Did you install the XS sights or were they factory? Are they night sights?
And what work did yours need to run well?
The sights came with the gun from Marlin, not night sights though. See the CSBL link here.
https://www.marlinfirearms.com/lever-action/model-1894/model-1894-csbl
The rest is a bit long winded.
Fresh from the factory, the magazine was hard to load after the first cartridge was inserted.
It turns out most Marlin .357s are like this as it has to do with the diameter of the hole in the receiver that goes into the tube magazine. Not the side gate opening, but the hole where the mag tube attaches to the receiver. This hole in the receiver needs to be chamfered a bit top and bottom, but much more so on the left side as the .357/.38 rim will catch trying to go through that hole when loading. Interestingly and obviously, .44 Mag and .45 Colt receiver magazine holes match the internal width of the receiver better so they don't seem to have this problem.
Also, filling the magazine past 6 rounds was difficult and it is reported that Marlin uses the same length magazine spring from long barrels to short barrels. I cut the magazine spring from the original 27.5" down to 22.5" for my 16.5" barreled Marlin. The magazine now holds 8 rounds of .357 and 9 rounds of .38s, loads smoothly, and feeds perfectly.
From my research even pre-Remington Marlin .357s needed at least the magazine loading issue worked on when new. Of course, if you can jiggle the cartridges as you press them in, the rim on the preceeding cartridge will skip past the receiver hole going into the magazine tube.
What I don't know is if loading a Henry through the new side loading gate has the same issue in .357 models. Clearly, loading the Henry through the front of the gun would not have this issue.
While I had the gun apart I did some work to the hammer spring strut to allow the spring to expand about an extra coil width, which relaxed spring pressure a bit. I also tweaked the trigger spring for a bit lighter pressure, and I cleaned up the sear on the hammer just a bit. The trigger is better than it was for sure, just below 5 pounds now.
So yeah, a lot of early regret with the Marlin as I didn't study up on it properly, but once the frustration was overcome it was worth the effort. I've heard that many Rossis need an action job out of the box as well, especially with all the references to
Steve's Gunz brought up over the years.
See this video about the 10:35 mark to see Hickock 45 speak about loading .357 mag Marlin 1894s.