.444 Cases Sticking In Chamber

[SGW Gunsmith]

Older fella brought his Marlin .444 rifle in last week with the issue of fired cases sticking in the chamber after firing. Says the lever jams up and won't pull the spent case from the chamber.
Loading up three cartridges into the tube magazine and those three rounds levered into and extracted from the chamber just fine. Single loading and firing just one round, and I needed to eat a can of Spinach to get the lever down to the point the spent case came out of the chamber. Time to get out the bore scope.
Up here in Northern Wisconsin we can have some very harsh weather come deer gun hunting season. Firing one's rifle during this, most often very cold, time of year will cause a sorta hot case to be captured in a cold chamber long enough to create some amount of condensation in the chamber. If that moisture is not removed before the firearm is stored away until the next deer season, problems with rust will rear its ugly head, like so:



It's easy to see the yellow from the spent case plastered against the chamber wall, and once the rough chamber was shined up a bit with some #0000 steel wool and Break-Free CLP, all rounds placed into the magazine tube fed, fired and ejected just like they should. /DAW

 

[Slamfire]

LeeRoy Wisner has written extensively on a number of firearms on his Rambling blog:

http://www.leeroysramblings.com/Firearm Related Articles/Firearm related articles.html

and if you look up the Rem M740/742 section, he has encountered a number of these rifles with rusted chambers. Rusted chambers more or less show Ackleyism, that is the idea that "rough, rusted chambers are good, because they reduce bolt thrust" to be a farce. If you can't get the case out of the chamber, than why did you buy a repeating rifle?

Anyway, a rusted chamber is a bad thing, because if the pits are deep enough, reaming the chamber to remove them will create case body splits.

If the chamber polish fix does not permanently correct this, the owner will be over a barrel. The owner could call Marlin and see if they still replace barrels. Marlin used to do that when they were in New Haven, but that was about two moves, and several bankruptcies ago. I suspect the cost of rebarreling by a gunsmith will be more than the 444 is worth.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

^^^^^^^And, there's a pretty darn good reason as to WHY all those Remington Model 740 and 742 semi-automatic rifles were furnished with a "bent-handle" caliber/chamber specific, bronze brush. Not for use on plastic teeth.

Now that Remington owns and operates Marlin, it will be interesting as to how they handle warranty repair work.
And, I rather doubt that this owner would care if spent brass splits, as he doesn't handload anyway.

 

[beag_nut]

Uh, Ruger now has Marlin.

 

[243winxb]

If that moisture is not removed before the firearm is stored away until the next deer season, problems with rust will rear its ugly head

So true.
The Remington Model 760 pump seems to get put away wet after hunting. Seen a few that could not be pumped.

A 1903 Springfield, could not see daylight thru the barrel.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Uh, Ruger now has Marlin.

Yah! I read that in Post #3.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

So true.
The Remington Model 760 pump seems to get put away wet after hunting. Seen a few that could not be pumped.

A 1903 Springfield, could not see daylight thru the barrel.

Funny you should mention that. Just this morning a local brought his 7600 Remington slide action rifle with the synthetic stock in, with the condition ALMOST reaching what you describe. Need to eat a can of Spinach before the slide comes back to reload the chamber.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Funny you should mention that. Just this morning a local brought his 7600 Remington slide action rifle with the synthetic stock in, with the condition ALMOST reaching what you describe. Need to eat a can of Spinach before the slide comes back to reload the chamber.

Don’t know if you have ever tried it but I have had at least moderate success with foaming bore cleaner down the muzzle. Let the gun sit nearly level but slightly muzzle high for a few hours.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

LeeRoy Wisner has written extensively on a number of firearms on his Rambling blog:

http://www.leeroysramblings.com/Firearm Related Articles/Firearm related articles.html

If you go to that site as mentioned above and look at the picture of the Remington 740 receiver, you can plainly see where the bolt lugs are over-rotating and beginning to swage metal at the back of the bolt track.
When Remington came out with the Remington 7400 versions of this rifle they were accepting trade ins of the Remington 742 along with $365.00 and they would send a new Remington 7400. What a wonderful gesture. That's about what street cost was at most gun shops.
I was buying butt stocks from the 742 trade in deal from Remington for $20.00 and forearms for $15.00, along with trigger assemblies and action bars.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Don’t know if you have ever tried it but I have had at least moderate success with foaming bore cleaner down the muzzle. Let the gun sit nearly level but slightly muzzle high for a few hours.

