Started Running A Number of Different Loads Through The Shootists Marlin

[samsi]

Do you plan to scrub out the bore and test your theory?

I remember a product years ago that you coated bullets in, shot them adding a ceramic layer to the bore. Don't know what the name was or if it worked!?

Dyna Bore Coat, supposed to work wonders on milsurps with dark bores. I never got around to trying it.

[GunnyMack]

Do you plan to scrub out the bore and test your theory?

I remember a product years ago that you coated bullets in, shot them adding a ceramic layer to the bore. Don't know what the name was or if it worked!?

Dyna Bore Coat, supposed to work wonders on milsurps with dark bores. I never got around to trying it.

And it's been discontinued...

[Pat C]

JB Bore paste is hard to beat for thorough clean polish .

[Scott Tschirhart]

It’s not because the bore isn’t clean. It’s one of the easiest to clean bores because there aren’t any tooling marks.

[Pat C]

JB Bore paste is a bore polish , it has super fine abrasive.
You can clean a bore squeaky clean and run a patch 25 strokes through and patch will be black. Ultra polishes rifling .
Bench rest shooters use it all the time.

These new Marlin barrels are cold hammer forged over mandrel.

[Scott Tschirhart]

You know, I have JB on my shelf and I’ve used it to remove heavy fouling. I find it particularly good for cleaning up a fouls area on Ruger revolvers that are choked at the threads. It’s an option but I’m trying to change only one variable at a time.

Here it looks like some fouling helps.

Jim Taylor used one of those Outers Foul Out rods years ago. He went all the way down to the steel on a Winchester .30-30 and as I recall, that gun would not shoot until it was fouled again.

I spoke with the owner of Bear Creek Bullets on Friday and he reported that some older pitted barrels would shoot better after using some of his bullets. The coating seemed to fill in the pits.

I fitted a shorter front sight but I’m staying with the gold bead. I also loaded up some 250 gr XTPs over 20 gr of 2400 to see if that will polish things out a bit.

[GunnyMack]

I think you are on to something with the Bear Creek coatings . That's why I asked if you were willing to scrub the bore and retest the theory.

I wonder, does Bear Creek have .258 ? My new to me 25-20 has a rough bore.

[Scott Tschirhart]

You know, I have JB on my shelf and I’ve used it to remove heavy fouling. I find it particularly good for cleaning up a fouls area on Ruger revolvers that are choked at the threads. It’s an option but I’m trying to change only one variable at a time.

Here it looks like some fouling helps.

Jim Taylor used one of those Outers Foul Out rods years ago. He went all the way down to the steel on a Winchester .30-30 and as I recall, that gun would not shoot until it was fouled again.

I spoke with the owner of Bear Creek Bullets on Friday and he reported that some older pitted barrels would shoot better after using some of his bullets. The coating seemed to fill in the pits.

I fitted a shorter front sight but I’m staying with the gold bead. I also loaded up some 250 gr XTPs over 20 gr of 2400 to see if that will polish things out a bit.

Still not happy.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Well, it’s time to put this gun away for a while.

Something is not right. I have plenty of accurate rifles.

It’s really frustrating because I know that my sixgun is more accurate than this carbine.

[Bill in Oregon]

Glad you are getting yours sorted, Scott. Such a lovely carbine!

[Glenn]

I finally got my Shootists Marlin 45 Colt out and shot it a little. Decided to run a few patches thru the bore first - glad I did. The "brand new" barrel had lead in it! Does Ruger proof these with lead bullets?
I had a bunch of Lee 255 RF bullets I had cast up from wheel weights a few years ago so loaded them over 5.5 of TiteGroup and 7.2 of W231. No joy, 50 yard groups ran from 4-1/8 to 6-1/8. I also had some bullets from I mould I cut years ago that is a copy of the LBT LFN that casts 311 gr. bullets. These shot better at just under 3.5" but still not very good. My Rossi Puma does slightly better. I don't have much in the way of load data for the 311 gr. bullet so just loaded them with 4.5 grs. of TiteGroup. They cut round holes even with that pedestrian load. Since they don't seat any deeper in the case that the Lee 255 RF they should be able to handle some pretty stiff loads.



