Lever Guns

[That Guy]

Or a Sako Finnwolf, perhaps?

All of those rifles range from very rare to impossible to find locally, and all have small capacity, extremely difficult to find, extremely expensive magazines. Whereas a rifle with an integrated tubular magazine is a self contained unit, no extra bits required. And if it has a loading gate, the rifle can be topped off after being fired, without messing with detachable magazines.

... It's just that then the ammunition becomes a problem.

(Perhaps I should clarify that I have a perfectly functional left-handed .308 Ruger Scout in my safe. With the laminate stock it's regrettably a bit heavy for a scout, but it's there and it works. And while AR magazines have been a greater priority lately due to legislative issues, I am able to get extra magazines for it easily and relatively inexpensively, thanks to Magpul. But damnit, a lever action rifle is the quintessential cowboy gun, and I want one (or you know, three, or whatever ). Because reasons. Of course, "because reasons" is not something I could write on the firearm purchase permit application, so there's that problem, too...)

[Bigghoss]

I suppose .35 Remington is also hard to get there?

[That Guy]

Never even seen that anywhere. Not once.

[Bigghoss]

Maybe you should just stop liking lever guns.

[That Guy]

So the moral of the story is that when things become difficult, you should just go ahead and quit?

[JHC]

Handy in the extreme out in the woods. I'm sure I'll add an optic. I'm pretty range limited with just the XS peep. But where I hunt, 25 yds is a longish shot so GTG for near term.

Attachment 33129

[HCM]

Handy in the extreme out in the woods. I'm sure I'll add an optic. I'm pretty range limited with just the XS peep. But where I hunt, 25 yds is a longish shot so GTG for near term.

Attachment 33129

Needs a threaded muzzle and a suppressor.

[Clusterfrack]

I've been trying to figure out if an AAC Ti-Rant 9mm will work safely with .357. Anyone have experience with this can on a rifle?

[Bigghoss]

So the moral of the story is that when things become difficult, you should just go ahead and quit?

More like accepting the reality that there is no good solution to your problem.

[willie]

This year I decided to "fix" my 336 in 30-30. It was left to me by my grandfather, so I'm keeping it regardless of it's issues. It was purchased at KMart back in I believe the 70's.

It came to me with the original rings and a fixed KMart brand 4x scope. My first outing trying loads from Remington, Winchester, and Hornady revealed horrible accuracy. Best case was 6 inches at 100 yards, but it appeared to also have a wandering zero. Replacing the mount, scope, and rings solved the wandering zero but still left me with shotgun groups.

I did some reading and disassembled the tube/handguard and found the barrel wasn't properly relieved about 3 inches in front of the receiver for the mag tube. When assemling everything I had to flex the mag tube about 1-2 inches in order to slide the barrel bands over. Using sand paper wrapped around a dowel I removed material until the tube and barrel had clearance with the bands installed. The handguard was also an excessively snug/tight fit which always caused issues on my Garand, so I decided to remove some material from it as well.

I saw a definite improvement across the board, and also found that with Fed Fusion 150s it'll now hold a 2-3 inch group for 5 rounds. The rifle definitely prefers 150s vs the 170s. Still haven't tried the Hornady LE ammo after doing the work, but it wasn't one of the better loads before. I also learned to only keep a few rounds in the tube as the first 2 shots from a full tube tend to go wild.

I think I'll try using the rifle next weekend to take a few deer. I like the small size and light weight, but the poor accuracy has always made me use an AR in the past. If everything goes well I may look into some trigger work and smoothing out the action as both are pretty rough.

I know on the Marlin forums most people seem to think that the old rifles were well made and we'll fitted, but that has not been my experience.

Your observation about undue pressure on lever action rifle barrels and poor accuracy reveals a not uncommon occurrence. Many shooters don't use scopes on 30-30's and some never test their rifle's accuracy so they are unaware. Had Remington not screwed up the manufacture of Marlin lever guns, the nostalgia about them would not be nearly as high. Ditto for their 870 failure.