Marlin 336a 30/30 advice

J

JarheadHunter

Inactive
I really wish that i had read in to this before i upgraded my sights. I have an old old 336a that was handed down form my grampa, and I had an unfortunate snag on an old case that bent the old leaf sight. I figured that it couldnt be too hard to fix with some new fiber optic sights right? As i said earlier i wish i had done some homework and visited this forum first. After reading some other post i instantly realized my mistakes, and did follow some common sense. I did support the rifle on some scrap blocks that i had laying around. The first mistake that I realized that i had made was that I beat the front sight post out the wrong way and to make it worse i beat the new one in the wrong way also. Call it the curse of ignorance i guess. To get to the point it looks like the sights line up perfectly but I went to the range this past Saturday and couldnt hit paper at 100 yards. I could see my impacts that seemed to be behind the target , but i was wrong out of 30 rounds none hit. Is there a way to get a good alignment on them? Im lost and i love this gun and hate to think that i would set it aside because i cant shoot accurately with it anymore. Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks.
 
If you take the bolt out and sand bag your rifle, you can look through the barrel then line the sights up with it.

Welcome to the forum.
 
Good to know!

Thanks for the replies. I have used laser boresights in the past but for scoped rifles, and when i did it was way off from the "physical" boresight i had purchased the same day. Ill try the removing the bolt concept and see what hapens. Any other ideas? And does anyone thing that the snafu of the front sight possibly throwing me off?
 
Sounds like a plan I will be at the ranch this weekend so I will have plenty of distances along with time. Ill post what worked best.
 
I live in San Antonio, I have several places to hunt throughout South Texas from family and friends etc. I mainly hunt in Crystal City at my father in laws place. My set up in pretty nice there and I typicaly dont shoot past 125yds. I have had the Marlin .30-.30 for 15 years, and never had any problems untill recently with the sight bending so I am pretty bummed about it. I have taken a lot of hogs and deer with it over the years. Hell its what I started out hunting with.
 
In your post you said that you were hitting behind the target. This tells me that the rifle is shooting high. If so, you need a higher front sight to compensate.

However, see what bore sighting tells you.
 
That could also be it. I just hope you are wrong. Not trying to be nasty but I bought sites that came together and I woudl be ****** if they paired them wrong or something. I will find out this weekend though. On that note does anyone have any experience with the ballistic tip .30-.30 ammo form Hornady?
 
Thanks to everyone for the help. I went to the range again this weekend ( a different range at that), and let me just say that the quality/ comfort of the range helps tremendously. I shot at 100 yds again, but this time the target was a 3'x3' w/ 4 bulls eyes vice a 3'x1' with a 12"x12" target on it. Call it me not looking into things untill after the fact. To the point. I was shooting extremly low. About 3 feet low at that. After about 10 rounds i had walked it on close to the bullseye and spent another 10 getting in a 3" shot group. This was definately an experience for the books that I have learned form. I do have to add that I am glad that I upgraded to tru glow sights from the old factory sights. It makes a world of differance, and sight alignment comes a hell of a lot easier.
 
Unfortunately i did not take before and after pictures, but I can when I get home later. I just cleaned and oiled it up so for an old hand me down rifle from my grampa it is looking pretty nice (considering).
 
You're fortunate that the beating on the front sight the wrong way didn't seem to dent or distort the barrel, otherwise you wouldn't have grouped 3" at that distance.

Any distortion of the bore near the muzzle is prone to causing the bore to be altered at the most critical part of the barrel. Even cleaning from the bore end without a guide can wear the crown as can dropping the rifle on the muzzle.

My B-I-L had a Marlin 336 in 35 Rem that had the front ramp screw drilled a bit too deep. After repeated firing, the pressure dimpled the bore upward into the screw hole and bullets were coming out tumbling and landing sideways on targets at 50 yards. It couldn't even hit paper often at 100 yards.
 
I was worried that I had messed something up to extent. I was somewhat smart about when I beat it out though. I had some scrap 2x2's laying around that supported the barrel with so I inadvertently saved it from that. Its definately a tough gun though. It went through my grampas abuse and mine as a teen and still shoots faithfully.
 
My B-I-L had a Marlin 336 in 35 Rem that had the front ramp screw drilled a bit too deep. After repeated firing, the pressure dimpled the bore upward into the screw hole and bullets were coming out tumbling and landing sideways on targets at 50 yards. It couldn't even hit paper often at 100 yards.
Click to expand...

OUCH!!

Only cure for that would be to cut the barrel back to the hole and recrown...
Then you'd have to re-D/T the front sight mount!!

--CORRECTED--
Gotta quit thinking about the bolts & semi's when talking about the levers...lol
Things get fuzzy at 2:50AM...hehehe...thanks, Salmoneye!
 
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Only cure for that would be to cut the barrel back to the hole and recrown...
and that's a pain in the tuckus on a Marlin due to the Press-in barrels!
Then you'd have to re-D/T the front sight mount!!
Click to expand...

336 Barrels are most definitely not "pressed in"...

Marlin336A_disassemble1.jpg
 
Here are the pictures that i promised. Sorry about my lack of photography skills. The lighting in my house isnt the best.
 

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