I recently sold off some safe queens which resulted in me having a pile of fun money to spend. I used some of it to buy a Marlin 1889 rifle chambered in .38 WCF (AKA .38-40).
The 1889 was the first side-ejecting Marlin lever action. Following Marlin designs are basically refinements of the 1889. It was manufactured from 1889 until it was replaced by the 1894, but Marlin continued to sell new 1889s made from existing stocks of parts until 1903. Around 55,000 were sold in this time.
The rifle I bought was made in 1890. The wood is sound with most of the original finish remaining, alongside a nice assortment of dings. There are a couple chips but nothing serious. The metal is in decent shape for a 130 year old rifle that obviously saw quite a bit of use.
The bore is in good shape except for some crud or rust down near the throat. Otherwise there's no major pitting and the crown is in good shape.
Pretty much all the screws show signs of disassembly using improperly fitting screwdrivers.
The "JM" proofmark is on the bottom of the barrel, covered by the forearm. The blue under the forearm looks like it was made last week, even though the rest of the metal has turned brown.
The barrel is marked with the caliber, ".38 W" on top near the breach. It's largely worn away there since that's the balance point, and I suspect that's where it was carried in the field.
The barrel markings and the "Marlin Safety" stamp on top of the receiver are in good shape.
I detail stripped the rifle after receiving on Friday. There was some dirt and crud but not a whole lot. I did find that the half cock notch on the hammer is damaged with a chip out of it. It will hold at half cock but can be pushed off. So, that will need to be fixed.
Before taking the rifle to a friend's house to shoot it, I ran some functioning dummies through it. Unfortunately, it seems to have a variant of the "Marlin jam" due to wear and tear. I was able to get it to feed a couple rounds from the magazine by loosening the front screw holding the front the trigger plate to the bottom of the receiver. Doing so apparently allows the magazine spring to push rounds onto the elevator. Obviously, this isn't a long term solution.
The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (48th Ed.) classes the Marlin 1889 along with the Winchester 1892 and Marlin 1894 are a "Group 2" action for strength. I have no plans to hot rod the gun but because the bolt and locking block are in good condition, I have no compunctions about firing full black powder equivalent loads through it, whether loaded with black or smokeless.
Anyway, I put around 30 rounds of Ultramax .38 WCF cowboy action loads through it yesterday. As long as I put no more than 3 rounds in the magazine it fed OK. We shot it offhand at about 25 yards and got accuracy comparable to my .38 WCF Uberti 1866 Sporting Rifle firing the same ammo.
Point of impact was another story. It shoots about 8" high at 25 yards with the rear sight on the lowest notch. It needs a higher front sight. This also gives me an excuse to install something that my 52 year old eyes can see better than the original German silver blade. (Don't fret, if I change out the sights I'll keep the originals.)
My next steps are to try to get it to feed reliably. It might just need a stronger magazine spring to force the rounds onto the carrier, so that's an easy thing to try. If not, I'll have to get ahold of a gunsmith familiar with Marlins.
As for the hammer, I'll need to get a gunsmith to TIG up the half cock notch and recut it. I'm open to recommendations.
Hopefully I'll be able to get the rifle up and running so I can use it for deer hunting.
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