two 336 questions

M

mark clausen

New member
Hello. I bought a 336 SC in 35 Remington a year ago at a farm sale. It has sat in my safe since and now I want to start using it as a deer gun. The serial number dates it to 1954. Internally it looks to hardly have been used. Externally it has suffered a little from poor storage. I have not yet shot this gun.
Here are my questions.
I would like to scope this gun and would like your alls opinions on the best way to do this. The receiver is narrow.
Also I seem to recall on this forum a caution about ammunition choices for this gun/caliber combination. Searched the forum a little but couldn't find it. Seems like maybe the caution was against new lever gun ammo. I hope these aren't too vague of questions.
Thanks, Mark
 
Seems like maybe the caution was against new lever gun ammo.
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Yes. The problem is with the .35 Marlin 336 and Hornady LeverEvolution ammo. You can Google and find lots of instances of people having to send loaded magazines off to their gunsmith to get them unjammed. That's because with the .35, there is enough wiggle room for the pointed tip of one round to jam beside the base of the case in front of it (or maybe it is jamming against the follower - I can't remember).
 
Use a round nose bullet, I use Sierra 200gr pro hunter over 36gr of 4064. Shoots well, I believe it chromosome at about 1850. If you don't reload Remington core loc in 200gr works well. I sent mine to Greg warne for ler scope mounts installed on the barrel and use a Burris 2.75x ler scope. Expensive way to go but works nicely. The receiver should be drilled and tapped for bases. You shouldn't need a high power scope. 3x9 or 4x should be sufficient.
 
There was a dilemma about using conical nosed bullets, like the .30-06, in tubular magazines, years ago, (early 1900s), as the worry was that a pointed bullet nose behind another cartridge, could possibly set off the primer. Winchester incorporated box magazines over it, in their semi-auto rifles, and Remington came up with a spiral magazine tube, which made the bullet points aim to the outside of the rim, of the cartridge in front.

On Marlins, you need the larger magazine tube ID, so the cartridge can move, similar to the Remington, but the .35 Remington Leverevolution will still jam it up. It was a bad design, as it had to do with the follower. The .35 Remington shouldn't do this, as it is round nosed, but the Hornady sharp nosed will.


http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-738815.html

Edit: I wanted to add, that I don't blame Marlin, as the gun was designed for round nosed ammo. They did sell a new follower, to handle the Hornady ammo, as the bad design was from Hornady, thinking it would work.
 
Follow up

I thought I would revisit this thread, might be of interest to someone. I did not scope my 336, yet. A friend of mine asked me to use his dad's Remington 141 for deer this season which is also in 35 Remington. My friend does not hunt but thought it would make his dad feel good to see his old gun in use again. I had to rescope the 141 as the lenses on the old strait tube Weaver were too cloudy to use. I put an old Lyman American 4x on it and took it to the range with my Marlin 336. I used the Hornady Leverevolution rounds as that is the only 35 Remington ammunition I could find. I put a box through both guns and the ammo fed perfectly through both guns. I cycled fast and slow without a hitch. So I am very happy. I didn't worry too much about groups with the Marlin I just wanted to know how the rounds would feed in it. The old Remington grouped well under two inches at 100 yds also fed well. So maybe the pointy polymer tipped bullets aren't all that bad. I will probably still scope the 336 to aid my old eyes. Maybe a leather pad on the stock for height. I will use that next year. This year however my friends dad was pleased I was successful in getting my deer with his old Remington. It is back in his safe hopefully to be used by a grandchild.
 
No spitzer bullets in tubular magazine rifles. The pointy spitzer could hit the primer of the cartridge ahead of it and then you have a magazine explosion. There is a nylon tipped spitzer that was designed specifically for lever actions but I don't recall the maker.
 
The Hornady LEVERevolution spitzer "Style" ammunition that Mark C used above is Good2Go in a Tubular magazine.
But as Gary points out, ordinary/exposed-lead Spitzer is invitation to a life changing event.
 
Mark,

Glad it worked out for you. If you ever get into reloading, you'll find some hard cast bullets out there like the Beartooth and some of the Lasercast that have very hard alloy and flat noses. These are amazingly effective on game. No good for long range shots, but I've never pointed my 1895 at at deer further than about 120 yards, and that was an odd circumstance for woods.

One caution I'll toss your way is that M.L. McPherson wrote about a magazine tube he blew up in an 1895 as a result of loading a replacement round with after chambering one and doing it with gloves on. The last round in the mag wasn't inside completely, and the gloves prevented him from feeling the gate was slightly ajar, so he had a cocked round with the edge of a flat bullet meplat leaning against the middle of the primer in the next round up the magazine when he fired the one in the chamber. He had a photo of the mark that bullet edge made on the primer that set it off. Because the .45-70 is a fairly straight case with high expansion ratio, it usually is loaded with a powder a little faster than one normally associates with the kinetic energies it develops. 4198 in this case, IIRC. Anyway, it blew up the magazine tube "real good".
 
The French got around the pointed bullet dilemma in the tube fed 1886 Lebel rifle by cutting an annular ring in the base of the 8mm Lebel cartridges, forcing the pointed bullet to rest in the annular ring on the base of the cartridge in front of it.

Apparently no one on this side of the Atlantic paid any attention to it.
 
Apparently no one on this side of the Atlantic paid any attention to it.
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By the time we were ready to upgrade to a new commission rifle, the leading designs weren't using tubular magazines. So, it wasn't a consideration.
 
By the time we were ready to upgrade to a new commission rifle, the leading designs weren't using tubular magazines. So, it wasn't a consideration.
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I wasn't thinking so much of military rifles, but a way around the "pointed bullet in the tube magazine" problem of the Winchesters, etc.
 
The buying public didn't seem to have a problem with round nose or flat point bullets, so there wasn't much motivation for manufacturers to add complexity to case production.

And those that did want pointy bullets, once their time had really come, could get a Savage 99 or Winchester 1895.
 
FrankenMauser, you're correct. It is not the guns fault, as many were never designed to feed that ammo, since they were intended for blunt nosed bullets. When the conical nosed ammo started becoming popular, Remington came out with that spiral magazine tube on theirs, and others tried to design some models around them too, but in some models, they didn't.

To be honest, using conical nosed ammo in a following magazine tube, designed for blunt nosed ammo, could be dangerous, and that is why Remington and the others did what they did. They said that there was a chance of that conical point setting off the primer in front of it. The ones designed for the conical ammo, force the bullets point to the outer edge of the rim of the cartridge in front of it, making the ammo stagger or tilt in the tube.
 
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