Marlin 1893 38-55

hamilton0729 said:
NO WOORIES its all good info for myself as well I'm working towards reloading some BP rounds to try out and will keep my eyes open for some lead to slug the barrel. I have decided not to refinish it Apparently my grandfather refinished it years ago so I will just "preserve" his work BC rider thanks for that Lindseed trick I will do that for sure.
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Your local outdoor store or CTC, wallyworld, have lead sinkers for fishing in a bunch of different sizes, perfect for slugging barrels!
 
BCRider said:
Welcome to the wonderful and confusing world of .38-55 :D

Having a couple of rifles in this caliber I've run the gamut of bore size and brass length variations.

First off Starline does indeed make both lengths of brass. And without trying the cases or casting the chamber it's hard to say what any particular gun is chambered for. But from the reading around it appears that many of the older single shot rifles used the longer 2.125 while the later lever rifles went over to the shorter 2.08. Given the birth date of your Marlin the odds are good that it's set up for the 2.08 length. But it would be worth chamber casting to be sure. Or just shoot the 2.08 stuff and live with the slight gap. It's sort of the same as shooting .38Spl from a .357Mag gun. The fit and shoot just fine. But there may be a crud ring formed in the chamber over time due to the shorter casing.

And the .375Win brass is indeed another roughly tenth of an inch or so shorter than the 2.08 38-55 brass. So it will chamber just fine. And in a 2.08 chamber it does mean that you may need to adjust the bullet seating depth to ensure it fits the elevator and feeds in neatly. So longer and heavier bullets may be required if your Marlin proves to be sensitive to OAL during cycling and you still want to use .375 brass.

I've got the worst of both worlds on one barrel. The chamber is sized to take the shorter 2.08 casings and set up for .379 size bullets. But the bore wants the older and smaller .376 bullet size. So in playing around to find what works best I bought some .375Win brass so I'd have thicker walls to better center and seal the small bullets. The plan to work with the shorter yet brass is to try some home cast 300gn bullets that are longer so I can seat the bullet in the neck fairly well and still have the ogive resting against the leade. The key for your Marlin here is that .375Win casings do add another variable to be aware of.

In your case I would still suggest you slug the bore. This is pretty easy. You put a soft lead round ball on the muzzle then pound it into the bore with a plastic or wood mallet then punch the slug down with a close fitting wood or brass dowel or some such thing. Then a cleaning rod will push it down and into the chamber where you can retrieve it for measuring.

The old gun crowd has a lot of folks that enjoy using smokeless as well as the ones that shoot BP. There's a wide variety of low pressure smokeless loads that will do just fine and be safe in that Marlin provided there isn't any pre-existing damage. My own favourite is an 18gn load of 4227 behind a 255gn cast bullet. I've shot these with no packing but recently I loaded up some with a printer paper over powder card with a small tuft of polyester pillow stuffing to hold it in place. I've yet to shoot the loose and packed loads together for accuracy comparison. I do know that when I drop in that 18gns of powder it looks like a LOOOONG way down to the charge. So the idea of the paper separator and tufting is to hold the powder consistently back by the flash hole for a more consistent burn.

These loads push the cast bullets I'm using along at around 1300 fps. So shooting out past 150 yards or so becomes a largely "rainbow" like affair. With jacketed bullets and once the barrel and chamber is proven to be sound you should be able to up that to around 1700 to maybe 1800. But watch your peak pressures in this old girl. It's not a modern Marlin Guide Gun that'll accept over powered 45-70's. And I would sure not want to shoot any modern .375Win from it. Not even on a dare.


That's a very nice looking old classic. Hopefully you get it running well. My own feelings are that this is old enough and in good enough shape that I'd be highly reluctant to re-blue it. I'd probably just use the oil and steel wool trick to smoothen up and blend in the rust spots I see and call it a day. If the goal is to hunt with it I'd also use some nautical spar varnish to fill in any cracks in the present finish. I'd likely also apply boiled linseed to the end grain in the action inletting areas of both the fore and shoulder stock and under the recoil plate. Again to aid in weather resistance for the old girl.
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Very good post on the 38-55. I have dubbed the vintage .375 calibers "the most frustrating caliber ever" to try to master.

