At first had some doubts about my new rifle. A marlin 1894S in 44 mag born in 1999.
Like any untouched marlin it had a stiff action and hard to open lever and awful trigger pull. I slicked up the action following lots of info here and around the net. Now she's nice and smooth, easy to cycle and a nice easy trigger. Surprised myself as to how well it turned out, took 3 hours but it it was well worth it!
Twenty inch barrel with Ballard rifling, find this interesting as I cannot find any info with this model having Ballard rifling, everything I find shows micro groove for this model.
It seems to love my Ideal 429421 boolits at .431.
I've been loading the 429421's over 7 grns of unique and getting 2 to 2&1/2 inch groups at 100 meters off sandbags. Happy with that and should do good on the silhouette shoots as long as I do my part.
Thought I would try and figure out it's twist rate, cleaning rod, jag with a tight patch. Best I can tell its a 1 in 20 twist... research shows the 1894S with a 1 in 20 twist with micro groove barrel, again nothing about Ballard rifling for this model???
Kind of wondering if I have some sort of mis-fit? maybe a special order? Just seems strange I cannot find anything on the 1894S about having the ballard rifling.
Not complaining as I prefer the Ballard over the micro groove.
Anyway it's been a fun little project and really enjoy shooting it!