Marlin 1894 44mag-How did you chamfer your chamber mouth?

[Bula]

Really want to get the Lee 310g rnfp to feed from my 1894, have read that many chamfer the sharp angle on the chamber mouth. I can't seem to fit anything in there to gett'r done. I'm assuming you're not all pulling the barrel.

What has worked for you good folks?

[doubledown]

Bula, I would like to see a "how to" on the 1894 chamfered chamber mouth too. My 300 grain boolits only feed smooth when the lever is cycled slowly, if cycled too fast I need to double cycle the lever.

[Fishman]

Hmm. That boolit feeds fine in my 1894p and I haven't done anything to it.

[ReloaderFred]

I would experiment with Over All Length of the loaded round before doing anything permanent to the rifle. My Marlins are length sensitive, with the .44 Magnum liking rounds that are about 1.575" OAL best.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK guys I just answered this on another thread above but I will expand on it here for you.

First SAMMI max OAL for the .44 mag is 1.610. However the guns will feed much longer lengths than this number. The Thompson SWC Lyman 429244 when seated ito the proper crimp groove is about 1.665 OAL.

Where the problems start with this long a cartridge is when it is being pushed into the chamber the bullet is at such angle as to become caught on the top edge of the chamber. It literally gets hooked on the top sharp edge of the chamber. Since lead is soft it gets cut into by the sharp edge of the chamber and everything grinds to a halt.

By putting a chamfer or small radius on the sharp edge of the chamber you eliminate the sharp edge that is doing the cutting. Since there is no sharp edge for the bullet to dig into it bounces off the chamfer and continues into the chamber.

Relatively speaking Marlins are NOT very length sensitive. They feed Specials and Mags interchangably. M92's don't, they are very length sensitive. Marlins even will feed cartridges up to 1.725 with a slight mod to the step in the cartridge lifter. (IE moving the step back .125). The way the Marlin decerns between different length rounds is when the lever is being opened the cartridge lifter is lowered just enough for a cartridge to start to enter the lifter. As the lever is moved down the round is allowed to move back controlled by the top portion of the lever, and as soon as the nose of the bullet is past the magazine the lifter pops up and blocks the next round form entering, regardless of length.

As soon as the lever starts moving forward a cam lifts the lifter to it's highest position which sandwiches the round between the lifter and the top of the receiver. At this point the max OAL of the cartridge is defined by the distance between the step on the cartridge lifter and the rear of the barrel.

As the lever is closed the bolt pushes the cartridge forward, and if the nose of the bullet is not rounded or small enough to enter the chamber smoothly then the cartridge will hang up on the top edge of the chamber. This is why round nose or RNFP bullets feed best. The Meplat of the bullet is below the edge of the chamber. A bullet like the LBT WFN style has a much larger Meplat and it will hook on a sharp chamber edge and not feed correctly.

This is what the chamfer or radius helps to prevent. It removes the sharp edge that the soft bullet gets hooked on.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

There are several ways to do this process, and if you can work basic hand tools you can do it yourself easily.

The first way is to make an extension rod for a 6 flute countersink. You need to use the multi Fluted type of countersink as you are going to be rotating it back and forth by hand. It needs to be about 6-8" long.

You take the bolt out of the gun like you are cleaning it , and go in thru the rear of the action. Since you have no choice but to take your time doing this you don't have to worry too much about over doing it. Just don't chuck it up in an electric drill and go at it unless you know what you are doing. 1-2 seconds with the motorized CSK, 5-10 minutes by hand.

I used the other method, and literally scraped the chamfer (which looks more like a radius) into the chamber with a small triangle file which has about 1/2" of the file teeth ground off all three sides. It makes a very good little scraper. Believe me these barrels are not that hard, and the material moves easily.

You start by knocking the sharp edge of the chamber mouth off with the scraper and just keep at it until you have a nice smooth rounded edge about .030-.040 wide and long. You could polish it with a Cratex burr if you had a long enough extension, or a piece of rolled up Wet or Dry sandpaper will work as well.

My radius is actually a little stronger on the top portion of the chamber, as that is where the boolit will hang up as you cycle the action. WFN or SWC bullets will actually get caught on the sharp edge of the front of the boolit as will be gouged by the sharp chamber mouth. Obviously removing the sharp edge allows the Boolit to literally bounce off the chamfered or radiused edge, as there is no longer a sharp edge to cut into the boolit.

The extractor groove on a .44 cartridge is .060 wide, and the internal web of case is about another .060 above the extractor groove, so you are not weakening the chamber at all by doing this. The chamfer is only half way up the extractor groove when you are done. The chamber still fully supports the case.

Believe me this is not a new thing to do, the Cowboy guys have been doing it for ages, and it is standard practice for revolver cylinders. I watched an S&W master gunsmith do it to one of Jerry Mickelek's guns.

My gun will cycle SWC's , round nose FP's, the short fat Lee SWC's, and LBT WFN's smoothly and as fast as you can run the lever.

While you've got the gun apart it is a good idea to smooth out the rest of the action, and the complete instructions on how to do this is on Leverguns.com so I won't go into it.

Suffice to say, my gun works pretty smoothly, and is nearly effortless to operate. There is alot more to the complete action job, but if you can follow instructions and operate sand paper and a file you can do all of it in 2 hours. Believe me it is night and day difference.

Here's a pic of all of the dummy rounds I use to test function on my guns. They all go thru interchangably as fast I can cycle the lever. They are from left .44 Magnum 250Gr LBT WFN, 250gr Lyman 429244, 240Gr Lee SWC, 200gr RNFP, .44 Special 250 gr 429244, 200gr platedrnfp, 190 gr Magma .44-190 SWCPB.

Randy

[izzyjoe]

my 44 marlin will feed the lee 310's slick as butter, and it has never been modified. but sometimes it will choke up with swc's. but i don't use them that much.

[Southern Son]

My 1894SS actually had a burr around the end of the barrel at the entrance to the chamber. When I tried to chamber a dummy round, the burr was big and sharp enough that it shaved some brass off the case. Me being a dummy, I wondered what had shaved the brass off the side of my case, so I stuck my finger into the chamber and it cut my finger, pretty badly, too. I cleaned the burr off the chamber but I might do as Randy has said. At this stage, I think that I will be getting the rifle re-chambered or a new barrel for because of another issue, but then a chamfer on the entrace to the chamber.

[wildwilly]

I had a similar issue with my 1894C/357 occasionally jamming a round against the mouth of the chamber (Lyman 358156 boolit). I chamfered the mouth of the chamber using a long shank drill bit with a piece of emery cloth wrapped and glued to the end. the chamfered chamber improved the feeding cycle, but the rifle would still hang up a round with less frequency. I solve the problem completely by brazing some filler in the right side of the follower and reworked the cartridge trough to provide a more precise alignment of the round's alignment with the chamber. That did the trick. :bigsmyl2:

[kelbro]

I chamfered my chamber and it helped but what ultimately fixed the 310gr feeding issue was tuning the extractor to allow the rim of the case slide up in there correctly.

Take a look at the case when it is just about to jam. See if it is still not up under the extractor. If not, 'help' it up under the extractor and see if it then chambers properly. If so, tune the extractor and your problem should go away.

[Bula]

Thanks kelbro, i'll check on it tonight.