Marlin 60 iron sights improvement

scriptguru

scriptguru

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Some time ago I bought Marlin 60, blued with beautiful laminated stock and (as most gun owners I guess) I absolutely love my new gun.
But as every Marlin rimfire owner knows, they come with iron sights that work, but that are terribly bad and cheaply done. They actually come zeroed from a factory, but they are pain to use: the rear sight has incredibly shallow microscopic notch, and the front sight is not visible enough.

Yes, you can just buy optics or red dot sight, but they instantly make this incredibly slim rifle much more bulky, more heavy, and I personally don't want anything except iron sights on this rifle.

After some search I came to conclusion that prices on iron sights are inadequate - 70-100 bucks for peep sight or 30-40 for fiber optic sights is way too much, especially for $200 rifle. So I decided to improve existing sights and as you'll see it doesn't require lots of time or money.

1. Rear sight. All we need is a small round file and few minutes of time. Just place it right into existing notch of the rear sight (parallel to the barrel, of course), and file some material from the sight, moving it forward and backwards, applying constant pressure straight down. I'd recommend to make the notch about 2mm deep, so it would be about 1/2 of the file's diameter. Other important thing - make sure you have protected all the parts of a rifle that you don't want to scratch with a file.

2. Front sight. It currently has tiny piece filed off, exposing shiny metal. To make it more visible under any conditions I placed a tiny drop of white enamel over the exposed metal (there is just about 2 square millimeters exposed). I had to buy small bottle of white enamel for $8 in a hardware store, but it is still way cheaper than new sight :) It comes with brush, so all you need to do is to unscrew the bottle, carefully raise the brush a little and wait so you have reasonable amount of enamel on the brush, and put a beautiful tiny white dot on the sight. Now place it in safe place 12 hours to let the enamel dry out.

Done! The difference is amazing. It is a pleasure to use the rifle now. Love my Marlin!
 
This is interesting for me. I have the same issue/complaint with my 795. I just can't see the sights well.

At risk of sounding stupid - can you post any pictures? I would really like to see what it looks like before I start filing and painting. Yes, I am a big chicken.

I also wonder - is white the best color for the front site dot? I have some fire-engine red enamel that I have been considering for exactly this little project. A friend suggested I use fingernail polish - cheap, little brush included - so I suppose I could go get white if it is better.

And should I paint the rear site too somehow? If I read your post correctly, you filed it and left it as is, which is mostly black. Would it be more visible to paint the "upright sides" of the rear sight yellow or red (or white)? I think in terms of some of the better pistol sights, which are typically 3-dot (2 in the back, one on the front).

Thanks for your post!

Best Regards, Geraldo

PS I love my Marlin too. Not as pretty as yours (I just have that tupperware stock) but out of the box it fed about 7 different brands of 22 ammo without any issue (except for Federal bulk, which had failures to feed and failures to fire...). Seemed accurate, but my eyes got really tired after a while with those low-visibility sights.
 
Sounds like a simple effective mod. Personally, I would have splurged on a set of Tech Sights....'cause I'm lazy.
 
Geraldo, it is rather smart than stupid to ask for photos before applying a mod ;) I just couldn't upload them yesterday, sorry.

Before the "surgery". Notice how tiny and invisible the existing notch is - it's almost impossible to use. I've put an old sock on the barrel and made couple holes, so only target area is exposed - so I don't scratch the finish.
DSC02126.JPG


That's how it looks after filing.
DSC02130.JPG


And how it looks on the rifle
DSC02131.JPG

DSC02135.JPG


Front sight with enamel applied
DSC02141.JPG
 
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jjohnwm, I also think that day-glo paint would work even better. But I don't have it, and buying is WAY too expensive for such a tiny improvement (in fact it costs more than good sights, and there is no option to buy a small bottle of paint). On the other hand, bathtub retouch enamel is bright enough and seems to be very durable too, and costs just few bucks.
 
