Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Bubba'd Up 336! My 2nd Attempt at Gunsmithery

Hi,

I am nearing the end of my project Marlin 336, 30-30. It started as a pawn shop find for $150.00 and has had quite a cosmetic and functional transformation. I first tried working over a really beat up Remington Model 39 single shot .22 , made this;



Into This;




I was pretty happy with the results so I dove right in and started another. I started out by buying a cheap Ram-Line stock and fitting a decent recoil pad to it. I also filled the large void in the buttstock with expanding foam. I textured the fore end and grip of the buttstock with epoxy and filler, finally painting it with a "textured" type finish. It greatly improves the looks of the plastic Ram-Line stock as purchased. I also cut the barrel down to 16.25", re-crowned with recess and silver soldered a NECG banded ramp sight onto the new tube length. I like the way it looks on the lever gun, hope you do too! I have the rear peep sight on order and along with a Burris "Short Mag" IER scope on a Scout Mount with Talley QD rings I will have redundant sights appropriate for the caliber, 30-30 of course. Why mess with a classic? Laugh! I did a complete action job from barrel lap & polish to trigger job, it breaks cleanly at exactly 2 lbs.

It was a 1974 built gun so it really had a decent trigger when I started. All of the bearing internals were hand stoned and polished where appropriate. I even lapped the magazine tube for smooth operation. The mag tube was cut down to 13.5" and the capacity is now 4 plus 1 instead of 6 plus 1.

The little gun points and balances very very well. It is really light and should make a great truck or boat gun. I degreased everything including the screws, 40PSI of aluminum oxide and matte stainless steel Gun Kote baked on at 310 deg for an hour with a Mil-Tec lube bath afterwards gives it a tough, glare free industrial finish that requires little care in the field.

This should be a nice little deer or hog rifle. I cant wait to finish up my Marlin 45-70 GG in a similar fashion. I did have Bob Cogan put his industrial matte chrome on it. He is the master of this finish and it will serve me well on Kodiak , Afognak and Raspberry Islands in Alaska where I often hunt. I have always been a shooter but have really enjoyed these little gunsmithing projects.

I plan on customizing my .45 LC Bisley next. Enough chatter, here are the pictures of my beginner efforts in making a great gun even better

Started with this;



Here are the results so far;








[img]http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp109/Tractorshaft/336_RH_WorkVise.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp109/Tractorshaft/336_RH_WorkbenchII.jpg[/img]

Hope you enjoyed looking at my new found hobby. What fun!

Thanks and God Bless

Jerry

NW Connecticut