So as I walked into the Ruger Booth at SHOT about 10 AM on Tuesday Morning I was greeted by Eric Lundgren who is the head guy on the Marlin Project. Eric recognized my name off my badge and started vigorously shaking my hand, then drug me over to meet Nate Brown.
I am buddies with Mark Gurney who is the Head of Marketing for Ruger, and I met him when he was #2 man on the Scout Rifle Project in 2010 and we've been friends ever since. When I contacted him about the Marlin project he sent my name and phone # to Eric So they could get my input...
Eric called me one day and we talked for 45 minutes on the phone about what needed to be done to improve the Marlin Leverguns. Turns out all he did was write down everything I said to him and pass it along to Nate Brown who is Head of Engineering for the Marlin Project. Nate then went over everything along with all the other input they got from various people they considered to be knowledgeable on the subject.
Some of the ideas that came only from me were the Chamber Chamfer, the Radius on the Hammer Face, Cleaning up the Groove on the Bolt that the Extractor rides in, and Tumble Deburring of all small internal parts.
Other changes were 1:20 twist in the .44 and .45 barrels, Radius on the Snail Cam to prevent wearing of the bottom of the Lifter causing the "Marlin Jam." Redesign of the Loading Gate so it wouldn't dig into your thumbnail, changing the way most of the parts were machined, and making of all the internal parts out of Pre Hardened materials for dimensional stability. also the Internal Machining of the Receiver was a far cry from the Crap Marlin and Remington produced. I was amazed that the underside of the receiver top was smooth,,, making the insertion of a cartridge into the chamber smooth as glass. No rough Broach Marks because they weren't done with a worn out broach! They were all done on a Multi Axis CNC Machining Centers. Pretty much all of the Machines, Tooling and Programs to run them are all new!
I talked to Nate for the better part of an hour about all the fine points in the Production Process and he was very forth coming with answers to all of my pretty technical questions. I left Swelled up like a toad!
I picked up several 1894's and 1895's and they all ran smoothly. Only slightly stiffer than my personal guns which had been reworked by me years ago and had also had many rounds thru them. These new guns will run similar to mine with very little "break in." The fit and finish on the metal and wood was as close to perfect as you could ever expect from a Generic Firearm**. And the whole Idea was to remove as much of the hand work (Preferably all of it!) as possible, so the guns could be assembled with parts from a bin with no hand fitting required. This should have taken place 25 years ago, but nobody cared enough to push it thru at the previous Mfg's.
I have no reservation in saying "These are the Best Made Marlin Rifles ever produced by anyone !!! PERIOD!"
The 1894's are just going into production as we speak and look for them on the shelves in the Spring.
Randy
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Originally Posted by W.R.Buchanan
