Marlin 1894 357 Magnum Chambering Jamming Cure (YMMV)

[maglvr]

A few years ago I picked up a 357 mag, 1894 for a song in a shop. I figured it had to be a problem gun, sure enough!
It would run flawlessly with some 357 round nose rounds but anything with a flat tip bullet would hang up, well, I polished, I shaved, I sanded, I polished more! I added metal, I shimmed, and made micro adjustments here and there to the lifter. I adjusted (bent) the ejector to and fro. back and forth, up and down, in and out, shims, no shims, etc etc etc for 3 days, I must have assembled it at least 20 -25 times easily! Absolutely NO change in any way, no matter what combination of things I tried.
Finally I gave up and figured the lifter must just be worn out in some place that is just not ringing a bell with me, and i'm just not seeing something, SOOOO, I broke down and ordered a new lifter from Midway, dropped it in the gun, cycled it and UGH it jammed just like before! I played, I tinkered, I lubed and polished, no good :-( I was at a loss to say the least, I mean out of any more thoughts on where to go from here! Anything with a flat tip hung up and that was it, no getting around it, slow cycling, fast cycling, and any speed in between just didn't matter. The gun extracted perfectly, ejected like a champ, just would not feed.
Well, I was cleaning up the bench to get a fresh start the next day and I noticed the bag the lifter came in and under the paper there was something else in there I hadn't noticed, it was a new ejector, I knew mine worked flawlessly so there was no point in placing the new one in, oh what have I got to lose at this point? why not! So I tore it down yet again , put the new ejector in, with the new lifter, reassembled it and put in some 357 SWC 358429 rounds, they cycled through that gun like greased lightning! I mean snot on a door knob SLICK!! I tried every variety of 38 and 357 rounds I had loaded, with a large variety of flat tip boolits, and still had the same flawless feeding! At this point I just had to know, so one last time I tore it down, put my original lifter back in with the new ejector and i'll be darned if it wasn't functioning flawlessly!!! I put the new lifter back in just because I had paid for it, and it sits there running flawlessly til this very day! No matter what I feed it, slides through beautifully! I would have bet anyone $1000 that the ejector was in NO WAY the problem, and I would have lost the bet!
Moral of the story, don't overlook that ejector if your 1894 isn't feeding well, and you just might not need to spend $70 on a lifter you do not need.
Safe and happy shooting!
MagLvr

[markX]

Interesting!

[Nueces]

My thought is that, in removing and replacing your injector, you dislodged some bit of crud that had been in your way. That would explain why your original worked when reinstalled. I also run Marlin 1894s, so I've learned this, too. Thanks!

[maglvr]

Actually, the new ejector was made totally different than the original, and I wasn't even sure it was the correct part for the gun, when I first spotted it in the bag. My thoughts are this...... At some point Marlin realized these were causing problems and instead of going through the process of recalling etc. just started making them differently.
Who's to say! All I am certain of is that it was the problem.
MagLvr

[3AXBAT]

Good to know. Was this the "Marlin Jam" I've read about?

[maglvr]

No, it was not the dreaded Marlin jam (Letting in two, as the factory calls it). Mine did everything just fine except let the round enter the chamber.
MagLvr

[waco]

Does the new lifter fix the "Marlin Jam"????….

[maglvr]

Typical Marlin jam is easily solved, if you are the least bit handy, and without spending 70 bucks for a new lifter, but in answer to your question, yes, a new lifter generally cures Marlin jam.

[backon4]

I have a new 1894c in 357 mag. My issue is with the lever jamming in the fully open position. Will not move anywhere. Have to remove the lever and then reinstall. Is this the jam you are speaking of?


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[Thin Man]

Ejectors can cause issues with any rifle. My cousin recently bought a brand new Springfield Armory M1A that gave him issues right out of the box. He managed to get 5 rounds out of 20 to chamber and fire before calling it quits. When the bolt ran forward with a fresh round frequently (but not always) it would go 95% of the way toward the chamber and stop before going into full battery. The user could pull the trigger and hear the hammer fall but there was no ignition (at least that is what he reported and I did NOT try that with an out-of-battery rifle). Once a round jammed short of lock-up it was all but impossible to move the bolt either to the front to gain lock-up or to the rear to remove the cartridge from the action. Everything about the bolt froze solid. To get the action open we had to use force to move the bolt to the rear. After removing the bolt assembly from the rifle for cleaning and inspection, we found the ejector was not "flowing" in the bolt. Movement of the ejector was tight, not speaking about the stiff spring behind the ejector but rather about the clearances for the ejector to move in and out of the bolt. We are confident this is the cause of the bolt failing to lock in battery. Simply cleaning the ejector and it's recess in the bolt (used tiny Q-tips and pipe cleaners for this) did nothing to correct the issue. He is undecided on whether we should attempt to correct this issue or to ask the manufacturer to do this. As this is a very new rifle I voted to send it back but he has not yet made that decision.

