Scored a NIB 1994 Marlin 336cs

Let me recommend, probably for my benefit more than yours, that you measure the bullet jump to the lands. My early 1990's Marlin, with a 170 grain RN, the bullet has to jump two tenths of an inch before the bullet touches the lands. This cannot be adjusted by seating the bullet out. My cartridge OAL is 2.550" and if it is any longer, it is too long to eject from the rifle. Yes, you can get it in the chamber, but it is too long to eject. This has to do with the location of the ejector inside the receiver.

I am curious about your rifle, if your bullet jump is comparable to mine.

I am certain that this is why my rifle will not shoot cast bullets. I am certain some of the lead bullets get bent before the reach the lands. And it may be a contributor to the fact that my rifle is a 3 MOA affair at distance. Maybe closer to 3.5 MOA with its best loads. And it will barely hold the black at 300 yards, awful groups.

Whiterook808 said:

This one has micro groove rifling and I suspect that is not the best thing for cats bullets.

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A number of posters on cast boolits claim lead bullets shoot well in their Marlin Microgroove barrels. I thought they were full of it, that based on my Marlin 336, they had to be wrong. But that was before I measured the throat jump. If my Marlin had a normal chamber and throat, I might find that they were right. I do think that if cast bullets are pushed fast in a microgroove barrel they will strip out. This is more or less my experience in my 30-06 Ruger #1, with shallow grooves, and my two groove M1903A3. Cast bullets key holed in the Ruger #1 at velocities that didn't bother the two groove M1903A3.

These were 100 yard targets. It took a more experimenting, and finally measuring the bullet jump, shots before I convinced myself, the wild shots were not due to me.







I kept going down on velocity, thinking the wild shots were due to bullets stripping out, but I think the real problem was deformation of the cast bullet before it even reached the throat.

Good catch OP. That's a nice rifle.

A Wild West ejector is set back a bit to eject longer cartridges. I am unsure of how far back. I think it might be .100 inches. Not enough to get the bullet as close as possible to the rifling in @Slamfire ’s rifle but it would close the gap a lot.