marlin micro groove?

[porthos]

new to lever guns; and am wanting a 45-70. am i correct that marlin no longer makes micro-groove bbls.??. if so when did they quit (appx.) i do not want a micro-groove; nor do i want a newer one since remington took over

[docone31]

The 45/70 is Ballard cut.

[Edward]

new to lever guns; and am wanting a 45-70. am i correct that marlin no longer makes micro-groove bbls.??. if so when did they quit (appx.) i do not want a micro-groove; nor do i want a newer one since remington took over

Nothing wrong with micro groove, still have a 336A (dads) late 60"s vintage I"m 69 and it shoots 1.5 @ 100 and will hold 3 inch @2 with RCBS 200grFN if I shoot well that day and my 45/70 1895 does almost as well with NOE 460-350gr -FN So in short look for older but don"t hesitate on micro groove ,as I have considerable trigger time over a lot of yrs (target /hunt)and they shoot well if you can /proper hand loading will help /Ed

[mattw]

Makin' a mistake buying into the myth that micro-groove is bad! I have an old JM barreled 1894c that I would put up against any other stock lever gun. The RCBS 180 Sil bullet shoots lights out in it. The 158 Keith's are excellent in it as well.

[Texas by God]

I see it as a non problem as well and it may be the reason Marlins are more accurate than Winchesters. IME.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[wv109323]

Not sure when microgroove went away but it was 6-10 years ago. Marlins were not made for a few years when they were bought out. You need to inspect to make sure. As others have stated there is nothing wrong with microgroove in and of itself. Bores tend to be large and boolits need to be .003 to .005 over nominal dimensions. The down side is that molds may not be large enough for the caliber they were intended for. I need to powder coat to get my boolits large enough for microgroove barrels.

[jdfoxinc]

Probably when Remington bought them.

[uscra112]

Not sure when microgroove went away but it was 6-10 years ago. Marlins were not made for a few years when they were bought out. You need to inspect to make sure. As others have stated there is nothing wrong with microgroove in and of itself. Bores tend to be large and boolits need to be .003 to .005 over nominal dimensions. The down side is that molds may not be large enough for the caliber they were intended for. I need to powder coat to get my boolits large enough for microgroove barrels.

That, and Microgroove barrels want boolits with a long bearing area and a short nose. Ed Harris did a couple of excellent writeups in the Rifleman about this, going back to the early '80s, (I think.) The one I distinctly remember was titled "Microgroove Barrels Will Perform." He showed how boolits that depended on the lands supporting the nose (Lyman 311299) would cock going down the bore, and shoot patterns, but boolits with long bearing and short noses, (think 311041), would stay straight and give you competitive target shooting accuracy.

I'm guessing that Microgroove went away because the new owners wanted to avoid having to monitor and control a rifling process that they didn't understand, (or didn't want to understand, for that matter).

That, and/or they may have figured that the majority of 45/70 buyers would use factory ammo, which is likely have boolits that are not sized correctly for Microgroove rifling, and blame the gun when it didn't work.

BTW back in the 19th century when paper patched boolits loaded from the muzzle were high tech on the target ranges, barrels rifled shallow like the Microgroove were considered best. It only when "naked" greased boolits began to show equal results that the deep "Ballard" style rifling took over among serious target shooters.

[Kev18]

I have a 2011 Remlin Micro-groove in .44 mag. Bought it because I got excited when I saw the caliber. Been looking for a lever gun in that caliber for awhile. Im not an expert but I heard that you need to cast harder alloys so that the rifles are accurate. Softer lead will just "smush" itself in the rifling, obviously causing accuracy problems. I use hornady cast SWC and they shoot good. I also have The Hornady lever revolution ftx tip ones. Not my favorite but they work.

[uscra112]

Don't know what you mean by "smush", but if you mean that soft lead will fail to take the rifling and "strip", the answer is no. Col. Harrison, of American Rifleman cast bullet handbook fame, published a rigorous engineering analysis using factors including the tensile strength of lead, acceleration, pressure and etc., and showed that it wasn't possible, so long as the bullet was anything like a proper fit in the bore.

[mattw]

Currently I own one of the 1894FG in 41 magnum, I have never fired it and I really want to spend some range time with it as 41 magnum is my favorite caliber. This thing was impossible to find and is even still boxed. I have shot every other gun I own, not sure why not this one. I believe it is micro groove as well, would have to look at that.

[oldred]

Don't know what you mean by "smush", but if you mean that soft lead will fail to take the rifling and "strip", the answer is no. Col. Harrison, of American Rifleman cast bullet handbook fame, published a rigorous engineering analysis using factors including the tensile strength of lead, acceleration, pressure and etc., and showed that it wasn't possible, so long as the bullet was anything like a proper fit in the bore.

Agreed as I have shot very soft lead in 1895 45/70 for years with zero problems.

I bought my 1895 new in 1977 and I would sure hate to try and carry all the lead I have sent down that Micro-Grove bore! Soft lead, hard lead and anything in between but mostly just plain clip-on wheel weights and while some bullet styles worked better than others it seemed that hardness was never a factor concerning leading or other barrel issues. Also I too can say with confidence that avoiding the Micro-Grove rifling is a mistake and I have 40+ years of experience with the same rifle to back that up! Cast or those silly jackets it likes them all, again some designs seem to work better than others but then that can be just as true with the deeper conventional rifling.

[LeadHead72]

Currently I own one of the 1894FG in 41 magnum, I have never fired it and I really want to spend some range time with it as 41 magnum is my favorite caliber. This thing was impossible to find and is even still boxed. I have shot every other gun I own, not sure why not this one. I believe it is micro groove as well, would have to look at that.

A .41 1894 ranks right up there at the top of my want list! Along with a .357 1894, of course...

[flint45]

I have shot a lot of Marlin micro groove guns and only have one that I could not get to shoot great . Found out the problem after I sluged the barrel tight and very lose spots. Three tight spots under roll mark, rear sight dovetail and hanger dovetail. bore dia. near muzzle .432. But all others were fine my 1895 .45-70 has a perfect .457 micro groove barrel that shoots great and my model 39 micro groove .22lr is fantastic.

[quilbilly]

Thank you USCRA for explaining why my 444 with the MG barrel shoots so well with a 265 gr SWC-PB at 1300 fps. I have often puzzled about that.

[Char-Gar]

Not sure when microgroove went away but it was 6-10 years ago. Marlins were not made for a few years when they were bought out. You need to inspect to make sure. As others have stated there is nothing wrong with microgroove in and of itself. Bores tend to be large and boolits need to be .003 to .005 over nominal dimensions. The down side is that molds may not be large enough for the caliber they were intended for. I need to powder coat to get my boolits large enough for microgroove barrels.

For years it was floated around that cast bullets had to be held to below 1,600 fps in MG barrels. This was repeated by some of the experts and even made it's way into some loading manuals. Of course this was never true, but enough people thought it was true that Marlin went back to the Ballard rifling system to sell rifles. This is a perfect example of telling a lie often enough that it becomes the truth.