The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Does Christel shoot the remlin as well or is she just in charge of load development.

Yes, she owns and shoot two under lever rifles, an 'original' 1894 .357mag and the Remlin are hers, again chambered in .357. I shoot a Winchester under lever in 30-30 which is not an ideal rifle for competitions because of the magazine capacity plus the Winchester is a tad clunkier than the Marlin. I will be moving to a Winchester chambered in .30-357Aet start of the new year so I will have the capacity and a cartridge that should be fun to shoot, all that remains is to see just how slick a Winchester 1894 will go.

Interesting thread. I bought my lever action rifle while pistol shooting was still my main interest. It is a Winchester '92, made in 1902. It is a "brown / blue rifle, showing much evidence of use, including the legend: "Guan-Dong Brigade" stamped into the butt in Cantonese. Since the mid-80s, it has had tens of thousands of 44-40 home loads through it and has always functioned flawlessly, except when I inadvertently made the loads too long to feed from the magazine. It will shoot one hole groups from the bench all day---at 50 yds, as well as 25.
A fellow club member, growing too old to shoot well standing up, took up bench rest shooting with a variety of rifles, including a Marlin in 357 . He became obsessed with the potential of the Marlin and progressed through cast bullets into rather expensive jacketed ones, loading for higher and higher velocities. Eventually, he achieved one hole groups at 100yds. At this point, he sold the Marin and bought a Remington made on in stainless steel. He was never able to repeat the one hole groups with this rifle.
Fred

Countryman wrote:

WelshShooter wrote:The loading gate is a bit stuff on my rifle, I find it quicker to load a round in but not fully, so that the leading gate remains open. Give it a go, see how it feels.

You need to break in the spring. Get a pencil and push it in well beyond the point a cartridge would. It will ease up.

Thanks for the tip; but I've put near 4k rounds through the rifle and am happy with my loading method. I'll give it a go anyway to see if it makes any difference.

I tweeked my loading gate spring only to have it break while loading up for the first course of fire at the home countries national match.The replacement I've left as is.

WelshShooter wrote:

Countryman wrote:

WelshShooter wrote:The loading gate is a bit stuff on my rifle, I find it quicker to load a round in but not fully, so that the leading gate remains open. Give it a go, see how it feels.

You need to break in the spring. Get a pencil and push it in well beyond the point a cartridge would. It will ease up.

Thanks for the tip; but I've put near 4k rounds through the rifle and am happy with my loading method. I'll give it a go anyway to see if it makes any difference.

At 4K it's only just starting to run in.

If you ease the spring on the loading gate it will also decrease the finger guillotine affect it has in competition.

My one hate on my Marlins is how damn sharp nearly every surface is. Trigger blade, loading gate, back of bolt and inside edges of receiver will all make yo bleed!

mr smith wrote:I tweeked my loading gate spring only to have it break while loading up for the first course of fire at the home countries national match.The replacement I've left as is.

Sounds like metal fatigue. You aren't aiming to bounce the spring that much but to bend it slightly to decrease the excessive closing pressure they all have out of the box.

I removed and then polished the load gate, removed all of the sharp edges and carefully removed any instructions on the front inner edge of the load port with a diamond needle file, apart from that I have left it alone and it is a marked improvement over standard.

ovenpaa wrote:I removed and then polished the load gate, removed all of the sharp edges and carefully removed any instructions on the front inner edge of the load port with a diamond needle file, apart from that I have left it alone and it is a marked improvement over standard.

That's a good point, can't believe I didn't think of this either.

Did you polish the underside of the carrier at all? This should prevent any potential problem of the "Marlin jam." I put some marker on the bearing surfaces of the carrier and cycled around 50 dummy rounds through the rifle. Any surfaces without marker I polished with a fine emery cloth. Now the action is very slick, but I still need to figure out the loading gate and eliminating the trigger flop and I'll be a happy gopher.

WelshShooter wrote:

ovenpaa wrote:I removed and then polished the load gate, removed all of the sharp edges and carefully removed any instructions on the front inner edge of the load port with a diamond needle file, apart from that I have left it alone and it is a marked improvement over standard.

That's a good point, can't believe I didn't think of this either.

Did you polish the underside of the carrier at all? This should prevent any potential problem of the "Marlin jam." I put some marker on the bearing surfaces of the carrier and cycled around 50 dummy rounds through the rifle. Any surfaces without marker I polished with a fine emery cloth. Now the action is very slick, but I still need to figure out the loading gate and eliminating the trigger flop and I'll be a happy gopher.

Wild West guns trigger happy kit is a very worthwhile mod which transforms the trigger. http://marlinspares.com/products/wild-w ... happy-kit/