Marlin 1894 Feeding problem.

[Dorado]

Hey guys, I have a Marlin 1984 in .357mag that I've been using for CAS. I'm trying to develop a hunting load for it. I'm starting with 12.5 grains of 2400 and working up from there under a Lee C358-158-SWC with GCs. I've made a dummy round and set the boolet just to the top of the crimp groove. It won't feed. It seems to be having trouble lining up with the chamber. I can get it to chamber just fine so long as I feed it one at a time and get the round started before I close the lever. I know that my OAL is below max, is it the boolet, Case, OAL, or my rifle that's giving me problems?
What should I do? Do I set the boolet past the crimp groove, do I shorten the cases? What? [smilie=b:

[jblee10]

Try starting at max oal with a dummy. Try shorter until you find a length that feeds. If you do find a length that feeds you MIGHT think about shortening brass so you can crimp at that length. If nothing ever feeds, go to a RNFP. I use RNFP in my levers because they just feed a little slicker than any load I make with a SWC.

[edler7]

I'm not sure about the .357's, but the .44's are kind of notorious for not liking SWC design bullets. I got my 1894 to take them (most of the time) by putting a slight bevel on the mouth of the chamber with a dremel sanding disc.

It handles RNFP style bullets a lot better- no feeding issues at all with them.

[ReloaderFred]

The only one of my dozen or so Marlins that will feed SWC bullets is my .45 Colt CB. The rest don't like them, period.

There is also the magic length, 1.480" minimum. Usually anything over that will feed fairly well, as long as it doesn't have sharp shoulders.

With a cast bullet, you can crimp into any part of the bearing surface of the bullet that doesn't contain lube to obtain the correct OAL. I do this on a regular basis, with no effect on accuracy. I even use cast .38 Super bullets in some of my loads, and they don't have a crimping groove at all, but I still roll crimp into the side of the bullet to keep the rounds from collapsing in the magazine tube.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[MT Chambers]

SWCs have 2 edges to potentially give feeding hiccups, whereas alot of other designs only have the leading edge. This is the reason for the LFN and WFN designs as they tend to feed better unless the WFN is too wide. Good feeding SWCs are such a concern for me that I consider them for handguns only, I also find the other designs allow a heavier bullet with a shorter nose and are better on game.

[Dorado]

So basically I need to set the bullet deeper or shorten the case. but the source of the problem is that I went with a SWC instead of a LFN or WFN. I bought the mold on the suggestion of a few members here. Guess I should have done a bit more research first. That makes 2 molds that I can't use. Well, I'll try shortening the OAL and crimping in different places. If that doesn't work then I'll just have to get me a different mold. I'm starting to get a collection of useless molds. :killingpc

[EDK]

Field strip the rifle and check the chamber mouth for burrs. Check the extractor hook also. There are stickies over at marlinowners.com by several authors that will get you headed in the right direction. You can also do a little adjusting on over-all length of your cartridges AND amount of crimp. A light crimp can catch on the chamber edge.

My little 357 Cowboy will even feed full wadcutters with a little tinkering...and that is the experience of most posters. The 44 can be a little finicky in SOME examples.

I really like LYMAN 358665 and the NOE 180 WFN in my guns, but they feed most semi wadcutters without any problem.

:redneck::cbpour:

[W.R.Buchanan]

Chamfer the chamber mouth .040-.050 and your problems will go away.

Randy

[maglvr]

My 1894C didn't like anything I loaded in 357 brass, then I bought the LEE factory crimp die and it'll now cycle anything I load in it, WFN, 200gr SWC, etc etc.

[Dorado]

I'm trying a couple of different things I saw on the marlin owner's forum. Hopefully I can get this figured out. As soon as I know something I'll let y'all know. Who knows maybe this will help someone else.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Why don't you try chamfering the chamber mouth? This will fix the problem.

I have posted this fix many times here. it is easy to do and will eliminate the round hang up on the chamber mouth.

The sharp chamber mouth actually bites into the boolit and stops it from feeding any further. When you chamfer the chamber mouth the boolit no longer has a sharp edge to cut into and hang up.

MY 1894 CB Has this done and I did it in about 20 minutes by hand. it will feed SWC's WFN's , and RN's in both Special and Magnum cases interchangably as fast as you can cycle the lever.

Here's the picture again.

Randy

[Four Fingers of Death]

Why don't you try chamfering the chamber mouth?

How'd you do that WRB?

Also, I had a previous 92 and it wouldn't feed SWCs, but I loaded up a hunting load in 38+P+ cases and was good to go. With the Marlin, they might drop out the side of the ejection port if too short though.

I'd be buying another mould (any excuse will do, lol). A Lee 158Gn RNFP or similar will get you out of trouble for not many bucks!

