marlin xl7 rebarrel

[cub45]

what needs to be done to put a savage barrel on a marlin action, some where's on these forms I read it could be done but can't find it.
thanks
kurt

[cub45]

Got the info I needed.

[Wolfer]

I didn't answer because I didn't know. I am curious though. I know the Marlin is set up like the Savage. Are the barrel threads the same?

[Elkins45]

The threads are the same but the headspace is different. A Savage barrel will need to have about 0.015 faced off the breech or it will bottom out against the boltface before the should makes contact on the headspace gauge.

I learned this lesson rebarrelling a 270 with a 35 Whelen barrel for a Savage.

[Wolfer]

Good to know. Thanks

[Mr Humble]

Well, that's the conventional wisdom, but having redone 3 X7s with Savage bbls it's not true. Both the Savage and Marlin use an enclosed bolt head and non-coned bbl. IME, you take a new factory cartridge, screw the bbl in until it hits the cartridge shoulder, back it off 1/2 a RCH and tighten the nut. Factory ammo is always undersize so it will fit any chamber. You'll end up with a snug chamber excellent for cast boolits in neck resized cases. My next project is to redo a bargain 06' XL with a medium heavy 280AI Douglas made to fit a Savage and bought for $110 when another fellow's project went South. Remember that both the Marlin and Savage have a fully supported case head unlike famous rifles like an 03' Springfield and M 70 Winny, you're good to go.

Below is my first one, a 270 XL that got a 22-250 Savage bbl that worked fine. Then I punched it out to 22-06 (I had the reamer from a previous project, and everyone needs a 50 gr bullet @ 4200 fps) Lots of bullets left smoke trails but Barnes worked fine.

[Mr Humble]

Further update. Picked up an as new X7 long action 30-06 as a donor action. (Camo stock and barrel are for sale). Found an as new medium heavy stainless Douglas, made up for a Savage, in 280 AI. Polished up the bolt and bbl faces with 2500 wet/dry. Put them together.
Closed bolt, screwed it in until barrel hit bolt face. Backed off enough to where the bolt would open and close with the firing pin tension (trigger group removed) dropping the bolt the last 1/3. Tightened up up lock ring (hard hand tight). Took a NEW 280 AI case, smoked the shoulder area and chambered it. Took minor effort, about like a once fired neck sized case in the rifle it was fired in. Removed cartridge and confirmed the ridge of the shoulder had the black rubbed off. Didn't face off anything and new ammo will not just drop in, i.e. minimum chamber. Looking forward to June when I get it back to WY and can exercise it in wide open spaces. It's easy, don't let it scare you !

[Mr Humble]

Another update:
Got it in the original X7 camo stock (much stiffer than later black ones) with bbl free floated. Dropped an old VXIII 3.5-10 on it. With a box of Nosler 140 factor ammo, off to the range.
Got it on the paper @25 and then out to 100. Fired 5 in 5 minutes at 1500 hrs with a funky wind and some mirage. First 3 cloverleafed last 2 opened group to 1". Lyman borescope shown barrel is nice but does have rifling marks. Cleaned it to bare metal (wipe out>sweets>JB>brake cleaner) Borescope showed no copper left. Then sealed the bore with dyna-tek and loaded up some with a conservative load of Hybrid 100 and 140 Sierras and Hornadys. Tomorrow back to the range.
Total invested in rifle (w/o scope) is $350.00 !

[Rebel Dave]

My Marlin XL7 in .25/06 Drives tacks, at 100, 200, and 300 yrds. I load it with 100grn Sierras. The Xl-7s have a very good accuracy reputation. It has been discontinued by Remlin. They made it into the Remlin mod 783, or something of that nature.
Was curious, why you would want to change the BBls, unless to a calibre you can't get.

Rebel Dave

[Mr Humble]

IMO, the Marlin barrels are both too short and to light for cartridges like the 25-06, 270, 280 AI, 30-06, 338-06, 35 Whelen, 375 Whelen and 400 Whelen.

