I finally got around to look at my old Marlin 1894. I have been using it for cowboy action shooting. The gun has been enjoyed a lot by the previous owner(s). If this were a car it would probably have some high mileage. You would think the action should be smooth but its not.
I opened it up to take a look. Did a bit of cleaning of the internals first. I didn't find any place that should have caused any problems. Not a bur to be seen. So I lube it up a bit and put it back together. It ended up being worse than before I started.
So I take it apart again and take a closer look. The problem is when I am half way into either the forward or rearward stroke on the lever. It always had some resistance there but after the cleaning the only way to get it past that point is to push and jiggle the lever. Once it moves past that spot it is ok.
So I finally find what is causing the problem. In the center of the carrier there is a spring loaded button/shaft
. The lever has a beveled edge on both sides and is supposed to push this in. I don't understand the purpose of this but I know it is the problem. If I push directly from the center it pushes down with no problem. There is a fair amount of play. If I push from a 45 degree angle (like the beveled part of the lever would) there is a lot of resistance. It feels real rough going down or up. This is where it is binding. Lubrication does not seem to help.
So what do I do with this? It does not look like it is meant to be taken apart. If I could then I would smooth things out. But that is probably not the problem. Most likely it is causing problems because of the excessive play. After 100,000 mile I would think the rough spots should be smoothed out. Most likely its worn out?
Any suggestions?
