dakota.potts
New member
As I posted about previously, I recently picked up a used 1974 Marlin 336. A coworker of mine bought it used locally and found out that the entire finish had been replaced with what seems like flat black grill paint (not applied very well either). Every single external and moving part is coated in thick layers of it, and it's even gotten into the crown and the last couple inches of rifling. I anticipate all of that will come off with denatured alcohol or some other solvent and a stiff plastic carding brush. My plan is to strip the finish and polish it, refinish with hot caustic blue, color case harden the finger lever and cocking lever, and nitre color the trigger and screws. I might add an extended recoil pad and wrap with leather as well. I'd also like to get a receiver aperture sight and modify or replace the front sight.
Took it out shooting today to see what I can expect from it, and if it will need to have the barrel pulled to re-crown or possibly even to replace.
I was less impressed with the way it shot, but I believe that boils down to two major factors: Ergonomics and sights. I tried the rifle first at 100 yards and the round front sight almost covered the entire paper target. I did get somewhat of a useful pattern in that it was shooting low at that distance but 7 of my 10 shots were in a 6.5" pattern and the other 3 below the paper. The sights, in addition to being large enough to cover almost the entire of the target, are low enough they are hard to keep focus and repeatable point of aim on. The rifle is also not greatly comfortable from a bench (I anticipated this since it's a Brush gun designed to be fired from field positions) and the recoil is surprisingly stout from the 170 grain loads. I don't know if it's because of the thin plastic recoil pad, but it actually hurt enough to fire that I started anticipating my shots after 15 rounds.
We moved it in to 50 yards and did a little better but consistently not as well as I would have liked to do. My 5 shot group measured a spread of about 3" all centered pretty well vertically and hitting left of target. Whether this is due to the rifle's zeroes, not properly aligning the sights, or pulling my shots (I'm a left handed shooter) I'm not sure.
A friend of mine went shooting with me and has experience as a competition rimfire shooter using exclusively iron sights so I let him have a try. He shot a 5 shot group with 4 shots grouping in roughly an inch and a half and one flyer and that was good enough to tell me that my poor performance is more in regards to the operation of the gun than the mechanical accuracy. I may still elect to re-crown it but I don't think swapping out the barrel will be necessary. I understand that this is meant to be a hunting gun and not a bench rest gun, but I would like to be able to hit an effective group of a couple inches at 100 yards with iron sights. We'll see how that turns out.
Took it out shooting today to see what I can expect from it, and if it will need to have the barrel pulled to re-crown or possibly even to replace.
I was less impressed with the way it shot, but I believe that boils down to two major factors: Ergonomics and sights. I tried the rifle first at 100 yards and the round front sight almost covered the entire paper target. I did get somewhat of a useful pattern in that it was shooting low at that distance but 7 of my 10 shots were in a 6.5" pattern and the other 3 below the paper. The sights, in addition to being large enough to cover almost the entire of the target, are low enough they are hard to keep focus and repeatable point of aim on. The rifle is also not greatly comfortable from a bench (I anticipated this since it's a Brush gun designed to be fired from field positions) and the recoil is surprisingly stout from the 170 grain loads. I don't know if it's because of the thin plastic recoil pad, but it actually hurt enough to fire that I started anticipating my shots after 15 rounds.
We moved it in to 50 yards and did a little better but consistently not as well as I would have liked to do. My 5 shot group measured a spread of about 3" all centered pretty well vertically and hitting left of target. Whether this is due to the rifle's zeroes, not properly aligning the sights, or pulling my shots (I'm a left handed shooter) I'm not sure.
A friend of mine went shooting with me and has experience as a competition rimfire shooter using exclusively iron sights so I let him have a try. He shot a 5 shot group with 4 shots grouping in roughly an inch and a half and one flyer and that was good enough to tell me that my poor performance is more in regards to the operation of the gun than the mechanical accuracy. I may still elect to re-crown it but I don't think swapping out the barrel will be necessary. I understand that this is meant to be a hunting gun and not a bench rest gun, but I would like to be able to hit an effective group of a couple inches at 100 yards with iron sights. We'll see how that turns out.
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