So I sold my Marlin 375 and bought a brand spankin' new Marlin 1895G in 45-70. Arrived with a non-folding, folding rear sight and a plug screw that was horribly cross threaded. Marlin sent me a new rear sight, so that fixed that, it folds out of the way now. I drilled and re-tapped the plug screw (8-40, if anyone needs to know) and THAT turned out perfectly, although I don't know why E-Z-Outs have the name that they do, they should be called; "Screw You, I'ma 'bout to break" outs, but that's another story.

So I finally get her to the range and the trigger that I sorta thought felt rough, really felt bad while trying to sight her in. Trigger Happy trigger set on the way from Brownells. Okay, I understand that Remlin can't be bothered with fitting or QA or non-value-added tripe such as any of that, but...

Now to my latest problem: With Winchester 325 Gr Ballistic Silvertips, or Privi-Partisan 405's, I can't seem to get a smooth cycle on this thing, the round starts into the chamber mouth and the rear starts up against the bolt face, and then everything just kind of grinds to an abrupt halt. If I cycle it what I think of as "hard and fast", either round will go most times.

It puts a sharp cut line in the brass just below the crimp, about a quarter to 3/8" down, about 3/8" wide. Man, I hate to stand slap in the middle of Marlin country and bitch about their product, but... this gun's been a challenge!

Okay, so I guess I'll consider this a project gun, can anyone suggest what might be going on with the feed cycle and tell me if it's something I can tweak on? A reference, You Tube, anything? In spite of all, more than anything, I'd like to get her running right and shoot her, she's accurate enough to like.

Here's a place to start:

http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/do-yourself-gunsmithing/

It's a very good forum for Marlin things. And if you join and ask for help you'll likely get much info.

Since it's a new Marlin you might contact Marlin for warranty work.
This thread may be useful also:

http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/marlin-rant-forum/

If Marlin couldn't be bothered the first time, the last choice for me would be to send it back to them. I'll check the links you have provided though, and thanks!

g5m, that first link you provided will almost surely do the trick, once I quit reading all of the neat info and actually get to tweaking on this, thanks again!

Glad I could try to help.
It's a good forum.

I'm almost certain that the extractor is inhibiting the cartridge rim to slide up the breech face. They say to tweak it with a small screwdriver blade to slightly loosen it up. I may polish a little on the bottom inside of the claw as well, just as you would with a 1911 extractor. From the looks of the bind, that is where the problem is. I'll wait until my trigger gets here and do all at once.

You likely have a razor sharp edge on the bottom of your chamber mouth. No amount of extractor tuning will make it really feed smooth and not scratch the heck out of your brass.

The real remedy is to pull the barrel and put a small feed ramp like a 1911 on the bottom of the barrel with a rotary tool and a stone followed by a mirror polish with a Cratex wheel. Of course this is outside the scope of DIY guys unless you have a barrel vise and an action wrench.

After thats done the extractor should be tuned like you talked about and if the timing is right it'll feed nice and smooth.

I have almost ten years behind me working in a Marlin service center and this is VERY common with the newer guns. The pointed bullets in the LE ammo don't help matters either as the lack of a big round nose steepens the angle of the cartridge as it enters the chamber. Whereas a blunt RN bullet helps the round more or less teeter totter into a level position to slide into the chamber.
Good luck

Would you happen to have any photos of the ramps?

Rem/Lin........thought they had the bugs worked out by now....

Before.
After.

Ahh, I see what you are saying, kid. Is there any way to just break the sharp edge on the lower 1/3rd of the chamber with it installed? I should add that I don't care too much if my brass is scratched, as long as it chambers smoothly.

Thanks. That gives a good view of the change.

If you take the bottom tang off and all the guts out you may be able to get at it with some emery paper wrapped around a pencil or something like that. It would be worth a shot as long as you don't get crazy wallowing out the bottom of the chamber or drastically altering the chamber mouth.

Why in the hell would you sell a .375?

Because I didn't want to handload for it and I didn't want to pay collector prices for shooting ammo...

Okay, so I got my Trigger Happy trigger in Friday, and installed today. Better. Truthfully, not "world class", but better). I also "broke the edge" of the lower half of the chamber mouth with a little dab of Flitz on a felt bullet wheel set out as long as I could on my Dremel, that made me even happier! That, along with a good cleaning and lube, and a tweak on the extractor spring, seems to have cured my feeding problem. I haven't shot it yet, to make sure that extraction is still positive, but it cycles good just hand cycling, so I am hopeful. We'll see. Thanks to all who have offered a word or two of advice, I appreciate it.

Well, now that the gun is fixed, does anybody have much experience with the Winchester Ballistic Silvertip 300 gr in the field? Okay for both deer and black bear?

I've never used the Winchester offering on anything but have experience with the LE stuff from Hornady. Deer and Black bears are both pretty lightly constructed critters and I don't see you having a problem with just about any bullet from the 45/70 working on them. I know the Hornady LE stuff will shed jackets and pretty close to ruin a bear rug at close range.

I would have traded you a JM 1895g for that 375.
glad you worked the kinks out of the remlin.

Never buy Rem/Lins, look for good used real Marlin. I'll never sell my 1895XLR 45/70. Dave