Got to inspect a new Ruglin. Not impressed.

[Norske]

There is another problem. The barrel is 20" long, measured from bolt face. If you take it to Canada for a black bear hunt it will be measured by Canadian Customs, who measure barrel length from the front of the receiver. RCMP form 5589 shows measuring barrels from bolt face and the barrel must be 20" long. My old 1895 has a 22" barrel from bolt face, but measured from the receiver it loses about 3/4". If the Ruger Marlin loses that much, it won't be allowed across the border. I suppose you could take a dowel so they could drop it down the bore, but I wouldn't bet money on winning that arguement, even though you would be correct.

[megasupermagnum]

There is another problem. The barrel is 20" long, measured from bolt face. If you take it to Canada for a black bear hunt it will be measured by Canadian Customs, who measure barrel length from the front of the receiver. RCMP form 5589 shows measuring barrels from bolt face and the barrel must be 20" long. My old 1895 has a 22" barrel from bolt face, but measured from the receiver it loses about 3/4". If the Ruger Marlin loses that much, it won't be allowed across the border. I suppose you could take a dowel so they could drop it down the bore, but I wouldn't bet money on winning that arguement, even though you would be correct.

Canada doesn't require 20" barrels. It's 18 1/2", more specifically 470 mm. That's straight from the RCMP website. I've never heard of anyone measuring a barrel any other way than from the bolt face, so I guess I'll have to take your word on that, although I'm skeptical.

[Red River Rick]

MSM is correct. The minimum legal barrel length here in Canada is 18.5". And, that is measured from the bolt face to the end of the barrel.
The exception is, if the firearm came from the factory with a barrel length of less than 18.5".
Examples would be, Winchester Trapper 94 with a 16" barrel, Grizzly shotguns with 12" barrels.

[tja6435]

That metal/wood fit looks like the grips that came on my 3.75” Super Blackhawk. I put Pachmayr grips on it

[Cosmic_Charlie]

That's the lesson I've learned with Ruger . So I don't buy them anymore , got tired of having to fix quality control .

Jack

Recently i have handled some ruger revolvers in shops that had barrels that were not timed properly. Very obvious. That kind of defect is inexcusable. Smith has also had this issue. I have a SBH from 1987 and also an sp101 that is even older that are perfect in all respects.

[farmbif]

Yes, it is the safety.
I'm not sure when they were put on, but my CB was bought in 2002 has it like that one.

im pretty sure it was 1983

[farmbif]

Recently i have handled some ruger revolvers in shops that had barrels that were not timed properly. Very obvious. That kind of defect is inexcusable. Smith has also had this issue. I have a SBH from 1987 and also an sp101 that is even older that are perfect in all respects.

the last Ruger I seriously thought about buying was when the 327 fed mag was still pretty new and I saw a 4" stainless double action revolver I was serious interested in taking it home till the clerk handed it to me and there were what looked like to me vise jaw indentations pressed into each side of the barrel. this was a brand new gun just removed from the box. no thanks not for me today.

[3584ELK]

Disappointing, but not surprising.

[crash87]

Virtually every Henry on the rack had much better wood to metal fit. The wood was sticking up nearly an 1/8" and razor sharp. It was bad.

Buy the Henry then. I think those who agree that these are just a poor example of gunmaking, should let Ruger know, and express that they maybe? no! Should just stop making Marlins, I mean seriously, this "one" example is there for all the rest to be judged. I'm not impressed either. ;0 But Im also not one of "those" guys either. I dont flip for profit, I just buy, shoot, hunt, and am damn glad Ruger resurrected this company to keep it American, but mostly, alive and well. Look around and see what we have lost in just one year. Now we complain about wood to metal fit? A screw hole that got through QC? Buy a Henry!
crash87

[nicholst55]

Those should be quality control issues. They should have been inspected and rejected if Ruger wants to build a good reputation and not only make all they can.