I agree with your post...except for the advise you give in the sentence I bolded. At one time, using paper/cardboard wads in a smokeless powder charge for a long cartridge was an admissible method of holding the powder against the primer but has been proven to cause chamber rings quite often. I can personally attest to this being true. I did it with an original High-wall in 45-90 with an original #4 heavy barrel on it. It seems that using just the Dacron for a filler by itself is okay but the addition of the paper wad is not a good idea. Do as you wish but I would pull those bullets and just use the Dacron.

I made two mistakes with that High-wall that I will never make again...The first was using shells that someone else had loaded, they came with the gun when I bought it. When I ringed the chamber I started pulling bullets, all had paper wads. The second is the paper card wad, ok in a BP load right up against the bullet base but never will I use one to hold smokeless powder in place.
 
Thanks for that warning Fingers. I'll pull the bullets and reload without the paper separators. It's only a dozen so it won't take that long. And being for a single shot I just use neck tension to hold the bullets and no crimp.... at least not so far. I know that the crimp can alter how the pressure builds so that's a whole other variable that I'll play with some day.

Part of my reason for the paper separator is that I was afraid that over time the powder would settle down into the Dacron. This being a concern since the cartridge boxes I use don't do well for holding the rounds other than nose down. I suppose I could find some boxes that will hold them head down and that would solve the issue. And in fact I think that's a good plan.
 
BCRider gave some real good info. I have had quite a few vintage 38-55's. 38-55's from the late 1800's and early 1900's take the longer Starline case. I shoot soft cast bullets from an Accurate Mould. By 'soft cast' I mean air-cooled wheel weights. Regarding BCRider's load of 18 grains of IMR 4227 with a paper card plus tuft of dacron ... there is good reason to believe that holding the powder uniformly against the primer causes a pressure pulse that travels forward and reflects off the base of the bullet, doubling the amplitude of the pressure just behind the bullet, which begins a slow and steady process of ringing the chamber at that point. Other fellows have managed to do exactly this when the powder is held in this position, either by the right kind of card or by pointing the rifle vertically to the ceiling and then firing. I would recommend using a very loose type of filler. I've shot more than a thousand 38-55 rounds using toilet paper loosely folded and rolled with no problems at all. Toilet paper filler like this does not do a perfect job of holding the powder back ... there is a bit that works a little ways up into the toilet paper filler and this prevents a nice, uniform pressure wave from forming. Secondly, i have found IMR 4227 to be extremely position sensitive when fired over a chronograph. If one tilts the rifle up just before firing, you can get a higher velocity than if you tilt it down before firing. Instead, I have switched to Accurate 5744 (17 grains over a Winchester Magnum Primer to enhance complete burning) under a 260 grain bullet for 1,307 fps, an E.S. of only 15 fps. 5744 is much less position sensitive than IMR 4227.
 
hamilton0729 said:
So I slugged the barrel today and the biggest measurement I could get off the split shot I used was .377 so I'm guessing that I have a "tight" barrel.
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Actually it sounds like you're set up ideally for the mid to larger size bullets. Adding .002 to the groove diameter suggests that you'll do well with .379. And that's a pretty common size for the later style lever rifles.

Us guys with the "older" single shot rifles seem to end up in the .376 to .377 bullet sizes. This is running true on my recently bought Uberti High Wall clone. It slugs at .375 to .376 which means I'm looking at a .377 to .378 bullet. When I saw that Wolverine had these up for sale in .38-55 I almost injured myself getting hold of them on the phone.... :d

Hey Hamilton, I see from a post up above that it was refinished at one point. Looking at the pictures again it looks like it might just be thin enough and buff enough to be an actual oil finish. Having it in your own hands you'll be in a better position to say if this is the case or not. But if it really is an actual oil finish then such a job is never really done. Oil finishes tend to degrade over time and require an annual or more frequent re-application of oil to stay on top of their game. An oil finish in good condition will shed water like the oiled surface it is. Once it begins to hold water it's on it's way to a deep enough degradation that you will want to feed it with a new light application of a similar finishing oil. For wood items that see regular outdoor use putting on a feeder coat on the outside surfaces twice a year is not out of the question at all. I like to do this with oil that is cut with a bit of mineral spirits so it's roughly 2 parts oil to one part MS. This both feeds and cleans away skin oils and the like and keeps the surface looking fresh.

I'm also not above the idea of applying this oil and MS with medium steel wool when the build up begins to become rather thick and varnish like. So far I've only done that once but it sure did perk up the wood.

