My point is that Marlin's rifles were not always that "good". I do have a 35 Remington model that I picked up that may be ok. I have not tried it out. The first one I had was sent to a gunsmith and he had a lot of work on his hands to make it right. The model 57 I had was filled with issues. trigger pull that was off the charts, powder being blown back into the shooters face etc.. This 30-30 lever action with the tube sliding out due to a weak cross pin (not the screw you want to keep bringing up)The screw has nothing to do with the tube sliding back. There is no screw into the barrel on my 35 Remington and there wasn't on the previous one. The barrel was not changed out. I through that out sarcasm. It is amazing to me that you will continue to try to make an issue out of this screw, when the problem was the tube sliding out. I replaced the weak cross pin with a larger one that Marlin evidently figured out the rifle needed.
It's not that I hate pre-Remington Marlins. It's that their quality (pre Remington Marlins) were all over the map. I blame this on individuals working on these rifles with little engineering support and drawings. A good builder built nice rifles. New or slack or maybe Friday builds were not so great.
Remington has straightened out these variations by providing drawings and standards. If there's issues with workmanship, it will have nothing to do with the workings of the rifle, but it will have to do with two things:
1. individuals building the rifle not paying attention to quality finish
2. lack of management review of quality work.
I believe that these too have been addressed, but on this I may be wrong. I don't think so though.
I hope you get over your 'screw' theory
