I have a 1953 model 336 SC Marlin in .35 Remington. Best groups so far, with the 200 grain Remington corelokt in both factory loads and Reloader 7 handloads using 3 different primers, is 2 1/2 to 3 inches. Some groups are larger, to 4 and even 5 inches. All groups were fired from sandbags on a fixed bench at 100 yards. Two different scopes have been tried, set on 7x and 8x, in sturdy, tight mounts. I haven't owned the gun that long so don't know how much better, if any, it might shoot. I've cleaned the barrel thoroughly and it looks pretty good inside and at the muzzle. My two other lever actions shoot much better. I know I should try another powder (probably IMR 3031) and maybe another bullet, but Re 7 and the Rem 200 are proven components. I have the feeling that something on this rifle needs to be "tweaked". Any suggestions? Thanks.

Lossking -

My .35 Rem did best with the 200 gr bullet, 38.0 gr Hodgdon H322 and a CCI 200 primer, using Win. cases. Velocity was averaging 2075 fps (14" T/C bbl) and group sizes in the 1.25" - 1.50" area. With a 2.2" high 100 yd grouping, it is dead on at 150 yds and 9.75" low at 200 yds.

Hi, lossking:
It's usually tight forend wood or the magazine tube. Bench technique can be a factor too. Here's several threads on the subject, some cross-linked. Mine will stay under 1 1/2" if I do my part.
http://www.shootersforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1927&highlight=forend
http://www.shootersforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2018&highlight=forend
http://www.shootersforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4562&highlight=forend

Bye
Jack

Take the forend & magazine off. Shoot with the sandbags or something else soft under the receiver just ahead of the lever, don't hold the front, just use your non-trigger hand to control the rear bag under the buttstock.

Mine goes from fabulous to miserable depending on forend tension. This experiment will tell you for sure if that's the problem. Then all you have to do is figure out how it will shoot best with the rest of the parts installed.... there is no point in wasting more ammo until you check the forend/mag tube issue.

Howdy,
I am new to this board but thought I might be able to give a little thought.

I have a Winchester 30-30 carbine and a 30-30 rifle. (1964 & 1916 resp.)

I have found that my carbine will not shoot heavier bullets, but it will shoot 150gr. Sierra prohunters. It will not shoot any other bullets well accept the Speer 150 is close. I shoot with iron sights and at 100yd. I can hold a 2" group. the Best I have done with the carbine is 1.5"

The rifle will not shoot the lighter bullets and I found that the bore is too loose to shoot cast. (I am still playing with that) But it will shoot the Sierra pro hunter 170 gr. bullet. Now this is a old rifle that was neglected when I got it and I have been playing with it for 2 years off and on. When I first shot it I could barely hit the black. Now it will hold 2.5" pretty consistantly.

My whole point here, is that you may not have to change much to tighten up a group. Simply bullet brand can make a huge difference. Also, I am not so sure that you will hit much better than 1.5" at 100yd with a carbine, even with a scope.

Just for the record, I have also found that all of my rifles that shoot smokeless powder (all 3 of them, hehe) like the IMR 3031.

(I like blackpowder cartridges the most and my M/L second.)

Thanks to all for your thoughts and suggestions. Will experiment some more and will let you know the results. Also, I forgot to mention in my initial post that this rifle has a very heavy trigger which is probably hurting the groups some. The sturdy benchrest and sandbags help offset the hard trigger pull, though. I am going to install a Wild West Guns trigger as soon as I scrape up the $90, if one will fit my early 50s gun. Otherwise, I will have a trigger job done on it. Regards.

I like a good trigger as much as anyone, but I wouldn't be too eager to blame bad groups from a levergun on the trigger pull. I would address other factors first, (in fact, Mike G's post is almost EXACTLY what I was going to suggest! Great minds think alike...:p ) and then once you get the rifle shooting to your satisfaction dink around with the trigger. It's very upsetting to throw good trigger money into a project and then find the darn thing still won't shoot to your satisfaction.

I have a 30-30 on which the trigger pull is heavier than the weight of the rifle, yet just last week I shot a one-hole five shot group at fifty yards, with receiver sight and cast bullets.