All Ruger is concerned about is shipping as many guns out the door as possible, IMHO. Has been for some time.

[nicholst55]

Here is a pretty good review of the new Ruger/Marlin.
https://1895gunner.com/bulletpoints/...points-30.html

One thing that I find very interesting in this review is that the author mentions 'improved thread timing' to insure barrel alignment with the receiver twice. This is something that Ruger (and others) has long since abandoned on their revolvers - thread timing - they simply over-torque the barrel until the sights are close to being aligned. This typically results in thread constriction, or thread choke. Thread choke kind of makes proper bullet sizing a waste of time.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Well it pains me to see how many of you are willing to condemn the Ruger Brand name because of one Pre Production Rifle that got shipped. Maybe the marked down price should have been Clue?

The review in the New NRA magazine that came out last week was glowing and the pics of the gun showed excellent wood to metal fit.

I would also have to see the gun in person before I'd make a judgement call on the entire line. Plus that anyone who would buy the first guns off the line of any manufacturer has not been paying attention. There will always be minor production issues to resolve during the release of any new product..

But the first question I would ask is "Did the Barrel have "Made in Mayodan NC" roll marked on it?" That would confirm that it was in fact a new one.

Randy

[Idaho45guy]

But the first question I would ask is "Did the Barrel have "Made in Mayodan NC" roll marked on it?" That would confirm that it was in fact a new one.

Randy

Of course it did. It doesn't take looking at the barrel roll marks to tell instantly that it is a new Ruglin. They have a new rail, fluted bolt, and high polished finish.

[rintinglen]

I saw one at the LGS yesterday, being unboxed by the shop owner and its new owner. I did not get to handle it but peeking over the shoulder, as it were, I made some observations. The wood-to-metal fit was definitely better than the one Idaho45 depicted. Not perfect, but at least as good as most of the 336's I've seen. I wanted to get a closer look at the safety but I had the wrong glasses on (curse you, old eye sight.) So I can not say if it was out-of round or not. But it was shiny especially the bolt.

I am not a player at 1400 plus, but I thought it looked pretty good, though who knows what the bore looks like. There's a gun show coming up and I'll be interested to see if there are any on the tables.

[Jack Stanley]

I learned a long time ago that writing Ruger or Marlin about QC is a waste of time . Each have a form letter that started with "Thanks for buying our product , blah blah we are not going to fix it blah , etc . We hope you enjoy it . "

My response has been to not buy their products again . Sad , because I have an old Marlin and have seen old Rugers that were nice .

Jack

[W.R.Buchanan]

I finally got the pics to blow up to where I can see them. (New Hard drive for my Computer.!!!)

In pic #2 notice the nice radius between the Front Face and Top of the Hammer. That came from ME! Ha, they actually listened to my input!

The deal with that mod is to reduce the pressure needed to close the bolt over the cam on the bottom of the bolt. When the bolt is opened it pushes the hammer past the sear as it opens, and this is done by the Rear Part of the cam on the underside of the bolt. When the bolt is closed the cam, which is tapered on the front side, must still push the hammer down below the sear as it closes. This usually takes more pressure and is generally not very smooth.

Previously all the Hammers had a 45 degreeish flat between the front and top edges of the hammer, no big deal on the opening stroke but on closing the cam had to interface with a hard edge on the hammer which took way more effort to get past the cam.

The addition of the Radius on the hammer made it so it took the same amount of effort to go forward as going back and thus smoothed out the lever throw.

Also why did the LGS have that piece of rubber wrapped around the pistol grip so you couldn't operate the lever? Seemed like they were hiding stuff, and from the looks' of the other guns on the rack it seemed like they were overly preoccupied with Trigger Locks. I would have liked to see exactly how bad the wood to metal fit was, and I bet it would have been nice to see what the Lever Stroke and Trigger Pull was like. There were other things I contributed as well. None of which you could see without opening the lever. Except possibly the sharp edges on the inside of the lever loop? Were those edges broken and smoothed out? or were they sharp?