(Don't know if the photo will show.) Nope!

[Griff]

Well, apparently I'll need to scope my 1984 to see if my ammo is any good. I went to the range today and tried a couple loads. As I sat down behind the rifle, the rear sight, front sight & target were equally blurry! Trying to aim, even at just 50 yards was a nightmare. I had two batches of ammo, a few 5 of my 45 Colt cowboy action loads, consisting of a 200 grain RFN from a commercial caster, and then some test ammo I had loaded up that were in various cases, (Winchester & Starline were the most prevalent, followed by some R-P and a few CBC. All were my hand cast bullets from a Lee 452-200-RF mold and were about 18Bhn. All contained 6.3 grains of RedDot and WLP primers. In the video below, you can see the progression of the last 5 shots. They were shots number 26-30 for the day. These were the last of 3 groups, with hand picked bullets weighing 189.9, 190/0 & 190.1 grains as sized & lubed. Each charge was individually weighed and trickled to reach 6.3 grains. Primers were all from the same lot... an attempt to remove as many variables as possible.

After the first few shots of the cowboy ammo, I determined that the front sight was set to the right off center. leading all shots to hit well left of center. While the first shot from a clean bore was centered vertically, the following 4 all went low & left. Moving to the 189.9 grain loads, I also tried to adjust the sight picture to eliminate any gap between the bead and right side of the square slot in the bottom of the buckhorn. This helped, but with the blurry sights, I don't think I ever really got it right as most were scattered, or more precisely, in a group of about 4 inches @ 50 yards. In this group I had one group of 4 into about an inch & a half, I think I might've pushed on the trigger rather than pulled as the next shot went well left again. I had about 24 rounds of the 190.0 grain bullets, and shot a 10 shot string. Somewhere I got a fifth shot in that group of 4, but don't knew exactly which shot it was.

Click on picture to watch video.

The video is of my Longshot Target Camera connected to a tablet, and you see me reflected in the screen. I shot 5 of the 190.1 bullets fairly slowly, and the barrel never really heated up. The trigger pull on this rifle is a little on the heavy side, but breaks cleanly. And I think even on a clean target, I was getting a bit of eye strain trying to keep the blurry sights aligned right.

In this screenshot you can see my 1st target with the best group of 4 plus 1, if you enlarge the pic shots 16-19 are the group of 4, with one that I can't read the shot number that was added somewhere between #s 20-25.

GOPR0181[1].JPG

I found that my mount on the 375 Marlin can fit up to the 1894, but the 1-4 adjustment ring interferes with the mount. If I reverse the mount, the scope moves to the rear and the mount stops the hammer before contact with the firing pin. Tomorrow I'll grind off the rearmost portion the mount to allow enough clearance for the adjustment ring. It won't affect remounting the assembly on the 375, so all's good. If I have time tomorrow, I'll go back to the range and give it a few shots of the 190.0 loads with the scope. If not, I'll make time on Friday before I take off for CO with a load for a new ACE hardware store. Supposed to deliver on Monday, so I plan on being there Sunday nite, as it's supposed to snow on Monday. Wanna get back to Denver, before it becomes necessary to chain up!

[Griff]

Went back to the range today after getting the scope mounted... and brought some C45S rounds to get it close before going to the 45 Colt. Oooops... forgot, it'll only cycle the C45S with 200 grain bullets and I took a bag of 160s! One shot and it locked up tighter'n than heck.
But surprisingly, that one shot was on paper!

10-23-25 range trip.jpg

see orange dot for location.

Got it home and tore it down and and reassembled, and yep, 200 grain load cycle fine! If it don't rain tomorrow, I'll go back and see if I can get a group.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Everything about mine leads me to believe that it should shoot well. At this point I’m just frustrated with it.

[Griff]

Everything about mine leads me to believe that it should shoot well. At this point I’m just frustrated with it.

Scott, I believe you're right. With the little 1-4 power scope mounted I went back to the range this morning and fired another bunch of rounds. This 1st target consisted of 9 rounds of my cowboy ammo, the Cowboy 45 Special with a 200 grain RFN loaded with 4.3 grains of Clays & WLP primers. The shot marked #2, is actually the one shot on that target from yesterday, then my fat thumb marked a couple of places on the screen that had to be erased, and my actual 1st shot today is marked #4, then the same happened w/shot #3, which in marked #6. That happened a few more times until using my little finger I could mark the shots a little more precisely. I was adjusting the scope between shots until I got to shot marked #15, then fired one last shot, #16. I then switched to the 45 Colt ammo with 6.3 grains of RedDot for the remaining 3 rounds of the 189.9 weight bullet for #s 17, 18 & dropped down MOA for #19. Then loaded the last five rounds of the 190.0 weight bullets and fired rounds 20-24, still trying to adjust between shots.

10-24-25-1.png

I then switched targets to a fresh one and fired 5 rounds of 45 Colt with a 200 grain Speer Gold Dot, but the box is not marked with the powder charge. These are now marked shots 1-5, and clustered in about 2" under the shot marked #18. Unfortunately I adjust the scope wrong for shot # 2 as it went a good inch high. Put the scope back in proper position for shots 3-5. With that foundation, I went to a 240 grain Sierra JHP bullet loaded 10 grains of TiteGroup. Trying to conserve ammo, I then adjust the scope after every shot until shot #20, trying to get the impact to coincide with the scope crosshairs. And, yes made a few errors in adjustments, particularly bad before shot #11. The final 4 shots were without any scope adjustment. Shots 21, 22 & 23 were attempted with both eyes open, but... that doesn't work well for me, so 24 was again, left eye closed.

10-24-25-2.jpg

[Scott Tschirhart]

This is quite familiar. Patterns instead of groups.

[JimT]

I've known for quite a while that I don't see the sights and targets like I should for accurate shooting. So Friday I put a scope on the Shootists Marlin. I don't care for a scope on a levergun but I felt like the gun will do a lot better than I was doing. This was one way to find out.

I discovered that even with a scope, if I shot more than 4 to 6 shots without stopping, closing my eyes and resting them for awhile, even through the scope things got "cloudy" ... I could not even see the center marks of the Bullseye at 9X!

All shooting was done at 50 yards, from a rest. All was with bullet #454424 and 8.0 gr. Green Dot. I fired 80 rounds. These are the average of what I did.

Three Shots

3 with scope.JPG

6 shots (I thought it was 5 but I must have miscounted)

6 with scope.JPG

10 shots without resting my eyes

10 with scope #1.JPG

10 shots ... stopped at 5 and rested my eyes for a minute

10 with scope #2.JPG

I know that is not target accuracy but it is a lot better than what I did with iron sights. I am gonna have my son-in-law run a couple hundred rounds through it. He wants to take it to Oklahoma for deer next month and he likes using a scope, so I will leave it on there for him.

[Griff]

This is quite familiar. Patterns instead of groups.

Actually, I wasn't expecting much on that 1st target, as I was adjusting the scope to move the point of impact, and with C45S case the bullet has quite a jump to the lands, plus my adjusting the scope in the wrong direction, really didn't help.

By the time I got to the second target, I was fairly close, but switching to the 45 Colt meant I needed to change the POI again, especially with the different bullet weight from 200 to 240 and the more potent load. Unlike Jim, I didn't really take any time to rest my eyes between any of the shots. There were a couple of hits that were entirely in the black, not cutting any lines, and so I did walk up the target to check a couple of times. And, that helped for a couple of subsequent shots. After putting # 20 on the second target, I shoulda rested again, but shots 21, 22, & 23 were pretty quick, just enough time to extract, mark the screen insert a cartridge in the chamber, and fire. Shot 24 was after a bit of a rest and concentrating. I'm not displeased with the session, just a little frustrated that I didn't have more time. Still packing up stuff and doing laundry so I could leave town that evening. Plus, I still have to do some work to the carrier so it'll feed 45 Colts thru the magazine. It'll get there eventually, or I'll get a new carrier! And keep the C45S for the modified carrier in the '73!

[Bill in Oregon]

Well, Jim, your results show the little Marlins want to shoot.

[JimT]

Yessir they do. I am anxious to see what my son-in-law can do with it.