Marlin 1895 Magazine

After over 30 years of ‘smithin, you still never know what will come in next. Within a two week period I had two different customers bring in "blown-up" (or nearly so) guns! One was a modern S&W Sigma and the other an ancient bolt action 20 gauge. Fortunately, both were repairable, the owners were diplomatically educated as to what caused the problems, and how to avoid repeat performances. The Sigma had been fairly well disassembled and cleaned but reassembled incorrectly.

Turns out, the customer cleaned the pistol with Hoppe’s No. 9 while drinking Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7; thankfully not the other way around, but still unacceptable. The shotgun damage was largely caused by an ignorant shooter stuffing a 3" magnum shotshell into the seventy-year-old bolt action. Luckily, neither shooter was injured. Recently, things got really interesting (at least to me) with anew project.

A customer with a beautiful, laminated stock .45-70 Marlin X L Rand fourround carbine-length magazine wanted a custom full-length eight-round magazine for the additional capacity. Very cool, at least in my opinion and particularly here in Florida where we’re blessed (cursed?) with some damn good-sized wild boar. This would also be useful for anyone contemplating a trip to Alaska where brown bears can exceed 1400 pounds.

Such an improved firearm would even be great for brush or thick woods whitetail hunting as I have done in Georgia and Missouri. The customer’s rifle is stainless so the first search was for a fulllength magazine tube in stainless. Oops, not available! So, my partner-in-crime, Mike Diedrich (Mike Diedrich Gunsmithing, Fix My Guns. com), located one in blued steel from Brownells but it was too long.

The length, we felt, could be adjusted, the blueing could be bead blasted away, and a Duracoat "stainless" finish could match (or at least be compatible) with the rest of the stainless 375" dovetail machined in the barrel for attaching the new magazine. 45-70 Marlin XLR with four-round carbinelength magazine. rifle. A longer magazine spring was also ordered from Brownells, The new magazine tube had to be shortened slightly. Machine work on the barrel would also be required as well.

This necessitated filling the existing dovetail in the stainless barrel where the original magazine tube was attached with apiece of dovetail stock and filing to near invisibility. Anew 0.375" dovetail had to be machined in the barrel for attaching the new magazine. The bulk of the cut was made using a straight, 0.250" carbide end mill 0.085" deep. The straight cutter was used as it is more rugged and less expensive than the solid carbide dovetail cutter which followed.

Mike then switched to a 60° carbide dovetail cutter. Carbide cutters were selected to precisely cut the stainless but the manufacturer said it had to be run at 1100-1250 RPM compared to 700 RPM (maximum) for a high speed steel cutter. Mike is a perfectionist and the new dovetail was perfect! The customer loved the work and wants another of his lever guns to be modified similarly. For further information, visit Mike’s website or contact me directly at cbgunsmith@ verizon.net. AG