Rechambering Marlin 336 to .356 Winchester?

sbound

sbound

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Gentlemen,

I have a question about rifle rechambering for some upcoming projects.

I am interested in the feasibility of rechambering a Marlin 336 in .35 Remington to .356 Winchester.

The overall cartridge dimensions of the .356 are slightly larger every which way, so I am anticipating that all that really needs to be done is to run a .356 chambering reamer in the factory .35 Remington chambered barrel. The only real difference is pressure is higher with the .356, but that does not concern me because Marlin produced the 336ER in this chambering and the 336 is an inherently strong action. I realize that rim diameter is slightly different so some slight extractor modifications might be in order.

I expect that the same may hold true in converting a 336 chambered in .30-30 to .307 Winchester.

What are your thoughts on this? There seems to be a lot of interest in .356 rifles, and with the Marlin 336ER and Winchester 94XTR Big Bore being quite scarce it strikes me as an interesting project idea that is quite straightforward. Maybe I’m missing something though.

Having owned a 336ER and presently owning a Winchester 94XTR Big Bore, I can say I’m definitely a fan of the added downrange punch of the .356.

Looking forward to your thoughts and insight.
 
In addition to rechambering, boltface and feed modifications would be necessary.
There is another consideration - the steel used in a .35 Remington barrel may not be the same as used for .307 and .356. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that 1137 steel was used for the lower pressure cartridges, 4140 for higher.
 
tiriaq,

What was your source of this information? Just curious, but you have a vaild point there for sure.

I spoke with two Ontario smiths today who seemed to think that the conversion was not an issue on currently produced firearms ie: post 1982 etc. and that the older generation ones were made from softer material for lower pressure cartridges like the .32 special and .30-30 Winchester.

Thanks.
 
I do not recall the source of the information about barrel steel. The two other smiths you consulted would seem to have the same concern. Perhaps it was when Marlin started making 336 variants in higher pressure chamberings that the alloys used were mentionned. It is entirely possible that 4140 is now used for all barrels. There is a chap in the US who has experimented extensively with higher power conversions of Marlins - Mic. McPherson (sp?). Might be worth a google search, see if you could track him down. He writes for Precision Shooting magazine. Apart from the suitability of the steel, the action alteratons could be challenging, particularly if the smith has not done the work before.
 
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