[maglvr]

Send it back to the maker.

[Pistolero49]

Great information.

Thank you,

[waco]

New carrier in my 1894 .44 fixed the "jam" for me. Here is how I did it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CK_Hf-OJWo&t=280s

[Wayne Smith]

Can you show the differences between the ejectors? You stated that they were completely different.

[W.R.Buchanan]

The Ejector has nothing to do with the way the gun feeds. The bolt is over the ejector by the time the cartridge runs into the sharp edge of the chamber.

The problem is the sharp edge of the chamber mouth is cutting into the bullets and stopping the cartridge from going into the chamber. This is because the lifter holds the cartridge against the top of the Receiver while it is being shoved into the chamber. Round Nosed boolits feed well because there is nothing to catch on the chamber mouth.

All you do to fix this is put an .040-.050 chamfer on the chamber mouth. You need an extension for a countersink to do this and you turn it by hand.

The gun will feed anything as fast as you can run the lever after that simple fix. I have asked Marlin to include this mod on their Chambering Reamers and they are considering doing it.

Here's a pic of what it looks like after done. I have posted this picture no less than 50 times here over the last 11 years. In fact the post directly below this one has the same picture.

Slicking up my 1894 Marlin in .44 Mag for Cowboy Action Shooting

Randy

[northmn]

Wonder if that chamfering would not work on my Rossi, It definitely does not need a new ejector!!. It feeds everything but the Lee flat nosed 158 bullet. I never got too excited about it and used different bullets as there is no shortage of 357 bullets. I kind of like the Lee flat nose though.


DEP

[sfcairborne]

Can you do this to an 1895 GG in 45/70.

[Baltimoreed]

I repaired my 1894 lifter with a small piece of coping saw blade jb welded to the lifter. Cycling the lever wears the soft lifter until it’s out of time. Adding the hardened end of the coping saw blade eliminates the worn spot. Been going strong for 15 years maybe.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Northmn: On the Marlin action the cartridge is held against the top of the receiver while it is being fed into the chamber so the boolit has to run into the chamber mouth on it's way into the chamber. The Winchester 92 doesn't have a top to it's receiver it's wide open, although it could prevent the gun from shaving lead off the boolits as they are feeding which may be beneficial..

I figured this out when I found a bunch of lead pieces in my gun after shooting round nosed boolits. They looked like finger nail clippings. A closer look revealed that the lead was being shaved off the boolits as they were feeding into the chamber. Chamfering the Chamber Mouth .04-05 fixed the problem for good. This area of the chamber is doing nothing anyway as the extractor groove is .060 wide so chamfering the chamber mouth is not going to cause any problems whatsoever.

My gun will cycle any type of boolit as fast as you can run the lever.

Randy

[curioushooter]

They key to preventing this problem (which is possible on a new rifle if some yahoo didn't go to town on the lever at the store or once you open the box) is to very carefully radius off the sharp edge on the "snail" of the lever piece and then applying grease to the lifter where the lever makes contact.

Older Marlins use a rather soft cast lifter that gets the material scarfed off by the hard forged steel lever's snail. I just bought a new Remlin and after all these years THEY STILL HAVE NOT solved the stupid problem. It is indeed better, as the lifer, if it is cast, seems to be a much harder piece of metal, and the edge is not quite so knife like, but it still needs to be carefully radiused off if you want to prevent the Marlin Jam long term.

Why they don't drill out the edge of the "snail" and insert a round pin in there to ride the lifter I don't know. That would be a real solution.

It takes about one minute with a fine lap. Then dab some heavy grease on that lifter.

[Prairie Cowboy]

I think that we are discussing the "extractor" and not the "ejector" here. Since the ejector does not contact the casing until after the case or round is extracted from the chamber it can have no effect on feeding of a loaded round.

The extractor in the 1894 on the other hand DOES contact the rim of the round as it is being chambered, and can cause the bullet nose to pitch upward, causing the bullet nose to hit the edge of a sharp-edged chamber mouth. It can also cause the round to simply stop when the nose of the round has already entered the chamber if the extractor has a sharp lower edge. The round must rise up at the rear to enter the chamber and the extractor can dig in to the edge of the rim of that round if it the hook has a burr.
This won't ever happen in a .30-30 model 336 because the cartridge simply slides in to the chamber like a greased pig before the extractor even has a chance to contact the edge of the cartridge rim. The bolt simply chases this long tapered round in to the chamber, then the extractor hook snaps over the rim.

Carefully chamfering the chamber mouth seems to be an excellent idea. I wouldn't be surprised if nearly all vintage lever actions had this as standard manufacturing practice. it's just common sense. And practically all auto-loading rifles had radiused chamber mouths.