S&W model 41 recoil buffer - source?

S

Seadog123

Member
Rating - 100%
6   0   0
Location
Nanoose Bay, BC
CCI Standard Velocity 22LR ammo (1050 fps) is getting tougher to find so I'm thinking of adding a recoil buffer to my S&W model 41 and shoot higher velocity 22LR. I know that as it is now (without buffer) higher velocity ammo results in extraction/ejection issues and I've heard from many places that a buffer will allow use of higher velocity ammo. The tiny plastic part is only a $9 or $10 USD item in several US retailers e.g. Brownells, but either they won't ship to Canada or want three times the price of the buffer to ship it. Does anyone know where to get one in Canada?

Many thanks.
 
Hi,
I strongly advise you stay with standard velocity ammo. My 41 of course likes CCI SV but it does like a lot SK Standard plus. I am sure it would do good wit SK magazine. The SK (made by Lapua ) is a bit more pricy but you can find it at Hirsch precision or Nordic Marksman. By the way, I bought 2 bricks of CCI SV at CRAFM last week-end. They have some in stock.

Gilbert
 
targetshootingproducts sells it in 500 to 5000 round cases. Not sure if they currently have it in stock but is on their site. Tenda and Firearms Outlet also sell it and currently have the best online prices today (not counting black friday discounts).
 
The only place I've found here in central Vancouver Island that carries CCI SV is ... Canadian Tire ... 100 rounds in the plastic case for $10.99. I got a PM from someone who ordered the buffer from Brownells $8.99 USD and requested the cheapest shipping possible and it came by US Postal Service for $10-ish shipping. He said with the buffer his 41 runs anything just fine.
 
Your 41 was designed for Sandard Velocity ammo. I am unsure to what extant the buffer would « save » the gun from the hardest bang of High Velocity ammo. Like I said, I would stay with SV. But at the end¸, it is your gun...

Gilbert
 
Seadog123 said:
The only place I've found here in central Vancouver Island that carries CCI SV is ... Canadian Tire ... 100 rounds in the plastic case for $10.99. I got a PM from someone who ordered the buffer from Brownells $8.99 USD and requested the cheapest shipping possible and it came by US Postal Service for $10-ish shipping. He said with the buffer his 41 runs anything just fine.
Click to expand...

White Delrin works well. medium soft. The biggest issue when running hi vel ammo and the buffer is recoil spring wear and tear. The stock S&W Springs will not long survive that punishment.
 
The Remington 22 target (headstamped E, made by Eley) works flawlessly in my model 41, the second I try anything else I get either a stovepipe or a proper eject but a failure to strip a round, resulting in a dry fire. Stick with what works and the stock configuration will work great.
 
BC sure is a tough place. Here in Ontario CCI SV 100 plastic paks are around $10.00 before tax, so your price is not that bad. Really.
My 41loves the CCI SV and it appears to have a slight edge over the very nice Federal 711B ammo for accuracy.
However you should listen & heed the advice on not using HV ammo in your 41.
If you want to fire cheaper HV ammo, buy the new Ruger 22 MKIV Target. It eats anything...
 
I just use an 8 lb spring from Wolff when I shoot HV ammo in my Model 41. I've ran lots of the stuff through it without undue wear or breakage. Most of the problems with these guns (including extreme ammo sensitivity) are a function of the extractor and how it works with the other parts. Once this is addressed, they should be able to function with most ammunition, given proper matching of recoil springs.
 
You can find a buffer here h ttp://www.brownells.com/handgun-parts/recoil-parts/recoil-buffers/smith-wesson-model-41-buffer-sku071000011-302-1410.aspx

And get some extra springs to suit at Wolfe springs, I tried them out with CCI minimags and worked well but the buffer does not last long and I went back to the standard CCI Standard and spring set.
 
CCI SV isn't your only option. I've got a few 100 year old rimfire rifles that are apparently made from steel which won't tolerate the sharper kick of the HV ammo. So I've managed to find a few different alternatives. CCI Green Tag is one of them. And some of the other brands of ammo include a standard velocity or sub sonic velocity round as well. Recently there's been quite a bit of Aguila ammo around here and they have an SV rated round in their lineup as well.

Also the recoil kick may not work the way you think it does. One .22 pistol I started out with shot fine with CCI SV ammo. I then tried out some HV ammo and got all the problems you read about. In watching the ejected brass it was not flying out across the room like you might think from going to "high velocity" ammo. Instead it was barely dribbling out over my hand and a lot of them were stove pipe jamming in the port.

I reasoned out that the higher velocity ammo was exiting the barrel sooner so the total time of the pressure spike pushing on the slide was a lot less. So the total recoil impulse ended up being a little weaker. This works the opposite of what we get with a delayed blowback gun. The fix in that gun's case was to switch to a slightly WEAKER spring to use with HV ammo.

So try your 41 again with the HV ammo and see what the ejected cases are doing. Do they arc out to the side strongly and farther than with SV or barely dribble out of the gun. You're not going to hurt anything with a magazine or two worth. Just point it downrange so it hits the berm and concentrate on the ejected brass.

EDIT- I see that Silverfox wore out a buffer. But Mini Mags are quite a lot stronger so that might be a whole other issue. And Wayne's reply about broken parts doesn't bode well either.
 
I've just been doing a bit more reading about this since I posted my above reply. I picked up a lightly used 41 about a year ago so it's a subject near and dear to my own heart.

I found some forum posts about guns broken by using HV ammo. But there's a fair number of rebuttal posts saying that the poster has used HV ammo and even Stingers for years without any issue. So it would appear to be gun by gun situation.

Here again I like to let the gun itself tell me if it's happy or not. And it does that by how strongly it ejects the brass. I look for the brass to have a moderate energy path that arcs up and out anywhere from 2 to 4 feet before falling below the the level of the gun. I consider that a well set up gun for the power of the ammo. If it tosses them out higher and farther than that I start looking at weaker ammo or a stronger recoil spring to better absorb the impact on the gun.

As a side benefit of tuning the ejection power I've found that guns with a shorter arc tend to have less felt recoil as well. Likely because the spring is soaking up all the energy in a smooth manner so there's no hammer like stop at the end of the travel. So there's some gains to be had with the proper spring selection.

If it dribbles out more weakly that is fine unless it is so weak that it leads to frequent jams. I've got one center fire gun that has never tossed the brass very far. But I can't recall the last time it ever had a stove pipe or other jam either. So while a weak ejection can be a possible sign of jamming don't assume that a weak ejecting gun WILL jam.

Fitting a buffer can help a lot in such cases too. But if the buffer gets beaten to a pulp in short order like in Silverfox's case it suggests that the recoil spring is too weak and not absorbing enough of the force before the slide hits the buffer. With a properly matched spring a buffer should last just about forever. For a close enough match we should see quite a few thousand rounds needed to beat up a buffer. With a weak spring giving a poor match the buffer will get beaten up after only a few thousand rounds. And that should be a sign that a stronger spring is needed.
 
Thanks BCRider, silverfoxdj and waynenewjw - all very helpful. The problem I experience is pretty consistent - the round does not eject out the side port. It extracts but does not make it out the port, it rattles around and the slide coming forward pins the spent case against the fresh round waiting to be fed. So it's always drop the mag, shake it out, repeat.

CCI SV works correctly every time ejecting into a tidy pile about 4-5 feet away. Never a problem.


Anyway, I have a buffer on the way from Brownells to try. $9 USD for the part; $14 USD shipping. Luckily I had the foresight to buy a bunch of USD back when the Loonie was worth about 9 cents more than the USD - yay.


I'm going to pick up the last 5 CCI SV at my Cdn Tire for our target shoots but once I get the buffer I will experiment with the slower end of the HV rounds. I love the CCI SV but it's twice the price of the 500-round boxes.

Has anyone tried shooting the CCI Quiet at 750 fps in a 41?

Cheers.
 
....Has anyone tried shooting the CCI Quiet at 750 fps in a 41?
Click to expand...

It's odd you ask that since the very first time I took my own 41 out to the range I grabbed a box of Quiet by accident instead of the SV. And no, it's not strong enough to cycle the slide. Just barely enough to extract the empty SOME of the time and lodge in place. Other than a couple of such shots until I realized what I'd done my Model 41 debut had to wait for a week....

Your experience with the HV ammo is much the same as what I found in one of my other .22 pistols that I described in my first post. The HV ammo is faster but because of that spends less time in the barrel so the actual total recoil impulse pushing the slide back is not as long so not as strong. Sort of like the fast yank on the table cloth leaves the dishes in place but the only slightly slower pull ends up with pieces on the floor.

So ironic as it sounds if you set up the gun with the right spring for the HV ammo the buffer will protect it when you go back to SV ammo.

BTW, the brass landing about 4 to 5 feet away sounds nigh on perfect for that ammo. But it also supports the idea that this recoil spring is too stiff for the HV ammo.

As for Stingers and Mini Mags those are a whole other ball of wax. I'd simply avoid them. Those sort of rounds up the power so much more that the SV to HV oddity of needing a lighter spring goes out the window by having so much power and pressure that they would beat up the gun.
 
Canadian Tire has "Federal 40 gr LRN Standard Velocity" on for $39/500. I was in the store and no where on the box does it say the velocity and the clerk didn't know either. It took a fair bit of searching online on my iPhone to find it is the same 1080 fps as CCI SV. I bought two bricks so will see how that cycles. The Federal product number is 714 but I couldn't find it on their website. Got the info off a USA vendors site.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom