Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions 219 zipper

i recently pick up a marlin 336 in 219 zipper. the older gent that i bought it from said he had owned it sence the 60's. but it has no roll stamp on the barrel or sight holes. it does have the owl eye in the but stock. is there any way to trace the serial no. to find out if it is a true zipper. its a neat little rifle

It has no roll stamp on the barrel or sight holes. Is there any way to trace the serial no. to find out if it is a true zipper? its a neat little rifle

With no roll stamp or sight holes, I would almost be certain the barrel is aftermarket. The serial # will indicate YOM. The serial range may contain production of zippers. Sounds like a nice rifle.

the serial no. starts with a t and is only four digits is there a web site or reference that i can use to trace those no.s?

MB, The "T" indicates that your rifle was made in 1960. The .219 Zipper was officially discontinued in 1959. One way to see if your gun's barrel is original or not is to simply look down the bore. All .219 Zippers by Marlin had Micro-groove rifling. If your gun's barrel has standard rifling, with perhaps just 6 grooves or so, it is not a Marlin barrel. Also, the Marlin .219 Zippers suffered from poor accuracy and short barrel life, probably because of the micro-groove rifling. If your gun has a barrel with standard rifling you should find it to be more accurate than the guns with factory barrels. And, just incase you'd like to know, Marlin made only 3,230 of the .219 Zippers, all Model 336 Sporting Carbines and about 10 of those were the Deluxe Carbines. This information is found in Bill Brophy's fine book, Marlin Firearms.

thanks for the info. i'll look this evening to check the rifling. the more i think about it the barrel is probably a replacement because theres a small gap on each side of the forestock and barrel. and it looks to be a smaller profile. havent shot it because i dont have any forming dies. it also has a short magazine and around a 20" barrel.

I have an original U prefix Zipper made in 1960.They were all rollstamped as far as I have ever seen or heard.They also will have the JM trademark stamped on the barrel near the reciever and they were all microgroove barrels.The later production rifles have bull barrels.I found with reloads it is very accurate as I have shot 1" groups at 100 yards a number of times.You dont need forming dies.I buy new 25-35 brass,trim it down to size and run it thru the 219 sizer die.No problems.So far the best powder I have found is IMR4320 and I use a Sierra 60gr HP.You may have to retrim the cases after every firing for a few time until things settle into place.In any case,I hope you enjoy the rifle.A fun caliber to mess with.

You can usually get reformed .30-30 brass at Buffalo arms (expensive.) Winchester usually does a run of .25-35 brass once a year. Levergunz speaks true. No forming dies needed for .25-35s. 4320 will give you the best velocity, H 4895 and Remington 55 Grain PLHPs may yield a little better accuracy. My zipper is the bull barrel, used little, and does rather well accuracy wise, I just can't shoot anything quite as well as I used to. Mine is an R prefix from 57-58. If yours has been re-barreled, they might have shot out an original Zipper and went back with a smaller diameter tube, thus the room around the forend.