1894 Marlin (micro groove)

[JDL]

Found a nice .44 Mag at a gun show last weekend in at least 98% condition and it followed me home. After slugging the bore and throat Sunday, I shot it with previous loaded plinking pistol loads. Loads were with commerical cast boolits with some kind of hard, blue lube and bevel bases, well, I was hoping, OK. After 50 rounds, I had the nicest leaded bore around, just in front of the chamber.
The throat is what I believe Deputy Al calls a toilet bowl shape, gently tapering from the size of the case for .230" to the begining of the .429" grooved rifling, ie. long and fat. I was begining to think it might be a jacketed shooter only.
Fast foward to yesterday afternoon, a friend offered some 310 grain Lee already lubed, checked and sized to .430". I expressed my doubts as to the 1 in 38" twist stabalizing them, but took them to try this a.m. I loaded 19 grains of IMR-4227 and crimped in the bottom crimp groove making the OAL 1.720" or .110" longer than book max. They functioned just fine through the action at this length. Began my session at 50 yards and got a ragged hole of .55" C-C. Oh boy! Moved to 100 and shot 2 more groups, the first was 2" even C-C, and the last 1.08" C-C.
No leading was visable although, being a slow powder, a good bit of fouling was left in the bore. Velocity averaged 1290 fps and had more recoil than I anticapated. Testing on deer will be forthcoming this fall! :-)
This is the third Micro Groove I have that's not supposed to shoot cast, (but they all do just fine), and with that horrible throat, I even had doubts, but it is prooving otherwise. -JDL

[Uncle R.]

I suspect that leaded throat was at least partly because your commercial cast bullets were too hard for the plinking load you were using. I scrubbed lead from revolver throats for years just from using light target loads. I believed (based on the books I'd read) that too soft caused leading. The more they leaded the harder I'd cast 'em and finally I was shooting straight linotype at 800 fps and STILL getting lead in the throat. When I finally got educated I couldn't believe that I was SO DUMB for SO LONG. Ahhh... So soon we get old - so late we get smart. :roll:
I've seen several micro-groove Marlins shoot cast very well. I don't know why they have that bad reputation - although I suspect that the wrong type of bullet or wrong hardness may cause problems. (Just like in ANY rifle!)
:roll:
I had a Marlin 1894 way back in the 70s. I never put a cast bullet through it but it shot 240 gr. jacketed Hornadys amazingly well. It was just a NEAT little woods carbine - but something else came along and I was young and foolish and it got traded off. Oh, bitter day!
:(
Now that I'm older and wiser (HA!) I've learned that there are a lot of turkeys out there and not all that many gems. I follow Dean Grennell'a advice more closely - "When you glom onto a good gun, HANG ONTO IT!"
I've messed around with cast in .44 mag rifles quite a bit - in a M94 magnum and an old Ruger autoloading carbine. I get MUCH better results with gas checks and I now use gas-checked bullets exclusively in the .44 mag. I ain't sayin' the plain bases won't shoot - just that they won't shoot for me.
:roll:
I suppose my plain-base problems came from hardness and throat fit issues - but a gas check can cover up a lot of sins! I run hard bullets at max velocities with great accuracy and essentially NO leading - as long as they're wearing shoes.
:-D
Congrats on your Marlin and good luck!

[Scrounger]

I suspect that leaded throat was at least partly because your commercial cast bullets were too hard for the plinking load you were using. I scrubbed lead from revolver throats for years just from using light target loads. I believed (based on the books I'd read) that too soft caused leading. The more they leaded the harder I'd cast 'em and finally I was shooting straight linotype at 800 fps and STILL getting lead in the throat. When I finally got educated I couldn't believe that I was SO DUMB for SO LONG. Ahhh... So soon we get old - so late we get smart. :roll:
I've seen several micro-groove Marlins shoot cast very well. I don't know why they have that bad reputation - although I suspect that the wrong type of bullet or wrong hardness may cause problems. (Just like in ANY rifle!)
:roll:
I had a Marlin 1894 way back in the 70s. I never put a cast bullet through it but it shot 240 gr. jacketed Hornadys amazingly well. It was just a NEAT little woods carbine - but something else came along and I was young and foolish and it got traded off. Oh, bitter day!
:(
Now that I'm older and wiser (HA!) I've learned that there are a lot of turkeys out there and not all that many gems. I follow Dean Grennell'a advice more closely - "When you glom onto a good gun, HANG ONTO IT!"
I've messed around with cast in .44 mag rifles quite a bit - in a M94 magnum and an old Ruger autoloading carbine. I get MUCH better results with gas checks and I now use gas-checked bullets exclusively in the .44 mag. I ain't sayin' the plain bases won't shoot - just that they won't shoot for me.
:roll:
I suppose my plain-base problems came from hardness and throat fit issues - but a gas check can cover up a lot of sins! I run hard bullets at max velocities with great accuracy and essentially NO leading - as long as they're wearing shoes.
:-D
Congrats on your Marlin and good luck!

The key to Marlin, Uncle, is groove diameter. Most of their barrels are a couple of thousandths bigger than they should be. I found that .432-.433 bullets shot good in a Microgroove .44 Mag. I would check groups with several different bullet diameters before I gave up on it.