Load development with the .357 Remlin

[mr smith]

I tweeked my loading gate spring only to have it break while loading up for the first course of fire at the home countries national match.The replacement I've left as is.

Sounds like metal fatigue. You aren't aiming to bounce the spring that much but to bend it slightly to decrease the excessive closing pressure they all have out of the box.

Yes undoubtedly I've seen a few other let go but I reckon the tweek accelerated it.Currently having no loading problems with the new one so have left it as is.

[mr smith]

I removed and then polished the load gate, removed all of the sharp edges and carefully removed any instructions on the front inner edge of the load port with a diamond needle file, apart from that I have left it alone and it is a marked improvement over standard.

That's a good point, can't believe I didn't think of this either.

Did you polish the underside of the carrier at all? This should prevent any potential problem of the "Marlin jam." I put some marker on the bearing surfaces of the carrier and cycled around 50 dummy rounds through the rifle. Any surfaces without marker I polished with a fine emery cloth. Now the action is very slick, but I still need to figure out the loading gate and eliminating the trigger flop and I'll be a happy gopher.

Wild West guns trigger happy kit is a very worthwhile mod which transforms the trigger. http://marlinspares.com/products/wild-w ... happy-kit/

A worthwhile upgrade then?
Hoping to head over to the states next year and was thinking about trying to pick one up.

[Airbrush]

Wild West guns trigger happy kit is a very worthwhile mod which transforms the trigger. http://marlinspares.com/products/wild-w ... happy-kit/[/quote]

A worthwhile upgrade then?
Hoping to head over to the states next year and was thinking about trying to pick one up.[/quote]

Yep, removes the Marlin trigger wobble & gives a much better trigger pull.

[ovenpaa]

That's a good point, can't believe I didn't think of this either.

Did you polish the underside of the carrier at all? This should prevent any potential problem of the "Marlin jam." I put some marker on the bearing surfaces of the carrier and cycled around 50 dummy rounds through the rifle. Any surfaces without marker I polished with a fine emery cloth. Now the action is very slick, but I still need to figure out the loading gate and eliminating the trigger flop and I'll be a happy gopher.

I use a very fine Scotchbrite wheel on one of my polishing stations, it both polishes and removes metal and is ideal for blending edges and removing burrs on less critical items. It is no substitute for a stone, diamond paste or fine diamond file however it does the job and makes a significant difference. We use these techniques amongst others to smooth Marlin and Winchester moving parts.

[Sim G]

Frankly the "Remlin is inferior" line of thought is complete pony.

Frankly, you are wrong. Marlins produced at the Ilion plant, after the inventory of New Haven parts had been used up, till mid 2015, have been varying degrees of appalling. The Marlin Collectors Association and a number of other US sites and forums have shown rifles that have been poorly finished, furniture to metal fit so sloppy that recoil has resulted in splits. Barrel threads incorrectly cut which has misaligned with the receivers, dovetails for sights cut that rear and foresights cannot be indexed, front sight ramps braised on to barrels crooked, incorrectly milled receivers that either lock up or wiggle the carrier/bolt/locking block and there have been some rifles actually delivered to stores with the barrels not being rifled! The list is almost endless.

As the importer has now also changed because of the takeover, customer service is not a strong point of the new importer. Either with Marlins of their parent Remington rifles. Even though newly produced rifles are far, far better now, given our market, it will be a considerable time before we get them in this country.

[Sim G]

The loading gate is a bit stuff on my rifle, I find it quicker to load a round in but not fully, so that the leading gate remains open. Give it a go, see how it feels.

It's supposed to be stiff. The method you describe is exactly what the recommended procedure gas been since Oliver Winchester and Henry Tyler introduced the model of 1866! The round loaded is caught on the rim by the gate against the loading aperture, with the bullet of the following round pushing the preceding into the mag tube.

If a loading gate spring is bent of even allowed to get loose, potentially it can foul against and lock up the carrier.

[Sim G]

Did you polish the underside of the carrier at all? This should prevent any potential problem of the "Marlin jam."

That is only part of the job to prevent the problem, in fact the carrier ramp only needs to be ground and polished if a "notch" has been cut into it by the cam. This cam is on the loading lever and has a very sharp edge at the front, which needs to be radiused. Then the third part of the "fix" is to heat the stem of the carrier till red and bend the nose of the carrier up by around 5 thou of an inch. This will compensate for the metal removal from the carrier ramp and ensure that the carrier is timed correctly so that cartridges are released from the mag tube when the carrier is in the right position.

[Alpha1]

As I said earlier I have no experience with Marlins or any of the other make of underlever rifle. The only underlevers I have ever owned/own are Winchesters. If the Marlins are so bad why do people keep buying them.

[Countryman]

Frankly the "Remlin is inferior" line of thought is complete pony.

Frankly, you are wrong. Marlins produced at the Ilion plant, after the inventory of New Haven parts had been used up, till mid 2015, have been varying degrees of appalling. The Marlin Collectors Association and a number of other US sites and forums have shown rifles that have been poorly finished, furniture to metal fit so sloppy that recoil has resulted in splits. Barrel threads incorrectly cut which has misaligned with the receivers, dovetails for sights cut that rear and foresights cannot be indexed, front sight ramps braised on to barrels crooked, incorrectly milled receivers that either lock up or wiggle the carrier/bolt/locking block and there have been some rifles actually delivered to stores with the barrels not being rifled! The list is almost endless.

As the importer has now also changed because of the takeover, customer service is not a strong point of the new importer. Either with Marlins of their parent Remington rifles. Even though newly produced rifles are far, far better now, given our market, it will be a considerable time before we get them in this country.

Can only tell you what I see first hand, I am not a member of the Marlin forum, just a club that does a lot of Gallery with new members buying Marlins.

As I said

My gun bad
Bad bits replaced under warranty by Edgar's
My gun good now
Guns bought in last few months all good.

Can't imagine all those bad guns being shipped to UK for the owners to stoically sit on their faults so they can stitch up the unsuspecting purchaser.

[ovenpaa]

Obviously there are some good Remlins floating around as the Vikings .357 is a cracking rifle and superbly accurate.