No, but do something similar. I get black tapered rubber "stoppers" from the local ACE Hardware store and plug the chamber end. Then fill up the bore with "Shooter's Choice" and let it sit over-night. Probably does the same thing, but it does loosen any crapola in the bore without a lot of scrubbing.

 

[Armorer 101]

We here are coming up on dove season, typical high heat and high humidity. Put the shotgun in the back, on the floor and turn on the AC, drive an hour. If you do not run an oily patch down the barrel first, I will see you later to do a chamber polish after you come in from the dove field. I get a dozen or so every year.

 

[beag_nut]

Yah! I read that in Post #3.

Except that in #3 you said that Rem has Marlin.
My correction is in #4.

 

[Slamfire]

Uh, Ruger now has Marlin.

I suspect Ruger, or whom ever owns the Marlin brand name, will not touch the older rifles for any work, warranty or custom. It is too much a bag of worms, the new owner cannot accept the liability of faulty materials and workmanship from a company that no longer exists, and if New Haven Marlins were file to fit and hammered in place, then replacement parts will not be drop in, and then you have to have expensive, skilled gunsmiths adjusting parts, if they can be adjusted, to fit.

I have no idea of the quality of Huntsville Alabama Remington Marlins. I did get to talk to a guy who worked there. Remington wanted to be a just in time inventory shop. Parts when they came in were to be ready to be installed with the new production line set up. Bud told me the Remington Huntsville Production engineers were changing the drawings, to fit non conforming parts! They got batches of parts that were off in some way, and instead of kicking them back to the sub contractor, and waiting for parts that met all the drawing requirements, they just changed their own drawing package around the non conforming parts. Then put them into production and sold the guns as fast as they could. This means, long term, that parts interchangeability on Remington Huntsville products may be a problem. I don't know what the engineers were changing, be it dimensional, or material, or finish, etc, but it is bad practice to do this if the company is going to be around long enough for warranty work. But good practice if the business is so highly leveraged it is only profitable because of massive Government corporate welfare, and Corporate never expected it to last long.

 

[Jim Watson]

Interesting, I didn't know Remington/Huntsville made takeover Marlins.

Not like it hasn't happened before. Colt wasn't making 1911s to the blueprints provided to wartime contractors, either.

 

[Slamfire]

Interesting, I didn't know Remington/Huntsville made takeover Marlins.

Not like it hasn't happened before. Colt wasn't making 1911s to the blueprints provided to wartime contractors, either.

What I read, from Clawson's book particularly, was that pre WW1 Colt did not have part drawings. What they had were "tool room" models. This has been identified as a tool room model





These were the master parts, and if any parts on the factory floor were giving function or fit issues, these tool room parts were measured, and compared against current production. This more or less worked in a stable production environment with a stable workforce using the same machine tools, but was absolutely un translatable to a new manufacturer. This is a primary reason only Colt made 1911's made it to combat, and why were there not enough Colt 1911's to meet demand. Alternate manufacturer's were not able to puzzle out the production process and dimensions to build in quantity before the war ended.

I heard Marlins were made in Huntsville, and there are pictures of Huntsville made Marlins.



Picture from this thread: https://www.marlinowners.com/threads/need-serial-number-help-please.608563/ where the Marlin was identified as a Huntsville Alabama product.

Huntsville made a number of rifles. They were using a flexible manufacturing system where they moved CNC machines around, put them in sequence , and sent out computer code for the machines to follow on the next model. Firearm parts were made in batches by automated equipment. There were very few people around the production equipment, basically someone walking around picking up bolts that fell off conveyor belts, and monitoring the equipment. Only at the end of the production line were there a collection of people, all twenty somethings Assemblers were all young, all standing, no chairs! and they did not have files, so they could not adjust out of tolerance parts and make them line up. That was the production philosophy, that everything was to be screwed together without adjustment, and as we have seen in a number of threads, front sights are way off center, so the theory did not work perfectly in practice all the time.

Not all the models were being made at the same time, so the pictures in this article are of only the ones that were in the factory at the time of tour.

https://www.guns.com/news/2017/05/0...-at-remingtons-huntsville-mega-factory-photos

 

[Jim Watson]

This is a primary reason only Colt made 1911's made it to combat, and why were there not enough Colt 1911's to meet demand. Alternate manufacturer's were not able to puzzle out the production process and dimensions to build in quantity before the war ended.

