Black powder clean up in a lever gun

[Edward]

I am thinking of a Jesse rebore in either my 50 vintage 336RC or my 74 vintage mod 94 ,and am leaning towards the Marlin because it is one that I can reassemble unlike the 94 . But the marlin plus is side eject and although it means more to me and would be easier on cleanup , I am not sure how much is involved involving blackpowder for extended shooting/plinking before it becomes mandatory . The 94 is newer and doesn"t reassemble as easy but I am not attached to it like the marlin but one of these is going to become a 38-55 ,so what is involved with a lever gun for cleanup ? Thanks for any advice/Ed

[Don McDowell]

Simply open the action, blow a few breaths up the breech and a few down the muzzle, turn the action to point down, run a dry patch on a jag thru the bore, repeat with a few damp patches and follow up with your favored solvent soaked patch to remove any remaining carbon fouling and or leading.

[Edward]

Simply open the action, blow a few breaths up the breech and a few down the muzzle, turn the action to point down, run a dry patch on a jag thru the bore, repeat with a few damp patches and follow up with your favored solvent soaked patch to remove any remaining carbon fouling and or leading. So remove the bolt and clean to continue shooting or work from the muzzle end before continuing shooting , and is the action due for a scrubbing after shooting . I have not done this before and have not found a lot on searches /thanks

[Don McDowell]

No need to pull the bolt. Action won't need a scrubbing.

[country gent]

The cases should seal the chamber so very little will get into the action. As Don said wipe it down good clean the bore with jags and or brushes. It might be a good thing to start with a pull thru so fouling isn't pushed into the action by the brushes and jags at first. If you think the action needs some cleaning then one of the areso spay cleaners and flush action out dry with canned air then re oil.

[Edward]

Thanks for all the help now ,Marlin or 94 ?

[bob208]

it is not hard to make a pull thru. a heavy cord and some pices of old tee shirt.now to really do it right i would make the 94 a take down. then just take the barrel off and claean it. that is what i did with my 94 rifle in .32-40. but it was a take down from the factory.

[sac]

On my non marlin lever guns I use a bore snake to pull from receiver to muzzle, then follow up with a rod and patches.

[beltfed]

For me, its the Marlin hands down. Had a real mess/time into cleaning my M92 Win 44wcf
after running some bp loads thru it. So much nicer to easily remove the lever, remove the bolt
on my Marlin and push the BP fouling out the muzzle from the breech. Just don't forget to remove
the ejector before running the cleaning rod. I have a nice bore guide that slips into the Marlin,too
beltfed/arnie

[38-72]

I have both the Marlin and Winchester levers. Cleaning black powder out of either of them is not a problem. While the Marlin is very easy to clean from the breech by pulling the bolt out, the Winchester isn’t that hard to clean either.

On the Winchester, I open the action and then turn the rifle upside down and lay it in my cradle. Once it is in the cradle, I clean it from the muzzle. I use a muzzle guard made of brass. Running brushes and patches down the barrel with my cleaning rod, etc. All the curd and patches fall out of the gun (because it is upside down) via the open action.

[Wayne Smith]

Marlin simply because pulling the bolt and beach cleaning is so much easier. Pushing fowling out of the barrel from the breach is easier than trying to pull it out from the muzzle.

[KCSO]

I run a damp pull through first and take out the majority of the fouling then clean with good b/P solvent and oil. I may take off the wood and hose out the action once a year or so with Ballistol and then oil sometimes every two years.

[BrentD]

It's not even close. Rebore the marlin. It's a far better arm for BP.

I use a '93 Marlin rebored to .38-55 for both competition (Last week's Nationals at Raton) and for hunting. Breech disassembly is a huge advantage in my opinion.

[Edward]

Many thanks for all your replies ,its certainly an education for a new BP cartridge shooter (lots to learn) Ed

[BrentD]

There is nothing very tricky about it. Safer too.

[Chill Wills]

I have both the Marlin and Winchester levers. Cleaning black powder out of either of them is not a problem. While the Marlin is very easy to clean from the breech by pulling the bolt out, the Winchester isn’t that hard to clean either.

On the Winchester, I open the action and then turn the rifle upside down and lay it in my cradle. Once it is in the cradle, I clean it from the muzzle. I use a muzzle guard made of brass. Running brushes and patches down the barrel with my cleaning rod, etc. All the curd and patches fall out of the gun (because it is upside down) via the open action.

Bingo. This is how I like to clean Winchesters also. Sounds much harder than it is. Once you have done this you don't even think about it in the future.

[Edward]

Thanks again for the replies ,the Marlin 336 RC waffle top left for Jes yesterday ,now for mold choices /BP loads anyone?

[jonp]

Buy yourself some Ballistol and make up some "milk". 9 parts water and 1 part Ballistol (other formulas out there) and use that. Works great for me. You can also do the initial clean at the range with Windex + Ammonia. I prefer Ballistol. When I went to the last Dixie Gun Show I went by the Ballistol vendor and picked up a jug. Guy looked at me and said "you shoot BP"?

[jonp]

I have both the Marlin and Winchester levers. Cleaning black powder out of either of them is not a problem. While the Marlin is very easy to clean from the breech by pulling the bolt out, the Winchester isn’t that hard to clean either.

On the Winchester, I open the action and then turn the rifle upside down and lay it in my cradle. Once it is in the cradle, I clean it from the muzzle. I use a muzzle guard made of brass. Running brushes and patches down the barrel with my cleaning rod, etc. All the curd and patches fall out of the gun (because it is upside down) via the open action.

^^^^+1 Always clean a lever upside down and from the muzzle with the action open. Be careful of the trigger, though.

[bigted]

Nother easy way if ya dont like the bore snake ... I chamber a fired case and close the action ... Now i brush and swab the majority of the crud with the case sealing the action from all but a teeny tiny bit of fouling. Then i eject the case and clean with the bore almost completely clean so no worries. Easy peasy.