Don't give up; I bet that old rifle will shoot, once you find what it's looking for!

If the trigger pull is really heavy, flatten out the trigger return spring just a bit. World of difference, cheaply and helps with the group shooting.

Also, if you can find it, I have found the Federal 200gr. load to be much more accurate than the Remington 200gr. 3-shot groups as small as 3/4" (0.75") at 150 yards with a 7x scope (yes I have pictures!). One box of that stuff could be real educational. Wish I knew what bullet they were using and if it was available as a component.

4 and 5 inch groups aren't caused by the trigger. One last thought, scrub that barrel within an inch of it's life before you go to the range next time. But .... I will bet that taking the forend & mag tube off makes a drastic difference.

And check the crown!

OK guys. will follow your good suggestions. Agree trigger is likely not the culprit. Many thanks for your help.

THis just a thought. I know you said you cleaned the barrel up. IF you have not done so, after your next shooting clean it well with sweets. This is an older rifle and may be copper fouled. The sweets will cut it out. But then you may have already done that.
chris

Thanks for the suggestion, crookedshot. I've already tried cleaning it pretty throughly. Used J B Compound, Birchwood Casey Bore scrubber solvent and finished up with some Sweet's 7.62 just like the directions said. It seemed to help some but the accuracy is still poor.

Actually, after all that, I'm not sure that the bore is completely clean. When I scrub it using the solvent and a bronze brush, the patches come out black no matter how many times I do it. I think that might be the solvent acting on the bronze bristles of the brush as it doesn't happen with a nylon brush. The same thing happens with my other rifles and I know they aren't all dirty.

Anyway, like MikeG suggested, I'm going to scrub the .35 "within an inch of its life" before shooting it again. I would like to get the bore cleaned down to bare metal and see what effect that has. I'll just have to keep eliminating all the possible causes of the large groups until I solve the problem.

Regards to all.

I took a rifle that had years of carbon build up in it and started working on it. Night after night, cleaner, patches, brush, patches, patches, patches......over and over again.

Then I took some hoppies #9, plugged the end of the muzzle and filled the barrel with it. I let it sit for 2 days. It helped, but not enough.

Then I did the same thing with Break Free. That works much better. Still not where I want it but the barrel is starting to mirror now.

I too get nothing but black everytime a run a wet patch. Does not matter if I use Hoppies #9, JB, Break free, Klein all patches come out black. I know there is still carbon in the barrel and I also think it had a poor rebluing job on it and I could be taking some of that out of the barrel as well.

But every time I shoot it, cleaning the barrel while it is hot makes a huge difference in what I can get out of it. I am sure once it is as clean as I want it, my castings will have to change and the accuracy should get better, but it might not. It might get worse until I find the right bullet combination to match my newly cleaned barrel.;)

OH, one more note,

I do not get balck patches on any of my other rifles. A few patches, Brush and a few more patches and the patches are clean. So I do not know why you would get black patches unless the barrel is dirty.

JB will turn patches black too. it is a bore polish and made to help fill in pitting etc...So If your barrel has pits and the JB is in the barrel, maybe this is the black that you are seeing.:confused:

A .35 Rem probably does not have severe carbon fouling like a fast varmit rifle could. But - there could be a fair amount of copper down in the grooves, mixed with other odds and ends.

So, I recommend the following:

1. Scrub with a NEW brush, wet with a typical solvent (say Hoppe's), NOT copper solvent. Give it 10 or 20 strokes.

2. Couple of dry patches through the barrel. They will be filty, but some of this is the brush.

3. Couple of wet patches - but not solvent. Rubbing alcohol or something that will degrease the barrel. If you don't like the ideal of rubbing alcohol, then take it outside, and squirt some brake cleaner down the bore and let it run out and evaporate. I use denatured (99%) alcohol.

4. Now, wet a patch with some Sweet's or Barnes CR10. Push patch through barrel. When you get to the muzzle, add a little more solvent with a dropper or the like. I hold the gun upright, then put a little puddle of solvent in the end of the barrel with the patch about a quarter inch back from the muzzle. Pull patch out of barrel while keeping it vertical, then stand it muzzle-down on a rag or towel. The idea is to make sure the bore has no grease or oil, then completely coat it with copper solvent.

5. Let soak per the instructions on the bottle, then run a dry patch through. If it is green/blue, repeat process! If not, you do not have copper fouling.

Alternating the brush and copper solvent will help get fouling out that is in layers, that is, copper mixed with powder fouling and lead.

Note that by using a brush, you WILL always get some black gunk. The brush does wear quite a bit. Easy enough to prove, measure the diameter of the brush with a caliper before you start and after you are done. By the time you are done it will probaby be groove diameter, if not less.

Rinse brush off when done with HOT water. If overly worn, 'recycle' to the next smaller bore size (.35 to .338, .338 to .30, etc.). Or use to clean case necks.

If you are just going through endless cycles of the above, a patch wrapped around an udersized brush and coated with JB, or the Rem bore cleaner, will help speed the process.

Recognize that the copper solvents are typically water-based. Naturally, you will need to put some oil in the bore after using them.

Once you get the gun completely - and I mean completely - clean, you won't have to go through this circus each time. But it can really try your patience the first time you clean one.

Also, if this stretches over several days, leave Hoppe's in the barrel overnight, as it will prevent rust (says so right on the bottle).

If the gun continues to foul, then lap it, don't put up with the aggravation. The .35 Rem is easy, use .38/.357 wadcutters, and 3 grains of Bullseye. Marshall has lapping compound. 20 rounds of lapping bullets will do a rifle bore wonderrs.

Hi, Gents:
A couple of points. Generally .35 Remington barrels runs over .358". Hatcher's Notebook says that .359" was the original spec, so a new brush or a .375 brush is necessary.
http://www.beartoothbullets.com/faq/extras/marlindia.htm

Sweet's will rust your barrel if it's left in too long. The first bottles didn't have a warning about this, and I learned the hard way. I prefer Hoppes Benchrest, so I don't have to babysit the rifle.

As Mike says, you can have layers of carbon and copper. Always brush or use JB after the patches stop coming out green. Then run another couple of patches with copper solvent. The first one after a brush will be green from the copper in the brush. The second one tells the story.

A really tight patch acts as a squeegee when you're applying copper solvent. Use a loose one.

Now if I can get a connection with my haywire ISP...:mad:

Bye
Jack

This weekend the cleaning gear gets unleashed. I'm gonna see what comes out of that barrel, and I'll bet its still got a lot left in it from over the years. I might also install a Wild West Guns Trigger Happy Kit. I agree the very heavy factory trigger is probably not the cause of the poor accuracy, but it certainly isn't helping. Then, I need to remove the forearm and magazine tube and shoot again, maybe with some Remington and Federal stuff and some more handloads, too. I'll figure that sucker out eventually. Will post again later. Thanks to everyone who replied for your good suggestions.

Don't make too many changes all at once or you will not know what the problem was. Have fun. FYI-I hit the range tomorrow morning:D

Ten-four, Levergun. Enjoy your shoot tomorrow.

Thanks Pard,
If I shoot a group, I'll post a pic.:)

Well, I spent several hours last weekend cleaning the bore of the old 336, and it is much cleaner. However, while I'm not seeing any copper fouling now, there still seems to be some powder fouling. I just can't seem to get it all out. No matter how much I try, there is still some black showing on the patches. I hit it with J B Compound once to start with, then ran some Iosso Bore Paste through two or three times. I then swabbed with Sweet's 7.62 a couple times and no blue showed on the patches. I finished up with Hoppe's No. 9, brushing with a bronze brush and finishing up with some patches but the last patch always showed some black. So, I ordered a chamber plug from Midway and when it arrives, I will soak the bore overnight with No. 9 and will see if that will help.
When it's as clean as it will get, I'll return to the range with Federal, Remington and Winchester cartridges. I'll remove the forearm and magazine tube and shoot again. If it still won't group decently, I'll have to think about recrowning or even rebarreling. Will keep you posted. Regards to all.