My Clawson says Springfield got 20 guns from Colt and made drawings from their dimensions. They were building guns in 1914 and 1915 before we ever declared war. But they only made about 26000, a drop in the bucket vs the many Colts. Might have had something to do with the much higher priority for rifles.

Colt sent Remington-UMC drawings that were not real machinists' drawings, not usable, nor any of the requested gauges. Remington eventually got some guns and made their own drawings like Springfield. They did not get into production until 1918 and those guns likely lingered on in storage or in garrison until WWII.

 

[Slamfire]

My Clawson says Springfield got 20 guns from Colt and made drawings from their dimensions. They were building guns in 1914 and 1915 before we ever declared war. But they only made about 26000, a drop in the bucket vs the many Colts. Might have had something to do with the much higher priority for rifles.

Colt sent Remington-UMC drawings that were not real machinists' drawings, not usable, nor any of the requested gauges. Remington eventually got some guns and made their own drawings like Springfield. They did not get into production until 1918 and those guns likely lingered on in storage or in garrison until WWII.

I talked to a guy who had gotten copies of the Government 1911 technical data package, the "last one". He claimed that there were still inconsistencies and dimensional errors.

Well, we don't have to worry about that in the future, we will just buy Chinese made guns for our next war. Just like Major League baseball is buying bats and balls from China.

 

[Jim Watson]

I don't doubt it. Clawson said contractor startup in WWII was not smooth.
Then you get into all the things people are building and calling 1911s. Ick.

Chinese guns? Naw, just Chinese chips for radar and avionics, etc; we got German guns replacing Italian guns.

 

[Sun Tzu warrior]

So true.
The Remington Model 760 pump seems to get put away wet after hunting. Seen a few that could not be pumped.

A 1903 Springfield, could not see daylight thru the barrel.

I have had a 760, in my very early days. Being naive, I loaded some once fired brass, with a "wack-a-mole" classic lee loader, not realizing it only neck sizes. Remington is renound for tight chambers. Any good mechanic knows that anything with less than a 7% taper creates a positive lock. (Think a lawnmower engines flywheel)
I created the mother of all jams. And will from that time toward, either full length size cases, or only neck size cases, fired from the rifle the will be shooting them

 

[eastbank]

i had a 760 in .308 that was a bear to pump before and after firing, i cleaned from the ground up and it realy helped. but one thing that helped was to cean the tube the pump handle rode on, you would not believe the amount of crap that came out after 60 years.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

What I read, from Clawson's book particularly, was that pre WW1 Colt did not have part drawings. What they had were "tool room" models. This has been identified as a tool room model

View attachment 1026530

View attachment 1026531

These were the master parts, and if any parts on the factory floor were giving function or fit issues, these tool room parts were measured, and compared against current production. This more or less worked in a stable production environment with a stable workforce using the same machine tools, but was absolutely un translatable to a new manufacturer. This is a primary reason only Colt made 1911's made it to combat, and why were there not enough Colt 1911's to meet demand. Alternate manufacturer's were not able to puzzle out the production process and dimensions to build in quantity before the war ended.

I heard Marlins were made in Huntsville, and there are pictures of Huntsville made Marlins.

View attachment 1026532

Picture from this thread: https://www.marlinowners.com/threads/need-serial-number-help-please.608563/ where the Marlin was identified as a Huntsville Alabama product.

Huntsville made a number of rifles. They were using a flexible manufacturing system where they moved CNC machines around, put them in sequence , and sent out computer code for the machines to follow on the next model. Firearm parts were made in batches by automated equipment. There were very few people around the production equipment, basically someone walking around picking up bolts that fell off conveyor belts, and monitoring the equipment. Only at the end of the production line were there a collection of people, all twenty somethings Assemblers were all young, all standing, no chairs! and they did not have files, so they could not adjust out of tolerance parts and make them line up. That was the production philosophy, that everything was to be screwed together without adjustment, and as we have seen in a number of threads, front sights are way off center, so the theory did not work perfectly in practice all the time.

Not all the models were being made at the same time, so the pictures in this article are of only the ones that were in the factory at the time of tour.

https://www.guns.com/news/2017/05/0...-at-remingtons-huntsville-mega-factory-photos

GEEEZ! Well, maybe after all it wasn't just a "pigment of my infatuation". I really don't give a "rat's patoot" as to where Marlins are made these days. It only matters to me that they work to a customer's expectations and satisfaction.

 

[HowieG]

I flex hone chambers that have sticking issues, if they aren't too far gone. Some pretty fresh factory chambers are a touch rough. I've done two and it's worked in both.