After buying two mid-'50's 39A's for stepsons long gone, decided to buy a new one for me, being impressed by the old guns accuracy and longevity.
Fit/finish is typical modern Marlin, not as nice as days past but better than many new guns.
Had problems with both sights and misfires....the sights were no big deal as I intended on putting a 5D on the back and a Marbles ivory bead up front, anyhow. Initially, to zero the gun took an absurd amount of offset of the sights, and the rear sight was loose in the dovetail....the new sights fixed that, and a Marbles slot filler in the dovetail fit really tight, so will chalk it up to OEM sights being out of spec., everything lining up nice and centered with the new stuff. The new guns only have scope mount holes, but Williams makes a 5D to fit, the 5D-39TM (pretty new, I think).
Misfires were already something I knew about, on rebounding hammer Winchesters, too, an easy fix. The hammer strut on rebounders has a forked end, the upper fork powering the hammer forward, the lower fork striking the hammer base and causing it to rebound to half-cock, the mainspring fighting itself. Simply shortening the lower fork will cure misfires, but might not allow the hammer to rebound to half-cock (if that's important to you). Only tools required being the screwdriver for the buttstock tang screw, and files. The "hammer spring adjusting plate" aka the strut seat easily pops out and back in using only hands, pivoting out the top end first, then sliding the lower end out of the milled lower tang slot, reassembly the reverse.
With new sights and better ignition, the gun will put 10rds of cheap bulk-pack Fed HP's into 0.7" at 25yds using only a rolled mat for a forend rest, with 8 of those 10 going into 0.5"....wish I'd bought one years ago, a gun built for several lifetimes.
I love the 39AS capacity where you end up wondering if the thing is ever going to run out of ammo....19LR's, 21L's, and 26 Shorts(?!)....I use CB Shorts a lot for pest control, so this is great....haven't put the CB-S's on paper with the new sights, but it easily kept them on a small paper plate at 50yds using the original sights....
Fit/finish is typical modern Marlin, not as nice as days past but better than many new guns.
Had problems with both sights and misfires....the sights were no big deal as I intended on putting a 5D on the back and a Marbles ivory bead up front, anyhow. Initially, to zero the gun took an absurd amount of offset of the sights, and the rear sight was loose in the dovetail....the new sights fixed that, and a Marbles slot filler in the dovetail fit really tight, so will chalk it up to OEM sights being out of spec., everything lining up nice and centered with the new stuff. The new guns only have scope mount holes, but Williams makes a 5D to fit, the 5D-39TM (pretty new, I think).
Misfires were already something I knew about, on rebounding hammer Winchesters, too, an easy fix. The hammer strut on rebounders has a forked end, the upper fork powering the hammer forward, the lower fork striking the hammer base and causing it to rebound to half-cock, the mainspring fighting itself. Simply shortening the lower fork will cure misfires, but might not allow the hammer to rebound to half-cock (if that's important to you). Only tools required being the screwdriver for the buttstock tang screw, and files. The "hammer spring adjusting plate" aka the strut seat easily pops out and back in using only hands, pivoting out the top end first, then sliding the lower end out of the milled lower tang slot, reassembly the reverse.
With new sights and better ignition, the gun will put 10rds of cheap bulk-pack Fed HP's into 0.7" at 25yds using only a rolled mat for a forend rest, with 8 of those 10 going into 0.5"....wish I'd bought one years ago, a gun built for several lifetimes.
I love the 39AS capacity where you end up wondering if the thing is ever going to run out of ammo....19LR's, 21L's, and 26 Shorts(?!)....I use CB Shorts a lot for pest control, so this is great....haven't put the CB-S's on paper with the new sights, but it easily kept them on a small paper plate at 50yds using the original sights....
