No lands in new marlin 1895 barrel

[comprschrg]

I’m writing this in hopes the big chief, boss man might see it. And a warning to any hard working person wanting a lever action rifle with a history to it. Exept this is a modern stainless man made wood version.
I put off purchasing a Marlin 1895 SBL because of all the bad publicity, “Remington takeover” Well; I just couldn’t wait any longer. It’s now 2017. Hoping the news of remlins quality was really getting better, I ordered one. My first mistake was to stop by the gun store without my close up cheaters. It probably wouldn’t have made much difference because I wanted to so bad. I took it home. The first thing I did was get my finger suck in the loading gate opening. It was like a bear trap. With the inside of the frame like a ginsu knife and gate spring I could have used for an over load spring, my finger was bleeding before I could reach for a screw driver and compress the gate. Now I needed to clean all the blood from inside the gun. I’d already read and watched all the “how too” stuff. About three days later I’d sanded, filed, stoned, filed, sanded, filed, sanded, stoned the inside of the action.

The wood to metal gaps, untrained metal graining (sanded finish), horrid attempt to call checkering, will wait till later. I wanted to fire this thing. I want to shoot some lead! First thing I do is knock some pure lead slugs down the bore to get a good measurement. After three, I’m confused there doesn’t seem to be much rifleing on one side. I make a chamber cast. None there either. I kinda noticed the rifling was skimpy on one side, but just didn’t look close enough with optical cheaters. Sucks to get old. Well the guy that drives a brown truck is picking the rifle up today. I hope they put a good barrel on it this time. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

[shoot-n-lead]

I’m writing this in hopes the big chief, boss man might see it. And a warning to any hard working person wanting a lever action rifle with a history to it. Exept this is a modern stainless man made wood version.
I put off purchasing a Marlin 1895 SBL because of all the bad publicity, “Remington takeover” Well; I just couldn’t wait any longer. It’s now 2017. Hoping the news of remlins quality was really getting better, I ordered one. My first mistake was to stop by the gun store without my close up cheaters. It probably wouldn’t have made much difference because I wanted to so bad. I took it home. The first thing I did was get my finger suck in the loading gate opening. It was like a bear trap. With the inside of the frame like a ginsu knife and gate spring I could have used for an over load spring, my finger was bleeding before I could reach for a screw driver and compress the gate. Now I needed to clean all the blood from inside the gun. I’d already read and watched all the “how too” stuff. About three days later I’d sanded, filed, stoned, filed, sanded, filed, sanded, stoned the inside of the action.

The wood to metal gaps, untrained metal graining (sanded finish), horrid attempt to call checkering, will wait till later. I wanted to fire this thing. I want to shoot some lead! First thing I do is knock some pure lead slugs down the bore to get a good measurement. After three, I’m confused there doesn’t seem to be much rifleing on one side. I make a chamber cast. None there either. I kinda noticed the rifling was skimpy on one side, but just didn’t look close enough with optical cheaters. Sucks to get old. Well the guy that drives a brown truck is picking the rifle up today. I hope they put a good barrel on it this time. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Sounds like you would have been much better off to just buy a good used one.

[shoot-n-lead]

I’m writing this in hopes the big chief, boss man might see it. And a warning to any hard working person wanting a lever action rifle with a history to it. Exept this is a modern stainless man made wood version.
I put off purchasing a Marlin 1895 SBL because of all the bad publicity, “Remington takeover” Well; I just couldn’t wait any longer. It’s now 2017. Hoping the news of remlins quality was really getting better, I ordered one. My first mistake was to stop by the gun store without my close up cheaters. It probably wouldn’t have made much difference because I wanted to so bad. I took it home. The first thing I did was get my finger suck in the loading gate opening. It was like a bear trap. With the inside of the frame like a ginsu knife and gate spring I could have used for an over load spring, my finger was bleeding before I could reach for a screw driver and compress the gate. Now I needed to clean all the blood from inside the gun. I’d already read and watched all the “how too” stuff. About three days later I’d sanded, filed, stoned, filed, sanded, filed, sanded, stoned the inside of the action.

The wood to metal gaps, untrained metal graining (sanded finish), horrid attempt to call checkering, will wait till later. I wanted to fire this thing. I want to shoot some lead! First thing I do is knock some pure lead slugs down the bore to get a good measurement. After three, I’m confused there doesn’t seem to be much rifleing on one side. I make a chamber cast. None there either. I kinda noticed the rifling was skimpy on one side, but just didn’t look close enough with optical cheaters. Sucks to get old. Well the guy that drives a brown truck is picking the rifle up today. I hope they put a good barrel on it this time. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Sounds like you would have been much better off to just buy a good used one.

