Acceptable Marlin Accuracy?

Fall Guy

Fall Guy

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I have a Marlin 336 30-30 rifle with micro-groove.

I have been trying to see what this rifle likes to digest with 50 yards as my range. I have been shooting from a solid rest with a Leupold 2-7 scope (blasphemous I know ;)) using factory ammo from various manufactures and of various weights and have experimented with several combos of handloads.

My problem is that I can't seem to get repeatable results. One 3 shot string will print vertical and another will print horizontal (about 1 1/4" group). And in some groups I will get a 2 to 3" flier. Very frustating.

I have changed scopes already and checked all mounting hardware. I am now leaning to the barrel/forearm band and the forearm to barrel fit.

Is this as good as it gets or does someone out there have some ideas?
 
i have a 336 in 3030 and 444. both are scoped with 4x. both will group 1.5 inches at 100 yds with handloads. both at times will have two rnds almost touching and the third round an inck or so away. my buddys 30 30 does the same thing, i think the barrel band effects it when the barrel starts to heat up. as for factory loads best i did with the 30 30 was 2.5 to 3 inches. my 444 i don't know cause i have never tried factory ammo. i think you should better what you are getting but may have to try differnt ammo till you find what your rifle likes. if i shoot any bullet other than a hornady 170 fp i will group closer to 2.5 inchs.
 
My Marlin 30 AS likes the Federal 150's.Touching shots at 100 yards then about a 1 1/2" to the right for the third. My wife's 336 RC will cloverleaf three with the Federal 150's at 100
 
My experience has been that all Marlins are capable of better than that with iron sights, let barrel cool right down to cold for each shot of a group, it may be the stock/barrel band putting pressure on barrel especially when it heats up! This is one cal. that seems to work good with the micro-groove barrel!
 
Granted I have limited experience with M-336s but the one I shot for 15 years would print diff loads in totally diff areas of the target!! Not sure why, as long as I shot the same loading it was consistant & quite accurate but diff loads might print as much as 8-10" diff @ 100yds .:confused:

Is your gun consistant with one load?
 
Is your barrel fouled with copper or lead? Sounds like you have done quite a bit of shooting with it. I would make sure the bore is free from copper and lead fouling and then start looking for mechanical problems if it is still shooting inconsistently.
 
Yeah, I cleaned it thoroughly before my last trip to the range. It is consistently inconsistent with one load/brand. :mad:

I did some (a lot, actually) reading over at the marlinowners.com forums and it seems to be common knowledge that the front barrel band, if over tightened can cause significant accuracy problems if the shots aren't seperated enough and the barrel gets too warm. There was also a suggestion that when using a front rest, that the support should be just in front of the receiver on the forend, not on the tube magazine.

I didn't know that the gun could be so finnicky but it is the first shot, with a cold barrel, that I am concerned about.

I loaded up some more ammo and will head to the range this week. I'll report back what I did and what I learned.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
 
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