Fellow gunnutz;
Good evening to you all, I trust the day has been a good one for you and that you're as prepared for Valentine's day as you'd hoped to be.
There was some positive feedback on a photo/story post I did on a shotgun build, so hopefully it's OK that I put up a few photos of the modifications I like to do on lever actions that stay around and get used. The 94 has been used as a horse back and camping rifle all over BC and the 336 was slated to do similar duty now along side it's Winchester counterpart.
Please understand up front that these are only my ideas of what works well so far - and I know there are other ways that likely will work just as well or better.
What I'll cover mostly is what I do to the wood. The metal parts get a light polish on the bearing surfaces while it's all apart as well.
I start by stripping the rifle down to basic parts and then epoxy bed the butt stock for a perfect fit with the flats on the rear of the receiver and tang.
Divots drilled to anchor epoxy.
Top view
As I was refinishing the 336 anyway, I didn't bother taping up the wood, but the 94 on the right wasn't slated for a new coat of Tru-Oil so it got painter's tape. By coincidence it's a 1977 as well.
At some point I like to make sure that the magazine tube doesn't touch the barrel anywhere but at the front band. This 336 had quite a bit of contact, which I've never found to help accuracy any.
Some judicious relieving of metal.
Leads to just enough clearance.
View of the butt stocks after epoxy bedding from the front.
From the top.
I have actually added a "pillar" of sorts on a couple other jobs I've done, but decided not to on these ones. These ones actually had a pretty decent fit from the factory, but I've worked on a couple of newer Marlin Guide Guns that were only bearing on one side of the flat.
The stock was already cracked on one and likely would have on the other too if the situation hadn't been addressed.
Anyway, a nice even fit between the butt stock and rear of the receiver has so far proven to work quite well on two piece stocks for me.
While I neglected to get a good photo of the fore ends, the best results I've found is to have them only touch the barrel at the retaining barrel band and at the rear of the fore end where it fits into the front of the receiver.
I suppose one could bed that for a perfect fit too, which I've done on a Savage 99, a Browning 78 and a Ruger No 1 that I worked on, but I didn't on these two.
Here's a photo of the two finished rifles, the 94 with a more than 100 year old Lyman sight on it sighted for 135yds and a folding rear sight zeroed at 50yds. Oh, I added a warthog ivory insert into the front sight too. The 336 now has a 2� Leupold on it.
As mentioned above, I'll do a quick polish job on the parts so they work slicker than factory and I did a quick machine turning/ jeweling job on the bolt of the 336 too.
Hopefully that gave some of my fellow lever action enthusiasts some ideas when working on their rifles.
Good luck on your upcoming projects and thanks for looking.
Regards,
Dwayne
Good evening to you all, I trust the day has been a good one for you and that you're as prepared for Valentine's day as you'd hoped to be.
There was some positive feedback on a photo/story post I did on a shotgun build, so hopefully it's OK that I put up a few photos of the modifications I like to do on lever actions that stay around and get used. The 94 has been used as a horse back and camping rifle all over BC and the 336 was slated to do similar duty now along side it's Winchester counterpart.
Please understand up front that these are only my ideas of what works well so far - and I know there are other ways that likely will work just as well or better.
What I'll cover mostly is what I do to the wood. The metal parts get a light polish on the bearing surfaces while it's all apart as well.
I start by stripping the rifle down to basic parts and then epoxy bed the butt stock for a perfect fit with the flats on the rear of the receiver and tang.
Divots drilled to anchor epoxy.
Top view
As I was refinishing the 336 anyway, I didn't bother taping up the wood, but the 94 on the right wasn't slated for a new coat of Tru-Oil so it got painter's tape. By coincidence it's a 1977 as well.
At some point I like to make sure that the magazine tube doesn't touch the barrel anywhere but at the front band. This 336 had quite a bit of contact, which I've never found to help accuracy any.
Some judicious relieving of metal.
Leads to just enough clearance.
View of the butt stocks after epoxy bedding from the front.
From the top.
I have actually added a "pillar" of sorts on a couple other jobs I've done, but decided not to on these ones. These ones actually had a pretty decent fit from the factory, but I've worked on a couple of newer Marlin Guide Guns that were only bearing on one side of the flat.
The stock was already cracked on one and likely would have on the other too if the situation hadn't been addressed.
Anyway, a nice even fit between the butt stock and rear of the receiver has so far proven to work quite well on two piece stocks for me.
While I neglected to get a good photo of the fore ends, the best results I've found is to have them only touch the barrel at the retaining barrel band and at the rear of the fore end where it fits into the front of the receiver.
I suppose one could bed that for a perfect fit too, which I've done on a Savage 99, a Browning 78 and a Ruger No 1 that I worked on, but I didn't on these two.
Here's a photo of the two finished rifles, the 94 with a more than 100 year old Lyman sight on it sighted for 135yds and a folding rear sight zeroed at 50yds. Oh, I added a warthog ivory insert into the front sight too. The 336 now has a 2� Leupold on it.
As mentioned above, I'll do a quick polish job on the parts so they work slicker than factory and I did a quick machine turning/ jeweling job on the bolt of the 336 too.
Hopefully that gave some of my fellow lever action enthusiasts some ideas when working on their rifles.
Good luck on your upcoming projects and thanks for looking.
Regards,
Dwayne
