So are new production Marlins junk?

mr00jimbo

mr00jimbo

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
25   0   0
Location
GVRD
I keep hearing scary stories of so many of them going back for warranty work...
Is it really that bad? What areas do they suffer in quality? (well it should be a top notch gun but...)
This doesn't sound too good, especially for such a cool company.
 
I have a new production GG Marlin from last summer and it was fine. It was initially very stiff but after a 20 or 30 rounds it was fine. Fit and finish of the wood on the stock is not the best but not terrible.
 
I work in a gun shop and I'll first say I have no hate for Marlin or Remington, I'll just report what I've seen.

My guess is 20% of them go back for repair or are returned to the distrbutor. This is ridiculously bad for any firearm company. The second worst is Remington (particularly 11-87s) but they have maybe a 3% return rate. Most guns we rarely ever see a problem with.

Lots of Marlin levers get returned by customers or sent out for repair because they jam rounds, especially the 39A .22s, but this is not limited to rimfires. We recived a shipment of Marlin 60s and every single stock was not just cracked but pretty much broken right through.

Just my experience, but I would stay clear. My opinions are my own and are just that, opinions.
 
cam1936 said:
I work in a gun shop and I'll first say I have no hate for Marlin or Remington, I'll just report what I've seen.

My guess is 20% of them go back for repair or are returned to the distrbutor. This is ridiculously bad for any firearm company. The second worst is Remington (particularly 11-87s) but they have maybe a 3% return rate. Most guns we rarely ever see a problem with.

Lots of Marlin levers get returned by customers or sent out for repair because they jam rounds, especially the 39A .22s, but this is not limited to rimfires. We recived a shipment of Marlin 60s and every single stock was not just cracked but pretty much broken right through.

Just my experience, but I would stay clear. My opinions are my own and are just that, opinions.
Click to expand...

Any issues with the cowboy models? I figure on taking it apart, slicking things up, and polishing the surfaces. Thanks for the advice, skokie.
 
skokie said:
Any issues with the cowboy models? I figure on taking it apart, slicking things up, and polishing the surfaces. Thanks for the advice, skokie.
Click to expand...

If you do that you should be good. Most of the issues are just sloopy finishing on the internals which leads to jamming. If you are knowledgable enough to take them apart and polish/fit parts you're probably on pretty safe ground.
 
cam1936 said:
If you do that you should be good. Most of the issues are just sloopy finishing on the internals which leads to jamming. If you are knowledgable enough to take them apart and polish/fit parts you're probably on pretty safe ground.
Click to expand...

But this would void the warranty for any future problems, no?
 
mr00jimbo said:
I keep hearing scary stories of so many of them going back for warranty work...
Is it really that bad? What areas do they suffer in quality? (well it should be a top notch gun but...)
This doesn't sound too good, especially for such a cool company.
Click to expand...

I purchased a marlin 336bl, it arrived with screws loose on the receiver, then it wouldn't eject fired rounds due to problem with extractor, after 4 phone calls and many emails to the shop they sent me a new extractor which arrived broken, few more calls and emails and i got a new extractor that worked, 3 week after the initial purchase.

While i was buying dies for the 30-30 my local shop told me that the qc distributor had sent almost 200 marlins back because of one or more problems.

My 336bl shoots fine now and seems to be ok, but after all the crap over a broken extractor and the time it took to sort i will never buy another rifle/gun over the net, i dont care how much cheaper it is, i will only buy from local store as i want peace of mind.
 
f55, thats a good idea, i've heard it thrown around on the site too that you should try some snap-caps in the gun while at the store to see if it cycles and ejects well, or at least better that the other 12 in the back. I think i'll do this for all my purchases in the future. skokie.
 
There's no real way to confirm this but supposedly they have stopped production on Marlin firearms until 2012 to address quality problems.
 
On many that I tried the lifter wouldn't clear the Loading gate and the loading gate would not open or would open with great difficulty. The lifter should sit below the loading gate at this point. I tried many before selecting the 30/30 that I have now and it is very accurate and i believe that it will "slick up".
 
I did not hear about the stopping of production, but I did learn of a shake down over there about quality control and they are starting to take it more seriously.

I did hear through another grapevine that they are moving(?) or setting up another shop somewhere(?) and will be quite sticky about quality in terms af advertising and marketing.

I guess the old timers did not realize how quickly bad experiences find each other on the internet and collectively start making noise.
 
Hit and miss. If you know your way around a Marlin you will be just fine.
I received a brand new 1894C with a cracked butt-stock, Marlin (Remington) warrantied it without a hassle. Have a new 1894 that was put together real rough, but with an action job it has come around just as smooth as any of my pre Remingtons.
Got a sweet deal on a 336BL off the EE a couple weeks back and it is great, no issues.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are QC issues since the take-over, but nowhere near as bad as the intranets would lead one to believe.
 
Last edited:
According to Marlin's Facebook page, they said the rumors are not true, but obviously they'd say that. It's not Marlin speaking to us, it's Remington and the Freedom Group now.
 
this is not a rumor : we received a letter as any other dealer last friday ... but this is really a good thing they finally closed most of the lines to concentrate on quality ...

finally.

Remington is part of Freedom / Cerberus group as Marlin so this is not Remington speaking to us and they own Barnes too ... as many other stuffs ....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom