a old marlin bolt action 22 lr

I have a old marlin bolt action tube fed 22 lr coming in a trade, not sure of the model. I don't have much in it. The guy I'm getting it from said is does't shoot very well, functions but not very accurate. He was using for a kids plinker. I told him a kids plinker should be accurate otherwise give them a pack of firecrackers.

I'm going to see if I can get it shooting accurately.
I'm going to make sure the crown is proper, clean the barrel and remove any leading, maybe float the barrel, check the chamber, check the feed from the tube magazine into the chamber. Maybe headspace, maybe the bolt needs shimming. Not sure on a marlin.

any other thoughts?

It's a tough job ti shot out the barrel on a 22. Might have some excessive leading, corrosion, and a dinged crown. All things you already considered.

Alan

I picked the rifle up today. It's a marlin 81 DL. Haven't shot it yet. The crown looks weird, it's not symmetrical. The bore looks very dirty, can't even see the rifling. Anyhoo off to another project. I do get these project done but there are many coming and going.

Sounds like a crown re-do or counter bore, a good scrubbing and you'll have a serviceable 22 lr.

Alan

I shot the rifle some, not at targets yet. It did not function very well. Needed to be cleaned in the worse way, everything was stiff. It's functioning better now but it has a failure to extract every few rounds. I noticed the extractors on the bolt have different tension. The lh extractor has a stiffer tension than the rh extractor. I think the spring may be weak. Numrich has springs for sale and the lh and rh are the same spring. For 3 bucks I 'll probably try a new spring.

First thing I would do is strip it and sink it in a barrel of diesel fuel for a couple of days. Spray it out, blow it out scrape it off.

I got a real good mess of copper remover that also strips out lead from Midway last winter. The stuff put life back into a nearly dead .303 barrel so I am sure it would do a good job on a .22 barrel. Just be sure and use it outside, black and green crap is going to run everywhere when you let it soak.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/78...t-5-oz-aerosol

Then cut an inch off the muzzle and put a new crown on it. That rifle was cleaned from the muzzle and the crown and some of the rifling at the end of the barrel is probably gone.

Old Marlins have bad shell lifters most of the time. If you are ordering from Numrich might as well pick one of those up too. That is probably a big part of the functioning problem.

Check the Ejector also. In that gun it probably doubles as the firing pin so a new one of those can't hurt either. Many times it is not that the shell is not removed from the chamber but that it is not ejected properly to clear it away. that is what causes the double feeds, jams and empty shell left in the chamber. The old Baretta Minx did not even have an extractor. Blow-back .22 rifles should not really need one.

Only thing you can do with an old tube feed as far as bedding goes is to pillar bed the front and back of the action and the stock bolt that holds the whole thing in place in the stock.

Those old rifles will have sloppy chambers to help with ease of functioning so there will be no help for that and it makes squaring up the bolt face and playing with head space a waste of time too, as long as the cartridge does not sink too far into the shell recess in the bolt face.

I have seen chambers on the famed Ruger 10/22 that were oversized in every direction and the chamber cut an extra 1/4" into the bore. You could almost chamber a .22 magnum in them and they don't shoot worth crap in that condition. The barrel in my 10/22 right now has been shortened .130" from the breach end.

After all that then try about a dozen different brands of ammo off the sandbags with a good scope mounted, even if you are going to shoot it open sights latter. You need to know the exact potential of the rifle.

Our local club used to have a junk .22 target class. No rifle worth more than $100 (including scope) allowed. If you won a match anyone at the shoot could buy your rifle for $100 and their rifle in trade. If you refused to sell you lost your match points for that shoot. That kept people from dumping a ton of money into their rifles and buying a win.

It was all know how, hand tuning, JB Weld, Bondo and spray paint. Ugliest bunch of hardware you ever saw!

Still, some of those guys could make an old Marlin 60 hit golf balls at 100 yards.

thanks for the replys. I have 50 dollars in this rifle so dropping a bit more is ok. I have some of that bore cleaner you posted about awhile back and I'll give that a try too.

I still have the last old Stevens semi-auto .22 I put through the rework process. I think it was a Walmart special from back in the 1970s when they sold for $29.95. It is a rough old rifle and does not always cycle as it should but usually it does and when it does it is accurate to the tune of about one inch at 50 yards.

Those old rifles are the Mosin Nagants of the .22 world. You clean them up and work the trigger and bedding over and check the crown and before you know it you are shooting way smaller groups than you expected. You may have to carry a piece of 2x4 around to knock the bolt open, but they shoot.

I ordered up 40 dollars worth of parts from Numrich. I'll see where those will take me. I like the idea of cutting a inch off then barrel. It has a tube magazine, shouldn't be to much of a job to shorten.

here is a photo of the rifle

https://i.imgur.com/f8Cuc5Ul.jpg

Pretty little thing!

Did you ever get it to shooting straight?

Alan

That is a nice rifle. I like that and I'm not a fan of tube fed .22s.

Randy if you shorten that barrel and decide to shorten the mag tube check to see if the mag tube fits into a socket in the receiver. It might be a simple matter of cutting the tube at the receiver end and sliding it back in place. The follower and spring will ever know they have been modified.

Looks like you might have to remove the front sight and reattach it too.

Looks like a good day of work for when the snow is deep and the wind howls.

Now me in my own little world would attach a 6-24x scope and set it down on sandbags to see what it could do before doing any permanent mutilation to the suspect itself. I have discovered, over the years, that most .22 maladies are due to bad shooting or bad sights, with the occasional bad trigger, bad crown or bent barrel thrown in for spice. All of those things can be fixed, usually, except for the ego of the bad shooter.

I bet after the barrel is cleaned up it will be a good shooter without doing anything to it.

That's what I think I'll do, see how it shoots first. I'll need to put a scope mount on it to try a scope though. The tube won't need to be shortened if a inch is taken off the barrel, that is good. The bore looks really good but looks can be deceiving.

If the top of that receiver is not grooved for a scope then it is an old one!

I figure the same, no grooves.