Take the forend & magazine off. Shoot with the sandbags or something else soft under the receiver just ahead of the lever, don't hold the front, just use your non-trigger hand to control the rear bag under the buttstock.

Mine goes from fabulous to miserable depending on forend tension. This experiment will tell you for sure if that's the problem. Then all you have to do is figure out how it will shoot best with the rest of the parts installed.... there is no point in wasting more ammo until you check the forend/mag tube issue.

Mike, I tried to take the forarm and mag off but I found I did not know how or it is stuck. This is a new gun and I have not tore it down yet. I have the instructions for the action and trigger group but what is holding the forearm and mag on. I removed the front barrel band screw and the screw on the forearm cap. I loosened the screw on the underside of the receiver but did not remove it. The mag moves in and out a little on the spring but does not come out. Do I have to take the whole thing apart to get these off or what?

Thanks ahead of time.

Chief,

There have been a variety of mounting systems used by Marlin so first rule is don't force anything.

I would suspect that the forend is jammed back into the receiver. Once you have all of the barrel bands off, the mag tube should slide right off (normally it shoots off across the room).

The mag tube may be binding on the forend. Wiggle the forend around a bit as you pull on the mag tube. As far as I know, neither the mag tube nor the forend is attached at the receiver, but there could be some variations that I am not familiar with.

Once the mag tube is out, and the barrel bands are off, then nothing else should be holding the forend on.

Good luck.... if this doesn't work then hope someone else has suggestions.

I have a 1953 model 336 SC Marlin in .35 Remington. Best groups so far, with the 200 grain Remington corelokt in both factory loads and Reloader 7 handloads using 3 different primers, is 2 1/2 to 3 inches. Some groups are larger, to 4 and even 5 inches. All groups were fired from sandbags on a fixed bench at 100 yards. Two different scopes have been tried, set on 7x and 8x, in sturdy, tight mounts. I haven't owned the gun that long so don't know how much better, if any, it might shoot. I've cleaned the barrel thoroughly and it looks pretty good inside and at the muzzle. My two other lever actions shoot much better. I know I should try another powder (probably IMR 3031) and maybe another bullet, but Re 7 and the Rem 200 are proven components. I have the feeling that something on this rifle needs to be "tweaked". Any suggestions? Thanks.
Lossking,
Just gotta know. Did you get this rifle shooting straight?

Lossking,
Just gotta know. Did you get this rifle shooting straight?
Well, sort of, crookedshot. I got a chamber plug and soaked the bore overnight with solvent, then cleaned it about as good as I can. I tightened the stock screw, and snugged up the magazine tube screw and forend nosecap screws. Then, I bought a box each of Federal, Remington and Winchester 200 grain loads and went to the range a couple weeks ago. Shooting three shot groups, the Federal and Remington grouped poorly but, much to my delight, the Winchester loads did well. I got one 1/2" group, a fluke to be sure, two 1 1/2" groups and one 2 1/2" group. Two shots in the largest group were within 1 1/2", but a flier opened it up to 2 1/2". So, I was pleased with those groups, which are an improvement and good enough for hunting. However, I'm not done yet. I bought a Wild West Happy Trigger and will install it shortly. It might help a little. I also plan to experiment with the forend, mag tube and screws, and might shoot one day with them completely removed to see what effect that has. Finally, after hunting season, I'll spend some time on various handloads for this rifle. So, to answer your question, I'm on the way, but I'm not there yet. This rifle shows some potential, though, and working with it will be a labor of love. Thanks for asking. Regards to you and all.

Lossking,
I do not remember if you told us if you were using a scope. I think those types of groups at 100 yards without a scope it pretty good. Even if you hand load I do not think you will tighten that up.

Lossking,
I do not remember if you told us if you were using a scope. I think those types of groups at 100 yards without a scope it pretty good. Even if you hand load I do not think you will tighten that up.
Roger that. Yes, I used a 2x7 Redfield. My eyes alone aren't good enough for 2 1/2" groups anymore.