[Boerrancher]

I completely gave up on SWC's in my Marlin. Not that I had feed issues, but they just wouldn't shoot good. I tried everything with them and finally gave up. I even had some key hole. I switched to the lee 158 gr RNFP and max loads and my problems went away.

Best wishes,

Joe

P.S. A good friend of mine had the same problems with the SWCs out of his, and went to the RD mold. His problems went away as well. He is a Marlin guy, where I am not so much.

[EdS]

I have to agree with the posters who said that SWCs don't like to feed in the Marlin 1894s. I found this to be true when loading SWCs in .357 Magnum brass, but not so when loading in .38 Special brass. I even changed to the newest design lifter, and that did not cure the problem. On close examination, I can see the edge of the driving band is hitting the chamber mouth. Obviously bullet designs or COL settings without the driving band exposed outside the case don't exhibit the hangup in my '94. BTW, the same SWCs loaded in .38 Special brass with driving bands exposed feed very smoothly. Again, on examination, I can see that they have room to align themselves with the chamber before the driving band can hang up. I recall that I too have been able to feed full WCs loaded in .38 Special brass. My solution was to purchase a RCBS 38-158-CM mould. -Ed

[W.R.Buchanan]

EdS: read post #11.

FFOD: I actually scraped that chamfer on that gun with a triangle knife burring tool, however now I have a 5/8 Countersink with a 1/4" shank and an extension and I turn it by hand like a tap. Takes 5 minutes to do, and doing it by hand you can creep up on the depth easily, although you can't really measure it you just have to eyeball it. .050 +/- .010 is fine.

The best possible thing you could do is put a .050 radius on the chamber mouth, but that would require a special cutter to be made for every caliber. The regular chamfer works just fine and the angle of the countersink doesn't matter.

You can use a Cratex (rubber abrasive) point on a Dremmel tool to smooth and blend the chamfer when done makes for even smoother feeding.

The extractor groove on a .44 cartridge is .060 wide. Your Chamfer can be that wide as well but I tend to do a little less. about .050 is good. The case is fully supported well above the extractor groove so there is no danger of blowing the case up.

This is a common thing to do to DA revolvers to get them to more easily swallow a moon clip load of cartridges when speed reloading. It also works nicely on SA cylinders to make loading easier. I actually saw Jerry Miceleks personal pistolsmith at S&W do this to one of his guns on TV.

My gun wouldn't feed anything but RN's before I did this to it. Now it will feed anything, in any order, as fast as you can work the lever. My normal COAL for .44's with Lyman 429244 SWC boolits is a 1.650 !

We had a guy at todays IDPA match with a 625 Smith and he was having trouble finding the holes on reloads. He's coming over tomarrow to have me chamfer his chambers. All 6 of them.

Randy

[Four Fingers of Death]

EdS: read post #11.

FFOD: I actually scraped that chamfer on that gun with a triangle knife burring tool, however now I have a 5/8 Countersink with a 1/4" shank and an extension and I turn it by hand like a tap. Takes 5 minutes to do, and doing it by hand you can creep up on the depth easily, although you can't really measure it you just have to eyeball it. .050 +/- .010 is fine.

The best possible thing you could do is put a .050 radius on the chamber mouth, but that would require a special cutter to be made for every caliber. The regular chamfer works just fine and the angle of the countersink doesn't matter.

You can use a Cratex (rubber abrasive) point on a Dremmel tool to smooth and blend the chamfer when done makes for even smoother feeding.

The extractor groove on a .44 cartridge is .060 wide. Your Chamfer can be that wide as well but I tend to do a little less. about .050 is good. The case is fully supported well above the extractor groove so there is no danger of blowing the case up.

This is a common thing to do to DA revolvers to get them to more easily swallow a moon clip load of cartridges when speed reloading. It also works nicely on SA cylinders to make loading easier. I actually saw Jerry Miceleks personal pistolsmith at S&W do this to one of his guns on TV.

My gun wouldn't feed anything but RN's before I did this to it. Now it will feed anything, in any order, as fast as you can work the lever. My normal COAL for .44's with Lyman 429244 SWC boolits is a 1.650 !

We had a guy at todays IDPA match with a 625 Smith and he was having trouble finding the holes on reloads. He's coming over tomarrow to have me chamfer his chambers. All 6 of them.

Randy

Thanks, WR, I'll put that in the bank!

[Dorado]

Yeah thanks for showing us that. I'll give that a try later on today.

[Wilsknife]

IMHE(in my humble experience) SWCs won't cycle in my Marlin 1894(44 Mag) or my Rossi(357 Mag.) Switching to RN for both solved it for me.