"The big difference here is that we have been used to thinking in terms of 100- to 200-yard shooting with 'hunting type' accuracy," says Tony Aeschliman, public relations and marketing manager for Marlin Firearms. "Now we have a lever action that is a 300- to 400-yard gun, and everything tightens.
"Everything changes as far as how we do final assembly and what the tolerances are where the barrel meets the receiver. For example, if the barrel is not fitting exactly square to the receiver in a 150-yard gun, that doesn't really show. But you add another 150 yards to that and it becomes a big factor.
"The reason, of course, is that everything becomes magnified the farther away from the muzzle the bullet travels. A two-inch group at 100 yards becomes a four- to five-inch group at 200 yards and loses any semblance of hunting accuracy by the time you get to 300 yards.
The XLR had to be tweaked because of the power inherent in the new chambering. For example, the screw at the magazine end cap has a stop to prevent over-tightening.
"So it required us to look at things we never had to look at before because they never showed up before when shooting at traditional lever-gun ranges," Aeschliman says.
"For example, with the attachment of the magazine tube to the barrel, just the tiniest variation can have major effects on the performance of the gun. If the screw that holds that magazine tube to the barrel is over-tightened, that can affect accuracy. If that screw is tightened too hard and the barrel starts to warm up and swell, the torque makes it move and it can act as a fulcrum. So we've been tweaking that attachment a little bit so there's not a lot of stress at that point: It's not exactly free-floating, but it's an attempt to keep as little tension as possible on the bottom of the barrel," he says.
In a way, it's like building in flexibility in an aircraft so that there is some "give" to the wings and fuselage to keep them from breaking apart in turbulence. As a result, Marlin has created a "stopping point" on the magazine tube screw so that it can't be tightened beyond a certain point and isn't pressing against the barrel."