While I know 22" light barrels are hot, most guys I see at the range or afield would be better off with a steadier rifle and a smaller gut.

Of course Marlin never made a 280AI and this 26" medium heavy bbl extracts maximum performance and is nicer to shoot than the much lighter OEM Marlin.

It's a project to play with .... not my "go to" big game rifle which is a Benelli R1 in 300 winmag.

I also had another Savage bbl a varmint weight in 22-250 that I was going to put on my XS7 7mm08 action. But having a Hornet, 222, 22-06 & 25-06 the barrel was sold and the 7mm08 is up for sale.

At 74 it's time to empty the safe down to a dozen or so long guns, keeping only the best of the best.

Thanks for your post !

[Rebel Dave]

Mr Humble
You got me by 2 yrs. I restocked my XL-7 into a Boyds brown laminate stock, and glass bedded it. Made it the tack driver it is. I use it mainly in S.D. for deer hunting there. I have a few bolt actions also. I should downsize my collection my self.

barracudadave67 aka rebel dave

[Mr Humble]

Thanks BUT just could not pass up another fancy Savage bbl. This is a 338-06 24" sprial fluted med sptr for a Savage. Have another XL7 30-06 just asking for a new barrel.

[Elkins45]

Well, that's the conventional wisdom, but having redone 3 X7s with Savage bbls it's not true. Both the Savage and Marlin use an enclosed bolt head and non-coned bbl. IME, you take a new factory cartridge, screw the bbl in until it hits the cartridge shoulder, back it off 1/2 a RCH and tighten the nut. Factory ammo is always undersize so it will fit any chamber. You'll end up with a snug chamber excellent for cast boolits in neck resized cases. My next project is to redo a bargain 06' XL with a medium heavy 280AI Douglas made to fit a Savage and bought for $110 when another fellow's project went South. Remember that both the Marlin and Savage have a fully supported case head unlike famous rifles like an 03' Springfield and M 70 Winny, you're good to go.

Below is my first one, a 270 XL that got a 22-250 Savage bbl that worked fine. Then I punched it out to 22-06 (I had the reamer from a previous project, and everyone needs a 50 gr bullet @ 4200 fps) Lots of bullets left smoke trails but Barnes worked fine.

We had different experiences. Maybe my replacement barrel was bored just a tad too deep, but when I did as you described my factory MIM extractor only lasted about 10 trigger pulls before shattering--and some of those were misfires. The firing pin blow was driving the case forward into the too-deep chamber and the small part couldn't take the stress. I had to face my barrel to get 100% reliable ignition and to keep from shattering another extractor.

[Mr Humble]

The minute you had misfires you should have stopped !

Here is my post from another site concerning misfires:

Contrary to what is posted elsewhere, misfires are not an epidemic among X7s. A review of posts, after doing an advanced search using "misfires" as a search showed:

Almost all the misfires noted concerned lever guns. The one thread that concerned X7s, noted that all the problems involved the fact that the firing pin assembly was not screwed in all the way by one turn. Correcting that fixed the problem.

In ANY bolt action rifles misfires come down to one of the following: (EXPLORE THESE IN THE ORDER SHOWN !)

1. Insufficient firing pin protrusion (as in the examples above). This is easily checked with a vernier caliper.

2. Crud, gunk, burrs inside the bolt, on the firing pin, striker etc. Flush the parts with Acetone. Blacken the moving parts with a candle and cycle the firing system a dozen times. Take it apart and look for rub marks. Polish to correct.

3. If the rifle fires with factory ammo but misfires with reloads, the cases are being oversized when sizing allowing the case to slide forward when the pin hits the primer. Adjust the dies or get new ones and the problem will stop.

