Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Marlin 375 mag tube questions

I recently took my Marlin 375 apart and found a couple of things that got me to wondering about possible accuracy issues.

When I re assembled the rifle the fore stock cap was very difficult to reinstall. I had to put a lot of pressure on the mag tube/cap/stock to get the screws to line up with the holes in the tenon. Also the rifle has a 3/4 length mag tube and the front hanger is dove tailed into the barrel. While I was reinstalling the screw that holds the mag tube to the barrel/mag tube cap in place it appeared that the hanger had some play in the dove tail.

I’m not a Marlin lever action expert and was wondering if these two things could be causing inaccuracies with the rifle.

Thank you in advance.

Is that a standard dovetail, or a twist in like some of the old Winchesters?
Either way, I wouldn’t think that would have much of an accuracy impact.

Looked like a std dove tail.

My 375's barrel is thick enough not to be effected very much at all by a mag tube dovetail. Would be similar to a sling swivel mount on the barrel of an express rifle, the rifle itself is not a target gun.

If you want to improve the accuracy, the most effective way I have found on a Marlin or Win big bore lever gun, is to change the sights to a more effective sight set and do an action job to improve the trigger pull.
Also found that a wide field of view, low power, scope, like a 2x, in a tip off mount, is very effective on the Marlin big bore hunting guns. The Marlin side eject is already set up for a center mounted scope. My tip off mount returns to zero, so can use the iron sights or the scope at will.