The bottle I have is many years old, but I know I didn't spend a lot on it...I'm too cheap for that! :) It's only an ounce or two, and I got it at a fishing tackle shop. Check one out before you write off the idea completely.

Nice job on the filing. Is the inside of the U-notch blackened? I can't tell from the photos. If not, you can blacken it with a black Sharpie marker, and it will help prevent glare.
 
I checked few stores, but couldn't find any suitable paint, so I was very happy to find that enamel.
At the beginning I even wanted to make the front sight fiber optic, but it is too thin to make kit properly with my tools (too bad I don't have a workshop with proper tools).

The inside of the notch is not blackened. I wanted to paint it in black, but it appears that this surface is not visible at all when you shouldering a rifle, and in general this filed part looks nice and I am not sure it would look better blackened.

I am surprised myself how easy it is to make a tidy notch with a file. The only two rules are - always keep a file directed exactly the same, and always keep pressure directed the same. A rail on the receiver greatly helps to follow these rules - I just slide my hand along a rail.
 
Nice job! Easy enough.....who's selling 60's these days and do you guys prefer the synthetic or wood/laminate stocks? I need to add a semi 22lr rifle to my cabinet.
 
Geraldo, I also thought it would be nice to have white dots on a rear sight too. But currently the rifle is easy to sight without them, so I decided to keep it like this, unless it won't sight well in actual target shooting. If it's still good enough, I will make two white dots or something like that on the rear sight.

johNTO, Reliable Gun (in Vancouver) has them for 200 bucks, blued with laminate stock (can't find it on their site, but have seen it in the store), and for same price with a plastic stock. The laminate one is really beautiful and I can't believe it can be that cheap. The blueing is gorgeous too. The receiver is painted alloy - the only non-beautiful part of the rifle, but still looks ok. Shoots very well, absolutely reliable with American Eagle Hight Velocity or CCI Standard Velocity.
The laminate stock looks WAY better, and it is the same price as a plastic one that looks very cheap.
 
scriptguru...thanks for the heads up. For the same $$ I would also pick the laminate stock over the synthetic. Looks pretty good from what I can see in your pics.
 
"....who's selling 60's these days and do you guys prefer the synthetic or wood/laminate stocks?"

Bass pro in Toronto routinely brings them in for $189, but they go quickly. It never shows up on their flyer (unlike 795) and they never know when the next batch is coming. When they have it, it is always both synthetic and laminated stocks. Just keep calling them.
 
I was able to pick one up in the summer from canadian tire for 189.00 with a wood stock, but if I remember correctly the black synthetic was the same price.. I very much like this mod, what size file did you use???
 
Sorry for such a long silence - this month was extremely hard for me, so I couldn't manage to get to the range until today.

I am extremely happy with the improvements I made, the rifle is pleasure to shoot now. I was shooting off hands (standing), iron sights only, and I could produce couple nickel-sized 5 shot groups @ 10 meters (yards?), which looked like a one big hole in paper. OK, maybe quarter sized, but not bigger for sure. My worst groups today were smaller than average groups before sights mod. I can post photos of the best groups later today if somebody is interested.

I'd say that now the rifle finally can be used as a plinker (taking cans from 30-40m should be easy), or for small game hunting, and it is still same super-slim Marlin 60 without any additional weight and bulk that scope would add.

valleyman, sorry for late answer - the file is 3 mm or 1/10 inch in diameter, it's hard to tell for sure and I don't have a caliper. Smaller size could work better for you, it depends on what you used to.
 
It would have never dawned on me to file the rear site of my 795, brilliant! I was stering at the gun baffled, trying to figure out whay does the front post look so blurry.
 
I JUST Bought a NEW Marlin Blue 60SN, I used to owned 2 over 20 years ago and sold them, now i missed them and bought a new one, love the new BIG Action Bolt on it. Great Great buy for $165 at Reliable Guns, 20% off all Marlins! for xmas!! its a TACK driver, just like my $900 10/22 custom!
 
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