Adjusting the recoil buffer Morini CM22 RF

[VonKasta]

Ive been shooting my Morini for a couple of years now and must say I have grown underwhelmed with its recoil handling. I used to shoot Bemelli and while I was underwhelmed with its ability to, well, not malfunction, I found it to be very pleasant to shoot.
Only now I realize I was spoiled how it naturally dropped back into my aming zone making fast shot strings a breeze.
The Morini on the other hand, while running lite clockwork, flails around way more. At least in my hand(s).
Now, I wont fault the Morini for my shortcomings, especially as I havent even taken the time to properly adjust the recoil system. Until now!

First things first, here is a see through image of how the recoil system is engineered:

The big spring is the regular recoil spring, look closely and you will notice a smaller spring inside the guide rod that supports a pin that catches the slide in the rear most position of the stroke dampening the blowback.
I havent found any information about the pre load of this spring, nor do I own a spring weight gauge, but taking it apart I found it to be adjustable.

I guess the pre load is set at factory never meant to be adjusted, I just counted the turns and gave it a tad more pre load for good measure. As one do.

The guide rod (containing the pin/ spring assembly) is resting on a rubber stop to further dampen the blowback as the slide bottoms out while cycling.
This rubber stop was… almost not any more.

I do like to invent stuff as you soon will come to understand, but I also know my limits.
I sent a mail to Ronny as Interprodukter and got a reply not five minutes later simply asking if my adress still was the same. On a sunday night..!
Two days later I recieved this, for free. Amazing service!

I cleared out the rubber goo from the recoil assembly seat and put the new rubber stop in place.
Looking at the top picture you will see the adjustment screw to set the pre load for the recoil spring as well as the stroke length for the slide.
I gave this screw a good four turns (six turns is max before it unseats itself forward) and found that the slide now was real hard to lock back as I had moved the guide rod/buffer assembly far enough forward so that I now had to compress the buffer pin spring when locking back the slide.
Anyway, went to the range and gave it a go and was very pleasantly surprised with the felt recoil! Way more comtrollable and sight re allignment was pretty much instant.
Locking back the slide, on the other hand, became a nuisance fast.
I also experienced a couple failiure to feed with SK Match ammo.

It became clear that a longer slide stroke would be preferable, not only to make it easier to lock back the slide (I could live with this as the shooting experience was way better) but also to mitigate the risk of failiure to feed.
I figured a longer slide travel would give the magazine spring a tad more time to lift the next round.

I wanted to move the slide stop back aboud two mm but keep the pre load of the recoil spring, so I had to get creative.
I backed off the recoil spring assembly set screw all the way and made shims to adjust the recoil buffer until the slide locked back just as it hit the buffer pin.
Now all I had to do was to find a way to pre load the recoil spring the same amount as I moved the buffer assembly back.
I wanted to use brass and found that a 32WC case had pretty much the perfect dimentions.
Drilled out the bottom to 7mm using the bung hole as guide then cut off the rim with a pipe cutter

To be continued down below

[VonKasta]

As the washer was almost done all I had to do was fine tune the fit with a needle file et vȯila:

Now I had a full stroke for the slide while maintaing the pre load for the recoil spring.
With this washer I have about one mm before the recoil spring is fully compressed as the buffer pin bottoms out in the guide rod assembly, almost ideal.

Off to the range to test, went through 100 rounds of SK Match and S&B Club without missing a beat shooting five shot six second strings (a dicipline from our national regimen), all while maintaing the improved recoil feel/control swimmingly. Success!

And oh, its -3 celcius right now so Im quite confident it will run like a charm come summer.
Thats pretty much it, now that Im done meandering about my findings I hope this post finds at least some of you well.

[Ramon OP]

Great experiment. Thanks for sharing :)

[Peter Lovett]

Thank you for this information. I have just bought the alloy version of the CM22 RF and was having massive problems with it misfiring. I had had similar problems with the CM22 SP that I had prior to the RF pistol. Both were second-hand and both had to go to a very respected gunsmith who cured the problems.

The SP I suspected had been left cocked in the dealers gunsafe for over a year and the springs had softened. They were replaced and the firing pin reshaped and I had no further problems. The RF required adjustment of the recoil spring which I think had been changed by the previous owner and had damaged the mechanism. The gunsmith also reshaped the firing pin. I have only had one opportunity to try it out since the work was done and it appears to be working properly. However, I won't know until the weekend when there is another shoot being conducted.

[JayPMP]

Thank you for sharing this information. I too have just bought a Morini CM 22RF (with a little trepidation as it was 2nd hand) however it is working fine with Aguila Super Extra 40 grains. I shall keep the information you have provided just in case.

[VonKasta]

Thank you for this information. I have just bought the alloy version of the CM22 RF and was having massive problems with it misfiring. I had had similar problems with the CM22 SP that I had prior to the RF pistol. Both were second-hand and both had to go to a very respected gunsmith who cured the problems.

The SP I suspected had been left cocked in the dealers gunsafe for over a year and the springs had softened. They were replaced and the firing pin reshaped and I had no further problems. The RF required adjustment of the recoil spring which I think had been changed by the previous owner and had damaged the mechanism. The gunsmith also reshaped the firing pin. I have only had one opportunity to try it out since the work was done and it appears to be working properly. However, I won't know until the weekend when there is another shoot being conducted.

The CM22 have an adjustable main spring, sounds like you might have weak primer strikes from somebody lightening the main spring force to gain a lighter pre stage

[Peter Lovett]

Thank you for this information. I have just bought the alloy version of the CM22 RF and was having massive problems with it misfiring. I had had similar problems with the CM22 SP that I had prior to the RF pistol. Both were second-hand and both had to go to a very respected gunsmith who cured the problems.

The SP I suspected had been left cocked in the dealers gunsafe for over a year and the springs had softened. They were replaced and the firing pin reshaped and I had no further problems. The RF required adjustment of the recoil spring which I think had been changed by the previous owner and had damaged the mechanism. The gunsmith also reshaped the firing pin. I have only had one opportunity to try it out since the work was done and it appears to be working properly. However, I won't know until the weekend when there is another shoot being conducted.

The CM22 have an adjustable main spring, sounds like you might have weak primer strikes from somebody lightening the main spring force to gain a lighter pre stage

I have since posting that sent the pistol to my gunsmith for fettling and it is now cycling much better than before but I am still having some feed issues which I suspect may be due to the magazine feed lips. I was at the range yesterday and initially it failed to properly feed the 5th round. It eventually started to feed properly but when I got home I not only cleaned the pistol but also took apart the magazines and cleaned them. We shall see if it has any effect in a fortnights time.

[Gwhite]

5th round feed failures are consistent with a dirty magazine. The upward force from the spring is at its weakest, and getting the 5th round up properly (and on time) can be hampered by a build up of fouling and/or bullet lube.

The weirdest example of this (which I've observed on three different Benelli MP90S/95E pistols) is that the 5th round will stick, and then pop loose at just the right time to come flying out of the top of the pistol.