Well I am still fortunate enough to be able to see and shoot those groups. But I do know that If I did not load my own, my rifle would not shoot that. Especially With the older rifles, I need to reload to see what the rifle will shoot. The bore ain't the same as when it was knew. Hehehe

I do believe you can reduce your groups by lightening the trigger, it is an awful fact that some marlins do have a real bad trigger. I have recently purchased a 336A 32 special, that had around a 10# pull, it is now down to 2.5 lbs. I am a tool and die maker and have a working knowledge of trigger sears and causes of hard pull on the marlins. #1 is the hammer spring, remove the stock and look at the retainer and see if the rifle has a second notch for this retainer if so put it in the rearward notch and try it. If it does not have this notch, remove the hammer and rotate the guide rod to the upper position in the hammer, with a lead pencil mark the guide rod and leave 1/32 to 1/16 of excess between that mark and the hammer, now grind off the excess making sure you have that excess or the hammer spring will prevent you from cocking the gun. This will relieve the hammer spring tension and give you a lighter trigger pull. While you have all this out of the way you can also lighten the trigger spring by gently bending it up until you feel it give if you go to far you can bend it back. Now if you feel confident in your self to do this remove the lower half and the trigger from it. Look at the sear engagement and reduce the width by at least half, this will reduce the amount to pressure needed to pull it away from the hammer. These mods will greatly reduce the trigger pull, if for some reason the gun does not fire you can use a #10 washer to shim the tension up even back to the original amt. My 32 did not like this at first and I tracked that down to the two piece firing pin which I jig welded into a one piece. Now it goes bang every time with a real light trigger and reduced hammer spring. NOW FOR THE NOT FAINT OF HEART, REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF SEAR ENGAGEMENT ON THE SEAR AND THE HAMMER. THIS GETS RID OF THE CREEP, A LITTLE TOO MUCH AND YOU'LL BE RECUTTING THE SEAR, DON'T DO THIS IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE NOT CAPABLE. YOU CAN GET A VERY HAIR TRIGGER WITH THIS MODIFICATION. ANOTHER MOD IS MARK AND MEASURE THE AMOUNT OF OVERTRAVEL YOU HAVE WHEN COCKING THE GUN AND MARK THE HAMMER, WHILE YOU HAVE IT OUT GRIND A BUNCH OF THE EXCESS OFF. (I do this with a die grinder while the gun is together, this mod makes the rifle easier to cycle the action) While you have the gun apart stone and polish every wear surface that you can spot, plus these ones. The area between the trigger and the lever where the lever lock detent rides when opening and closing the lever, the carrier where it rubs against the next cartridge to go in, all the screws where the hammer, lever, and carrier ride on. The trigger pin, lightly grease all with a graphite lube such as recommended for locks. All of these mods just make that old marlin a real pleasure to shoot. All the stoning makes the action slick and easier to cycle.If for some reason you feel uncomfortable doing these mods the trigger can be lightened by buying the happy trigger from wildwestguns.com they also have a one piece firing pin and ejector. You can also get a spring kit for the marlin leverguns that greatly reduces the amount of hammer pull and in turn the amount of pressure needed to pull the trigger. Now that I have put in my $10 worth, guess I should tell you I like making some of these old marlins into shooters, and they are a pleasure to shoot once you get a decent trigger pull and action job on them. All in all I guess this subject did start out trying to reduce some groups, so I'll give another opinion, BLC#2 works on the 35, as well as 158gn pistol bullets. Take care and have fun. Hope I have helped. Swany

Now that was a good read Swany. Now I know why the sear on my Winchester is shaped the way it is. Looks like a chunk chiped off, but its too square and even a missing piece for that.

Now that was a good read Swany. Now I know why the sear on my Winchester is shaped the way it is. Looks like a chunk chiped off, but its too square and even a missing piece for that.
Good stuff, swany. Too bad I already bought a Wild West trigger for the 336SC. The factory triggers on my 336A and 1895 are OK as is. Think I'll keep a copy for future acquisitions. Thanks.

lossking.

Did you ever get any results from installing the Happy Trigger. I was reviewing old posts and saw this one.