I stripped that baby down to the last spring and one thing for sure, Longrange was right, there's not a mark on the gun, no inspector mark, no rollmark, no nothing.Upon unwrapping the gun, I immediately shot one round out of it....you understand, some people have to do these things. A very light load it was, 2 grains of Bullseye and a 158 gr. .357 cast bullet. It went off very nicely. Thank you!
I then opened a box of 1950's Winchester loaded ammo and dumped 4 down the tube and cycled the action.....perfect.
I tested the trigger pull......2 pounds and crisp...very nice.
24" barrel
I did the above because I plan on doing a fair amount of work to this rifle (read on, no major alternations) and if it did not do the obvious, I was going to make a tomato stake out of it.
Spending several hours inspecting this rifle has convinced me its a pre-336 experimental gun from Marlin's research and development department, most likely made in 1947. The pictures and captions tell the story. This baby is going to made into the finest levergun silhouette rifle the world has ever seen. Its the perfect cartridge for the 200 meter rams, has a pistol grip, has a 24" barrel, short magazine, no stupid barrel bands, old style Ballard rifling, nice trigger, made in the U.S. of A., and you cannot hurt it, its a 336.
-----------------------Sixgun Note--I'm not going to make any alternations to this gun.....I'm only going to cut a dovetail in the front ramp and fix up the rust.It will garner lots of attention with the weird looking receiver and the magazine tube that's built like a .22 rifle.
The 336 was presented to the public in 1948 and I am sure there were several variations for marketing to look at...which ones would sell, the best looking, etc. These operations obviously took place right after the war, from 1946 to 1947.
If someone was going to steal a rifle via the lunchbox, he would not have had access to the R & D department, plus.....he would have stole a rifle that was complete and could use--read on.
The rifle disassembled ----no buttstock...gotta hunt one down.
Here's the loading system. Perfectly made. It has the latch with a spring and can be turned after latching so you won't lose it while hunting. Unlike any centerfire rifle of it's time.
Stripped receiver---in 40+ years of taking guns apart, I have never seen the underside of a barrel without some kind of marks.
There were many variations of the carrier. This one is the same design as the first 336's
Deep, heavy Ballard rifling.
There is no dovetail for the rear sight! How was the thief going to aim and shoot with it?
The ramp has been silver soldered on, but where is the dovetail for the front sight?
The clincher that this is an early 336. (Look on top of the press) All 336's have a 2 part trigger, there's the trigger and the sear that fits on it by a machine cut and a post to hold it together. This trigger is the same style as used on the Model 36, the predecessor to the 336, so Marlin used an old part in the development but changed it with production models. Thanks Longrange 308! I'll post pics when its good-to-go.---------Sixgun