4. If it misfired with factory ammo the chamber is too long. In most Savage/Marlin barrel attachment system rifles, the nut may be loosened and the barrel turned in. Not quite as simple as it sounds. The steps are important and MUST be followed !

a. Loosen the barrel nut and with the bolt closed, turn in the barrel until it hits the bolt face.

b. Try to chamber (GENTLY) a Go gauge. It should not close, IF it does, the chamber is way too deep. The face of the barrel needs to be smoked and faced off with a new sharp mill file, over and over until the bolt will not close on a GO gauge with the barrel screwed in all the way.

c. If, as it should, the bolt will not close, unscrew the barrel a tiny skosh at a time until the bolt will close with the slightest effort. Now tighten the barrel nut being careful not to let the barrel turn AND keep the recoil lug aligned properly.

d. Now try a new factory cartridge. The bolt should not "flop" closed. A bit of "feel" at the bottom of the bolt drop is what you want.

e. Now try a No Go gauge, it should not close.

You are now ready for a test fire.

I always use antiseize on the barrel and nut threads. A bit messy but ensures everything screws smoothly.

When reloading, sort your cases by rifle. If you use a FL sizing die, lube the case and coat the neck with graphite or another high viz dry lube. Screw in the die until it hits the shell holder with the ram up. Back the die out THREE full turns. Try sizing a case. See how far the dry lube is removed from the neck. The goal should be to screw in the die until the neck is sized at least one caliber length down. Roughly 1/3" for a 30 caliber. NEVER set the die in so far that the whole neck is sized or you may push back the shoulder which can lead to misfires or case separation.

Clean the case and try it in the chamber. There should be a bit of effort at the bottom of the bolt drop.

After several firings with "warm" loads, chambering may become difficult. The BEST way to handle this is to buy a "bump" die and the different length shell holder matched to them. The case should be sized just enough to return it to the "chambers with a tiny skosh of effort" size.

But IME you can do as well with a Lee Deluxe FOUR die set. FL size, Collet neck sizer, seater and crimp die also shell holder, powder scoop and loading data.

After the first and subsequent firings use the collet neck sizing die.RTFI !!!! When, after repeated firings, chambering is stiff, use the FL die ONLY screwed in enough to get you back to easy chambering. The seating die works like any other.

The crimp die is a secret weapon. It will, if used per instructions, often improve bullet alignment a lot. It also helps a lot of factory ammo. I bought some el cheapo WRA 270 WCF 130 SP ammo that shot 3" 5 shot groups out of my M70. I checked the runout on my Hornady runout tool. It was between 8 and 12 thou ! I ran them into my Lee 270 crimp die 2X each (RTFI!). Runout was < 2 thou. and 5 now went into 1" !

Misfires can be fixed. Any X7 should fire EVERY time with good factory ammo or correctly assembled reloads.

As an aside, I too had some X7 misfires (my own fault). I built a 338-06 A-Square on a 30-06 X7. Bought the barrel from guy planning to do a build on a Savage. Nice 24" med sporter, sprial fluted and black nitrided. Fitted it up as outlined above BUT no factory ammo to try. Grabbed some old WRA brass that has been through my M-1 a few times. (first error). Knew they were "fat" so set up my FL Lee 338-06' FL die to bump over on the shell holder. (second error). Now I loaded up a moderate load with 250 gr Midway match seconds. I set them to suggested OAL rather than to have the bullet bump into the lands. (third error).

Off to the range, 17 of 20 went bang, 3 shot groups about 1.5" (it Kicks !) The problem was simple. I had pushed the shoulder back by doing the classic (wrong) FL sizing drill. Had I backed the die out to where the neck expander opened up the neck to .338 BUT the case body was only sized enough to chamber AND had I seated the bullets out to where they hit the lands, there would have been zero misfires and far less working of the brass. (Yes I used WW primers).

51 years ago I started reloading. Lyman TruLine JR, Herter's scale, 2400 and 45gr Sierra SPs for my Savage 340 in 22 Hornet.

Learned a bit since then and have a 6' shelf of Reloading & Casting books starting with a Lyman book from the 1930s and ending with the new Nosler book.

My Mom used to say: "anyone who can read can cook." I believe the same thing about reloading and hand tool gunsmithing.

Anything unclear or questions ..... please ask !

[Mr Humble]

My 338-06 and 280 AI:

[JesterGrin_1]

Is it possible to now get a new bolt head for the Marlin XL line?