Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions HELP - 336 / 35 rem trouble problems

I have a 336-35 rem I picked up used a couple years ago and it shoots well, but occasionally it fails to fire. Typically I re-cock and it fires. This is normally on the bench and with remington 200 grain CL. Not sure if it is caused by not working the action with extra zest while standing.
Yesterday I am sighting it in with hornady LE ammo hoping it was a bad box of rem. It would more-often-than-not fire the hornady LE even after re-cocking and actually the trigger wouldn't move even after squeezing the lever tight to the grip. Working the action firmly didn't seem to improve things with either ammo brand. The problem was worse with the H-LE than the remington.
So where should I start trouble shooting? How much money at the gunsmith typically? I gave the rifle one heck of a cleaning last year that improved the mis-fires, but it still happens on the bench.
Ideas?
H

You might want to try here:

http://www.marlinowners.com/forums/

Pretty much the cream of the crop on marlin leveractions.

I had to repaced a broken firing pin on a 336. The first range trip after replacement the rifle shot 1 out of 3 loads. My load were with the CCI bench rest primer. I pulled the bullets and reloaded with the WLR primer (a softer cup) and it stopped.

If you have a old Marlin 336 I would remove the bolt body from the action apply some oil to the firing pin body.

Doc

Maybe its time for a new hammer mainspring? Anyone changed one of these out? I wouldn't imagine it being that hard. I think they are $8 from Brownells.

I had this same thing happen twice.Both times it was a broken firing pin.Marlin uses a two piece pin.

It's not unheard of in the Marlin 336 in .35 Rem. I have one that does the same thing. Someone else also had one and he finally traced it to long headspace.

hammer spring had a gun smith pressue test 10 and put the strongest in and it shots fine now