The Marlin 39 Club

BUMP

Just acquired a box of parts that I'm told will assemble into a Marlin 39. The story goes that someone hid the gun in his house to ensure his grandkids didn't play with it. It was forgotten and subjected to water damage. The barrel has some of the deepest pitting I've ever encountered, but the person who gave me the box of parts also gave me a new barrel along with a warning that some parts might be missing, I noticed the stock is missing. I'll post more as I get it shooting again.

Keep us informed, Stan. You should be able to find reassembly instruction on the web(maybe Utube)?
Steve

I have an "on topic" question;

I have a Marlin 39 carbine.
Is this rare? I have never seen another labeled as such.

I just checked the serial #. U prefix I believe that means 1960 manufacture. I'm actually excited. I started to think about methods to use my Mauser action wrench to do the rebarrel with out damaging the action, looks like all this pieces of oak and maple are going to come in handy.

I have a '55 (IIRC) I rescued and when I replaced the barrel on mine, I wrapped it in an old leather belt and clamped it in my vice with aluminum jaw covers, I had to used a torch to heat up the barrel and used a pipe wrench to spin it off ... it left some deep tooth marks in the old barrel but I really didn't care since I was replacing it anyway.

I replaced mine with a 20" Century Edition Octagonal barrel I found on eBay and a hand-guard and feed tube I found at Numrich Parts, the butt stock is original ... I've posted the picture of it before but its probably a hundred or so pages back ... so here it is again!

Kimberkid,
That came out really nice. I'm on the hunt for parts right now. It turns out that the older front sight base is the most difficult part to find. The one on the existing barrel is pitted beyond repair. It's amazing how when you don't have a project the parts are every where, but as soon as you need them the market has dried up.

Stan Rose;

Also haunt the shows for a copy of the old Gun Digest "Firearms Assembly/Disassembly" books. The one you want will be "Part III: Rimfire Rifles". It covers the Marlin model 39 very well. It's by J.B. Wood.

900F

stan rose said:

Kimberkid,
That came out really nice. I'm on the hunt for parts right now. It turns out that the older front sight base is the most difficult part to find. The one on the existing barrel is pitted beyond repair. It's amazing how when you don't have a project the parts are every where, but as soon as you need them the market has dried up.

Click to expand...

I needed a front sight too ... I know its blasphemy but I ended up using one from a 10-22 if I remember correctly because the dovetail on the one from the round barrel was considerably smaller than the one on the octagonal barrel.
Also the 10-22 sight was slightly taller so I had to raise the rear sight to the 2nd or 3rd notch to shoot at point of aim at 25/50 yards.

A Funny Thing Happened At The Range Today...

I went to the range today, and quite naturally I had my Model 39 with me.

I was happily bouncing a golf ball down the range , and when I pulled the trigger I got a LOUD POP from the rifle and I felt something hit my face.

O.K., that's weird. I looked down at the rifle, and there was smoke curling out around the bolt and firing pin.

So, I carefully ejected the fired case into my hand and there was exactly what I thought I would find... A ruptured case.



It was covered in black soot when I pulled it out of the rifle, but after riding around in my pocket for several hours that's all gone.

My first thought was to check the barrel and make sure that bullet made it out the end. (I don't know if I hit the golf ball or not, I got distracted and didn't look to see)

I broke the rifle down, and there was nothing to see. It was slightly dirty and normal in every way. The bore looked just fine.

I put the rifle back together, and spent a minute thinking about what happened.

The ammo was Winchester hollow points. They come in a red plastic box that looks exactly like the CCI box, except it has a clear red tint to the bottom.

These are a little on the "Hot" side, at 1400 FPS. I have had a good source for these and they are priced less than what I pay for CCI when I can find it. They seem to work just fine in all my rifles and accuracy is OK but not as good as CCI. I shoot them because they are available.

I noticed that the rupture seems to have happened at the spot where the firing pin dented the rim. It's the exact size and shape of the firing pin strike, and no marks are visible any where else on the case.

Yes, my rifle leaves a nice, deep firing pin strike, but I don't think it's excessive. It's not any bigger than my other .22s.

This rifle uses the rebounding hammer, so the hammer lifts quickly after the shot and the spot where the firing pin hits is no longer supported when that happens. I don't know if that's actually a factor because the bullet leaves the barrel and the pressure drops faster than that spring can push the hammer back up.

So my final answer was to load the rifle back up with more of those same bullets and keep shooting. And nothing happened. It kept right on chugging along and nothing else weird happened all afternoon.

This rifle is a big, burly example of forged steel, and it's plenty strong enough to handle the little bit of powder found in a .22LR cartridge- ruptured case or not.

I'm not scared. I feel like it was probably a case that wasn't hardened just right, and it cracked under the pressure.

The small amount of "Stuff" that hit my face was most likely carbon that got launched out of the firing pin slot, and didn't really even hurt. It was a long shot from drawing blood.

This is the first time I have ever seen a .22 blowout a case. I'm glad it was in a stout model 39 when it happened.

You failed to mention the vintage of you Marlin 39? What's the born on date of your rifle? By mentioning rebound hammer, are you saying newer model 39 with the cross bolt safety?
Steve or maybe Remlin?
Steve

The rifle in question is a 2001 vintage JM stamped cross bolt safety rifle.

It's been a good rifle and has never shown me any sort of quality issues.

I have owned it since 2005, and it's been shot a lot. It's been pictured in this thread quite a few times, and probably will be again.

It's my favorite rifle.

about that blow out,not a marlin, but ive had three out of battery's in my ruger mk3, all caused by the loaded chamber indicator. Blow out three took care of the problem by removing the indicator for me. This gun has seen many thousands of rounds. Did not even scratch the bluing. Tough guns.

I have a Marlin 39 carbine.
Is this rare? I have never seen another labeled as such.

Sorry, I just saw this.

Yes, Marlin made several rifles that are named "Carbine" rifles.
There was the 90th Anniversary 39M Mountie Carbine and the Model 39M Article II Carbine.

From 1963 to 1967 Marlin made a model similar to the 39M labeled "Model 39 Carbine".
This model had a light barrel and a 3/4 tube magazine. There were 9,695 made.

Where did everybody go

BUMP

Retired in 2001 said:

BUMP

Click to expand...

Ditto ... I haven't seen a post on this thread in a while!

But then I haven't gotten any more 39's or parts or had any questions ... Spring is here and I need to take the levers out for a bit of a work-out!

One of the best qualities of the 39 is the ability to digest any and all .22 ammo. In these days of limited supply, never knowing what odds and ends you will encounter, it is really nice to have a rifle that doesn't care.

Fella's;

I'm working on one of mine, one I "rescued" I guess. It had been abused as a child. Currently I've obtained new wood for it & am in the process of fitting the buttstock to the action.

Me and my dremel, slowly down the avenue.

I don't work on it all the time, just when I feel like it. It's waay too easy to make a major mistake with something like the dremel tool, and I'm going to avoid that if at all possible.

900F

I'm still around, and I still have my 39a. Haven't shot it much lately. Need to change that...



Hard to believe I got my gun brand new earlier in this thread, and that will have been 10 years ago around October. One of my better gun purchases, to be sure.