuff” before they got hired.  Now, only about half if that.  So you hire a person and then find out if they have any aptitude.   The ones that don’t have the “mechanical” gene just muddle through.

Wobbley, So true.
In my 46 years of hiring crews, I needed all to be able to think outside their box a lot of the times.  Very few are really good at that.  Some don't even have a big enough box to begin with....

Same thing with the sales crew at commercial mechanical supply places.  The good old boys used to retire from the field and then go behind the counter.  I always had lots of help from them.  Now the new youthful counter jockeys are only as smart as their computer.  And computers don't know how to think outside their box.  Not yet any way....

I am far from an expert with a Model 41, but I have 3 of them. I have not had anything other than ammo related FTF or FTE since early 2020. They just shoot. What do they have in common? All were sent to Clark Custom Guns for the reliability package, trigger work and new barrel. Once I learned that lesson the pistol I have been shooting almost exclusively for the past year, when purchased, new was sent to Clark that day. It has never FTF or FTE. Rimfire ammo issues where the round does not fire sure. Both with CCI SV and Eley. Rimfire being rimfire there is nothing any of us can do about that. 

Find a custom gunsmith for whatever BE pistol you want to shoot. Whether it be rimfire, center fire or 45. 

Old man just relating what he has learned over 50 years of serious shooting.

djperry2 wrote:...
The added insult is to have to pack it off to a gunsmith and pay to fix what should have been right from "The Performance Center".

Nothing in the Smith-Wesson product page regarding the Performance Center Model 41 indicates that it has had any special attention beyond what the non-Performance Center model has received.

At this point, it's just the name for the version of the Model 41 that has a certain set of features: the pic rail and the tall, removable front sight.

They don't claim that the gun has been touched (let alone tuned) by any custom shop gunsmith, or anyone in the "performance center."

It's like an 1981 Cadillac Eldorado vs a 1981 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz- just an options package.

https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/model-41-0

On the other hand...for what they cost I would expect to run as well as my Ruger 22-45 or S&W 22-A have.

I tried all my ammo brands and they don't pass the drop-in test. They only go in about 3/4 of the way just on gravity alone. It would seem my chamber is too tight.

I apologize. I've been ranting. I'm not posting as professionally as I should considering that this is a precision shooting website. I'm really upset about this pistol but I shouldn't let it get to me so much. I bust my butt at work and don't make much money, and saved up for this pistol, so that's why I'm so upset. I'll be more calm in the future.