For a hunting rifle a little build up isn't a bad idea though. And for that sort of finish the Polymerized Tung oil from Lee Valley can't be beaten. It's a thick honey like consistency which builds fast when used full strength and works well as a low build feeding coat when cut 2:1 oil:MS.

I'd also like to thank all of the rest of you that have added to the 38-55 knowledge base in this thread. I've learned at least as much as I've given. We shooters of orphaned ammo need to stick together.... :d
 
I'm actually still shopping for a press the more I read the more confused I am I know I want single stage but beyond that I'm clueless been looking at the complete kits but seems like you need to upgrade after anyways..... That's another topic for now I'll stick with a black powder test fire and go from there I'll definately have to reload if I want to feed this one.
 
Win 38-55 said:
BCRider gave some real good info. I have had quite a few vintage 38-55's. 38-55's from the late 1800's and early 1900's take the longer Starline case. I shoot soft cast bullets from an Accurate Mould. By 'soft cast' I mean air-cooled wheel weights. Regarding BCRider's load of 18 grains of IMR 4227 with a paper card plus tuft of dacron ... there is good reason to believe that holding the powder uniformly against the primer causes a pressure pulse that travels forward and reflects off the base of the bullet, doubling the amplitude of the pressure just behind the bullet, which begins a slow and steady process of ringing the chamber at that point. Other fellows have managed to do exactly this when the powder is held in this position, either by the right kind of card or by pointing the rifle vertically to the ceiling and then firing. I would recommend using a very loose type of filler. I've shot more than a thousand 38-55 rounds using toilet paper loosely folded and rolled with no problems at all. Toilet paper filler like this does not do a perfect job of holding the powder back ... there is a bit that works a little ways up into the toilet paper filler and this prevents a nice, uniform pressure wave from forming. Secondly, i have found IMR 4227 to be extremely position sensitive when fired over a chronograph. If one tilts the rifle up just before firing, you can get a higher velocity than if you tilt it down before firing. Instead, I have switched to Accurate 5744 (17 grains over a Winchester Magnum Primer to enhance complete burning) under a 260 grain bullet for 1,307 fps, an E.S. of only 15 fps. 5744 is much less position sensitive than IMR 4227.
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Sadly most of that info is lost on me I will assume that those are smokeless load but why the need for the filler? Does factory ammo have a filler I would assume no as I can hear the powder moving inside the winchester rounds I have.
 
Hamilton, this has actually devolved into two discussions. One is for tufts of loose filler used with smokeless powder loads and one is the use of filler with reduced black powder loads.

For smokeless loads the thinking is that with the low fill ratio of these sorts of light charges in the big casing that the position of the powder will alter the burn rate and produce too much variation in the muzzle velocity and thus reduced accuracy. Using a tuft of Dacron pillow filler encourages the powder to remain back near the flash hole and hopefully burn more evenly from shot to shot.

In a single shot potentially I don't really need a filler to hold the powder to the rear. I really only need to point them up then not overly tip the casings as I load them to achieve a fairly consistent powder positioning. But with a lever rifle all bets are off in this regard unless you were to point the rifle up at something like 60 degrees then return it to level for the shot.

In other threads where folks have tested all this out the general finding is that the tuft of loose filler, and LOOSE is the operative word here, aids in getting a slight but noticeable tightening of the shot groups for most folks.

For my own part up to now I've only just started trying out the Dacron filler idea. Up to now I've just tried the three different powders I've got. And so far I've not seen any distinct winners. Likely due to my eyes and issues with the peep sights. But this coming year I'm keen on settling in for some serious testing and learning. So I can't say I've seen any gain from using a loose fiber filler. I do know that it didn't hurt the accuracy though.

All of which suggests that the nut attached to the butt plate is the limiting factor.... :d


In the case of reduced power black powder loads there's a safety and consistency issue. Black powder must be loaded with no air gap. Only then will it produce consistent and predicable results. If loaded with an air space the powder tends to burn with more of a detonation than a controlled burn. And that spikes the pressures up higher. It's entirely possible that the right charge with the right air gap could damage the gun. Folks have managed to burst muzzle loader barrels when the patched ball got stuck with 6 or 8 inches of air space and a regular powder charge when they tried to shoot the ball out.

Using a filler like Cream of Wheat or oat bran is a way of ensuring that the air space is filled and the cases charged with the right degree of charge compression. When loaded with fillers like this reduced charges will act like they should.

That help?
 
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