Intrinsic accuracy of a "new" Marlin 336W

[sakoBC]

[quote="Gamerancher"]

SakoBC, if that target is two 3 shot goups aimed at the same point, it 'aint shooting minute of angle.

First group was low. Adjusted, shot the top group and then went hunting. The week did not end well for a lot of goats. I only shoot the 30/30 off the bench to sight in or test loads. Otherwise all practice with the 30/30 is rapid fire offhand at 50m targets. In my opinion that's what it was designed for.

[sakoBC]

Also, have you tried the sierra 150gns? How about any of the sierras for the matter?

Hi mate, sorry I haven't tried the sierras, so not sure how they perform. From my experience lever guns can be a bit fussy like .22LRs. I've tried most of the factory 150grns and mine doesn't like PMC, Remington or Winchester ammo. It does not like 125grn projectiles and will shoot slightly bigger groups with Federal 170grn projectiles. So I just stick with the Federal 150s or the premium Woodleigh 150s which shoot well. They both work well on pigs and goats.

Not sure about the barrel bands as mine has a cap. I have completely stripped mine down a number of times and actually replaced the end cap with a version that has a QD swivel. I'm sure that I have not tightened everything up to exactly the same tension each time. Still shoots moa with Federal and Woodleigh. I may just be lucky.

[Gamerancher]

I thought it was something like that. Just checkin'

All of my lever gun shooting is off-hand. If it's not at silhouettes, it's at game in the bush.

[in2anity]

After more reading specifically about the 336W, I get the feeling it's not uncommon for the 336W to shoot 3-4moa. The 30AS on the other hand (with a forend cap instead of a band) is often quoted as being a particularly accurate member of the family. I'm leaning more and more towards trading for that 30AS on used-guns; question is do I risk buying a gun I can't inspect?

[in2anity]

After some more reading I cam across this post: http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/336/5 ... 336-a.html I might actually try and follow this methodology to see what my 336W is truly capable of.

[Wm.Traynor]

What a terrific bit of researching mate Gonna use that myself

[pomemax]

i went to the range today so i took 30/30 it has a sitron 3x9x40 fire 5 shots of my elbows on the bench at 50 m with factory ammo bet the goats and piggys dont know i have not played with it

[Mick280]

Optics + Lever Actions = Wrong!!
( IMO )
Mick.

[pomemax]

Optics + Lever Actions = Wrong!!
( IMO )
Mick.

When your north of 60 and wear trifocals you may reconsider that

[Mick280]

Yeah I know what you mean,I'm on the wrong side of 50 and need my specs to shoot with open sights.
But it still doesn't sit right with me for some reason ( Nostalgia Maybe )
Mick.

[in2anity]

i went to the range today so i took 30/30 it has a sitron 3x9x40 fire 5 shots of my elbows on the bench at 50 m with factory ammo bet the goats and piggys dont know i have not played with it

Nice! Just curious- what's the size of those squares on that target?

[pomemax]

i went to the range today so i took 30/30 it has a sitron 3x9x40 fire 5 shots of my elbows on the bench at 50 m with factory ammo bet the goats and piggys dont know i have not played with it

Nice! Just curious- what's the size of those squares on that target?

1/2 inch grid

http://www.mytargets.com/

[in2anity]

i went to the range today so i took 30/30 it has a sitron 3x9x40 fire 5 shots of my elbows on the bench at 50 m with factory ammo bet the goats and piggys dont know i have not played with it

Nice! Just curious- what's the size of those squares on that target?

1/2 inch grid

http://www.mytargets.com/

Ok good to know - that's a good group, basically 2moa. With a bit of tuning, I gather any marlin is capable of this. My 336W occasionally groups this well, but definitely not consistently; that's my goal, to get it closer to consistent sub 2 moa. It's kind of funny - sometimes I get the impression that levers are actually more accurate offhand vs off a bench (in the right hands) - I can almost shoot as well offhand as I can off a bench with my marlin (but not my bolts of course, they drive tacks off bench), perhaps something to do with the harmonics of the rest?

One thing that really makes sense now is that your rifle doesn't appear have a front barrel band. And what does it have for the forend? Is that a cap or is the band just hard to see? (I can't tell by the photo) I bet that's why it's pretty accurate...

[pomemax]

i went to the range today so i took 30/30 it has a sitron 3x9x40 fire 5 shots of my elbows on the bench at 50 m with factory ammo bet the goats and piggys dont know i have not played with it

Nice! Just curious- what's the size of those squares on that target?

1/2 inch grid

http://www.mytargets.com/

Ok good to know - that's a good group, basically 2moa. With a bit of tuning, I gather any marlin is capable of this. My 336W occasionally groups this well, but definitely not consistently; that's my goal, to get it closer to consistent sub 2 moa. It's kind of funny - sometimes I get the impression that levers are actually more accurate offhand vs off a bench (in the right hands) - I can almost shoot as well offhand as I can off a bench with my marlin (but not my bolts of course, they drive tacks off bench), perhaps something to do with the harmonics of the rest?

One thing that really makes sense now is that your rifle doesn't appear have a front barrel band. And what does it have for the forend? Is that a cap or is the band just hard to see? (I can't tell by the photo) I bet that's why it's pretty accurate...

yes its a cap with a screw through it to a Dovetail grove with a base in the dovetail but I undone it and tightened it once cause the barrel was to tight to mag did not flex.

[in2anity]

The road to accurizing my Marlin 336W

STEP 1 - Strip her down

So after disassembling the magazine and fore-grip, indeed the forend band was extremely tight around both the grip and barrel. I had difficulty getting it off. The front band was also very tight. Here is a photo of her fully stripped:

naked.jpg (216.89 KiB) Viewed 5717 times

Just like the author did in this post: http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/336/5 ... 336-a.html, I'll test her naked to see how well she naturally shoots. This will give me a baseline accuracy to start with. I'll use my 9.0gns of Trail Boss under a 165gn hard-cast lead pill as these have proven to be accurate for me in the past, whilst being nice and mild (without generating any of that nasty heat). Trajectory is rather like a 22lr actually

STEP 2 - Sand back that fore-grip

Actually I've already done this part; it's can't do any harm (besides aesthetic), and I'm hoping this is the main source of inaccuracy. Tight bands mean zero flex (equaling disrupted harmonics), worsened by a hot barrel. In a way we're floating the barrel somewhat inside the bands. Here is a photo of the sanded fore-grip:

sanded.jpg (346.53 KiB) Viewed 5717 times

Now the forend band slips on-and-off like a well lubricated, umm, you know what It just needs a bit of tung oil to get it back to matching the original stain. That can come later though - I'm really not fussed about looks right now.

STEP 3 - Test, document, add bits back. Test, document, add bits back etc

I'll incrementally add bits back on whilst gathering data about group sizes. Fingers crossed for some good results.

I'll post-back with the results once I get to the range.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Wm.Traynor]

Very good mate. Just change one thing at a time. You'll get there

[pomemax]

looking at your picture compared to mine the barrel band is further up the stock on your gun mine is nearly right at the end I loosened the mag tube right at the end cause it was holding everything to tight tending to twist i thought
what I done was remove it clean used blue locktite and reinstalled to the position it was an backed it of .5 of a turn then let the locktite go off so when I grab the very end of the barrel and mag tube together I will feel rocking in the hand very slightly

[in2anity]

looking at your picture compared to mine the barrel band is further up the stock on your gun mine is nearly right at the end I loosened the mag tube right at the end cause it was holding everything to tight tending to twist i thought
what I done was remove it clean used blue locktite and reinstalled to the position it was an backed it of .5 of a turn then let the locktite go off so when I grab the very end of the barrel and mag tube together I will feel rocking in the hand very slightly

Yeah sounds like a plan - I'll try this for the forend band. BTW what happened to your front band? Did you ever have it on? Do I even need to put mine back on?

[pomemax]

i found that when i bought the rifle it was right at the front and looked not right
but worked out ok

[in2anity]

i found that when i bought the rifle it was right at the front and looked not right
but worked out ok

So you took the front band completely off?

[pomemax]

No i bought the one that did not look like the rest lol

[in2anity]

No i bought the one that did not look like the rest lol

Of course - I understand now. I'm pretty sure yours is a 336BL - you actually probably made a great choice by purchasing "the one that looked different" (perhaps unintentionally )

From an accuracy perspective, the less bands the better I gather - and guess what, the 336BL has a total of ZERO!

[in2anity]

RANGE REPORT (ACCURAZING MY 336W)

Very disappointingly, I forgot to swap my front blade back to the target insert before heading off to the range. The difference between the realised (target) accuracy between these two sights is measurable, and all my previously data has been collected using the target insert. Take the following diagrams:

blade.jpg (28.21 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

The "blade" is fantastic for hunting purposes (due to the maximised visibility), but it's not so great for precision target work. It works O-K when you have a square, highly contrasting target, but is particularly tricky to use with the red circular targets as currently provided by the SSAA at ANZAC range.

peep.jpg (30.96 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

Here's what it looks with the target insert; obviously much easier to use in conjunction with the round targets. Very disappointing indeed that I forgot to bring it

Say la vie, I had to roll with the punches, so I'll report my findings anyway.

STEP 1 - NAKED

Nice and cool at this point, using my uber-pleasant Trail Boss loads. I could tell it really wanted to group:

naked.jpg (410.21 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

This is just an example from a few samples. Whilst this is not sub 2moa, almost certainly it would have grouped under 2moa if I had the target insert or better yet, a scope. From how it felt, I feel completely naked it would have come close to 1moa.

STEP 2 - FOREND BACK ON

Another example from a few samples. Screws not super tight, and the forend was sanded back slightly to loosen the forend band (as talked about in my earlier post). Pretty similar accuracy, but rather interestingly the point-of-impact (POI) changed slightly down and to the right:

foreGrip.jpg (387.28 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

STEP 3 - FULLY REASSEMBLED

Magazine and front barrel band back on now, again paying attention not to over-tighten the screws. I took the whole "tight, then half a turn back" strategy. POI changed again, notably higher, but it's grouping just as tightly - YAY!

reassembled.jpg (367 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

2206H HOT HUNTING LEAD LOADS

A side project is to also use my checkless lead projectiles as hunting loads - this was something I've failed at in the past using Topscore and Hawkesbury Rivers (as the lead was just too soft to push past 1400fps, a bit too slow to be ethical on deer). On the contrary, I was able to push the Westcastings projectiles up to ~1800fps whilst still maintaining stabilisation (without excessive fouling). At these velocities they're a rather stiff 800ft-lb of energy at 100m. They shoot practically flat enough to use at varying ranges inside 100m without much holdover. The rifle was getting pretty hot by this point (and I was rushing), so again, I'm confident they'd be much tighter in a cold clean barrel (with the target insert/scope):

hot.jpg (362.79 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

These will be my go-to in the field, and I'll keep plinking with Trail Boss.

IN CONCLUSION

Whilst the results weren't consistently sub 2moa, I have no doubt that after the forend alterations my 336W is shooting measurably more accurately. As spoken about at the start of this post, it's quite difficult to shoot moa with a blade sight. I know from experience that the target insert will shrink my groups by 0.5moa - 1moa, so I am fairly confident in saying that my rifle should now shoot less than or equal to 2moa. Overall, a big success in my eyes!

If I get time, I shall post some more results using the target sights as proof - probably around mid November.

[Tripod]

How many shots in those first groups?"

[in2anity]

How many shots in those first groups?"

I went with three shot groups during reassembly. The hot 2206H experimentals at the end (after reassembly) were varying though, 4-5 shots (and shot a fair bit faster).

[Tripod]

How many shots in those first groups?"

I went with three shot groups during reassembly. The hot 2206H experimentals at the end (after reassembly) were varying though, 4-5 shots (and shot a fair bit faster).

In that case it looks like the projectiles weren't stable, Which is why you didn't get the accuracy you were after.

[wrenchman]

i have never tryed to get moa groups with lever guns they are great woods guns and fast handleing but my son has been working with his a lot and told me he is geting better groups with copper jacket bullets he told me the micro groove barrels are not very deep and dont like lead

[wrenchman]

this is my sons he had the sights changed out and a rail put on it the rear sight is a peep at the back of the rail he has not found a scope he likes for it yet

[Gwion]

How many shots in those first groups?"

I went with three shot groups during reassembly. The hot 2206H experimentals at the end (after reassembly) were varying though, 4-5 shots (and shot a fair bit faster).

In that case it looks like the projectiles weren't stable, Which is why you didn't get the accuracy you were after.

Yep... I can see the key-holing now that i'm on a bigger screen.

[in2anity]

How many shots in those first groups?"

I went with three shot groups during reassembly. The hot 2206H experimentals at the end (after reassembly) were varying though, 4-5 shots (and shot a fair bit faster).

In that case it looks like the projectiles weren't stable, Which is why you didn't get the accuracy you were after.

I don't agree with this. The projectiles actually are stable. It looks as if they aren't (because some of the holes aren't concentric), but relatively speaking, they are as accurate, if not more accurate than their semi-jacketed big brothers. Remember the word "stabilisation" is a relative term; at the end of the day, stabilization simply means accuracy. I've dealt with keyholing before and they're a very different ball-game (a very binary sort of a failure).

The reason I feel this way is because I've spoken to "swany" (the moderator over at http://www.marlinowners.com/ who is perhaps the world's most knowledgeable person when it comes to marlin rifles). His record-breaking marlin targets also show signs of non-concentricity for example: https://hoffos.files.wordpress.com/2014 ... target.jpg. These shapes seem to occur more with the fast burning powders such as Unique and Trail Boss, but it does not necessarily translate to poor accuracy.

Accuracy issues here are from me, not the rifle.