When I talked to Eric Lundgren the Head Engineer on the whole project for an hour, he took notes and they looked at every suggestion carefully. I know Tumbling all the internal parts to remove burrs happened, as it was mentioned in the AR Article. Also Breaking the edge on the chamber mouth was a big deal, but I don't know if that happened or not.. Another was a Radius on the point of the "Snail Cam" on the lever to eliminate the Marlin Jamb. Pretty sure that got done as well. These were all simple details that had been overlooked for decades by Marlin Employees.

If all that was wrong with that gun was Minor Cosmetic stuff like proud wood and a hole that wasn't counter sunk perfectly and the gun ran well I'd say they are doing pretty good for the first guns to come off the line.

My LGS will be getting some in soon, so we'll see how those ones look, and I will report what I see along with pics.

Randy.

[Petander]

I've never heard of anyone measuring a barrel any other way than from the bolt face, so I guess I'll have to take your word on that, although I'm skeptical.

FWIW The european way is to measure the barrel alone, not combined with the chamber.

I have built/modified a few minimum legal total / barrel length rifles during the years, getting them "stamped ok" has been entertaining every now and then.

Anyway,the chamber is not accepted / included in the barrel length here. Eg. A permanently mounted suppressor or brake is included,though.

Sorry for the thread drift. I find these things interesting.

[Char-Gar]

Shiloh wood to metal fit. A different class altogether!

High end bespoke rifles that cost much more than the Marlin.

[truckjohn]

I think we have to accept that machined fit between metal and wood is something we don't get with that price point out of the big boys. The "American Way" is to assemble parts, and it has been for well over 20 years. They don't hand fit anything - not metal, not wood. Sure, a custom shop could hand fit a fancy new stock easily enough, if that blows up your skirt.

I would be all over Henry, and never look at a Marlin again - if they shot like my Marlins. They're beautiful, but they just don't shoot as well, not even as well as the maligned Remlins. I've owned a few, and my Marlins easily shot groups half the size of what Henry's shot.

So... That's where I'm at. What I don't want is Ruger to Ruger-ify the barrels and turn Marlins into inaccurate pigs like so many other Rugers... There's a reason the centerfire Ruger 96's and 77's disappeared... They started great, but then they changed them and turned them into pigs on the range. Sure - stick a custom barrel on and they shot well, but that's an ordeal. Same for the No.1's - they used to be accurate, and beautiful... I haven't seen one in 10+ years.

[Idaho45guy]

I think we have to accept that machined fit between metal and wood is something we don't get with that price point out of the big boys. The "American Way" is to assemble parts, and it has been for well over 20 years. They don't hand fit anything - not metal, not wood. Sure, a custom shop could hand fit a fancy new stock easily enough, if that blows up your skirt.

I would be all over Henry, and never look at a Marlin again - if they shot like my Marlins. They're beautiful, but they just don't shoot as well, not even as well as the maligned Remlins. I've owned a few, and my Marlins easily shot groups half the size of what Henry's shot.

So... That's where I'm at. What I don't want is Ruger to Ruger-ify the barrels and turn Marlins into inaccurate pigs like so many other Rugers... There's a reason the centerfire Ruger 96's and 77's disappeared... They started great, but then they changed them and turned them into pigs on the range. Sure - stick a custom barrel on and they shot well, but that's an ordeal. Same for the No.1's - they used to be accurate, and beautiful... I haven't seen one in 10+ years.

This is not what I have experienced, but you likely have a much larger sample to base your experience on.

I sold my Ruger M77 AWR purchased new in 1998 and replaced it with a Ruger American Rifle Predator. Both rifles will do 1/2 moa at 100 yards.

Both my Remlin 1894 and Henry Black, both in .45 Colt, did 1.5" at 55 yards. But the Henry is 100% reliable, far smoother action, and has proper stock to metal fit. It's an obviously higher quality rifle for the same price point.