I wonder how they rifle a barrel and have less rifling on one side than the other. You would think, if it were a tooling problem that rifling would be bad around the barrel and throughout it's length. IDK

[Harter66]

I read about a 1 land rifle once .... I wonder if this was a similar attempt

When I read about this sort of thing I have to wonder where QC was that nobody through at least 4 assembly stops didn't notice something as important as rifling . Is the rifling ,turning , threading ,dovetailing ,sight installation and bbl installation all done by machine now ?

[comprschrg]

I thought about buying a used one, I looked for months. I've got blued levers, but wanted a stainless so I wouldn't have to worry about rust. It might have shot good? the groves on the deep side are about .002 deep and the other side is only scratches. I read somewhere micro grove are .003 deep. The slugs I pounded down the bore had what looked like normal lands and groves on one side, One good deep, and shallow on each side, the other looked like a bunch of super shallow microgroves and one on each side of it getting deeper. It measured .4537 and .4568

[ghh3rd]

I'm so glad that I got one of the last Marlins (45-70 Guide Gun) before Remington. It looks and shoots great, and I am never getting rid of it! I'm sure you'll get yours to where you want it, but it's a shame that they've turned them into DIY kits!

[comprschrg]

I'm so glad that I got one of the last Marlins (45-70 Guide Gun) before Remington. It looks and shoots great, and I am never getting rid of it! I'm sure you'll get yours to where you want it, but it's a shame that they've turned them into DIY kits!

That's funny diy. That's part of the reason I got a stainless. I knew I'd be stoning on it. Little did I know I started stoning, went to sanding, then got out the file. I went to town with a file.

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Really sad to hear how Marlin has been run into the ground. Please keep us updated.

I used to have 3 Marlins. A pre safety 336 in 30-30, a JM stamped XLR in 35 Remington, and a JM stamped 1895 Cowboy in 45-70. They were all good guns, but I ended up selling/trading all of them off in favor of Winchesters or Brownings.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[UKShootist]

I can verify this sort of problem on at least one Remlin .44. I work part time on a gunshop in the UK. A bloke purchased a brand new, blued, Remlin 1894 .44 a year or two ago. First time at the range, he later said, the first three rounds cloverleafed but the rest went wild. He brought it back to the shop and we started having a look at it. The bolt was removed and the staff had a look down the barrel. We all agreed that there was something wrong but we couldn't quite make up our minds what it was. Then one of us twigged it, the first two thirds of the right hand side of the barrel's bore was completely devoid of rifling, as smooth as a baby's bum! Hard to believe but I saw it with my own eyes.

[castalott]

I have seen a Marlin 45-70 with no rifling on one side of the barrel. It was a new stainless. The rifling was shallow on one side and nonexistent on the other. Someone goofed up big time to do this....

[comprschrg]

Took me a few hours to figure out how to post thisI'll see if my luck holds out and get the other side.

[comprschrg]

te
This is the other side.

[William Yanda]

"When I read about this sort of thing I have to wonder where QC was that nobody through at least 4 assembly stops didn't notice something as important as rifling ." Harter

Late for coffee break!

[comprschrg]

I have seen a Marlin 45-70 with no rifling on one side of the barrel. It was a new stainless. The rifling was shallow on one side and nonexistent on the other. Someone goofed up big time to do this....

That's exactly what this one has. Couldn't be the same one you saw though, because I was in front of the salesman at the gun store when he opened the box. When I called remington about it they said it was made november of 2016. I thought the bad rifles were made between 2008-2011 Very sad. The fit and finish is terrible, but I wanted a 45-70 I could put a scope on and just have fun with it.

[Randy Bohannon]

Local LGS won't sell Marlins, just Brownings,Winchester,Henry and Uberti. Winchester/Browning's go fast Henry's Uberti sit a lot longer.

[Geezer in NH]

For what it's worth my brand new 1970 era in the 70's also cut my finger with the loading gate. I took a dremell to it rounding it out so it would not cut.

The barrel sounds like trash.

[Wild Bill 7]

Comprschrg, thanks for the laugh. Sorry about your problem but it took me a while to finish reading your post after the Ginsu comment. Hope your finger heals soon.
Wild Bill 7

[rockrat]

I once bought a Ruger MKI pistol that didn't have any rifling at all, total smoothbore. Returned it to the store, should have kept it. Was wondering why I couldn't hit anything with it.

[mcdaniel.mac]

No rifling I can understand, but I'm puzzled as to how you only get rifling on half a barrel. Maybe they were trying to make it shoot around corners?

[castalott]

It must be a special process. How could you rifle a barrel with a pull thru slug and not touch 1/2 of it? Maybe hammer forged? I dunno...