Reader Forum

Marlin Magazine Fix I have an early Marlin rifle with a malfunctioning magazine tube I’m trying to repair. The magazine has an outer tube that pulls forward and the inner tube stays in the receiver. How does the pin in the follower catch and release in the outer tube? How long should this pin be? Mark Hollensen responds.

I would need to know what model Marlin you’re working on for any specific recommendations, perhaps with a photo of the magazine tube end where the mag tube follower fits into to help with identification. As written, this description almost reads backwards of how the two should operate unless it is a different model? Contact Poppert’s Gun Parts Popperts Gun Parts. com). Numrich Gun- PartsCorp.com) and The Gun Garage GunGarageStore.com) also list Marlin magazine parts.

Mini Thirty Magazines I own a Ruger Mini Thirty manufactured in the 1980s (serial number 189-194XX) made with a tapered bore (0.310 to 0.308) chambered in 7.62×39. The rifle seems to function just fine with ordinary metal magazines but I have a number of Lexan plastic magazines marked "Eagle 3020, Patent #4,580,364". The dimensions of these magazines precisely match with the exception of the plastic magazine wall thickness being double that of the metal mags. This makes me suspicious of the feed lips.

Despite the uniform dimensions, the plastic magazines cannot be seated into the rifle without the bolt held open, however, seating them with the bolt open jams the bolt such that the bolt cannot be closed. I hesitate to file on the feed lips, but maybe these mags are junk anyway. Any advice on how to remedy this? Larry Tripp Blackwell, OK Steven D. Weedman RK Campbell responds. I have modified metal magazines with great success; plastic magazines, no such luck.

Until Ruger introduced their X-series for the Ruger 10/22, 100 per cent of aftermarket magazines did not function properly. When Pro Mag made metal Mini Thirty magazines I was able to weld them up and convince them to function properly. Since your magazines don’t work as they are, I would go ahead and modify the feed lips, however, never trust these magazines for serious duty such as personal defense. There Is No Going Back I read "There Is No Going Back" by Scott J. N.

Smith (October 2022) and found it really well written and enjoyable. I do wonder though: If the customer had chosen not to proceed with the repair would you have given up? Somehow I don’t think so: Just a paragraph later you write: "For my own personal knowledge…" Gunsmithing isn’t my thing and I wasn’t going to subscribe, but I enjoyed this article so much that I paid for a subscription. Sanford Moos Scott J. N. Smith responds.

Thanks for reading and contacting me about the article; your compliments are greatly appreciated. I must confess, yes, I would have continued with the repair on my own accord in this particular instance. The issues with the firearm had already resulted in the tragic loss of one person’s life and I could not in good conscience return the firearm without knowing for certain that it was now functioning as originally intended.

I believe we as gunsmiths have certain inherent responsibilities that are associated with certain repairs. Had the client told me they never used the firearm and had no intentions of using it, that it was guaranteed to just stay in the safe, I still would have chosen to continue with this particular firearm. However, if it were another firearm without such a tragic association, I may have deferred to the client’s request and left the firearm inoperable.

Westport, KY In my shop, when someone purchases anew firearm I make certain all of the factory grease has been cleaned away prior to displaying the item and that the firearm is in proper working condition. It is rare, but factory defects do occur and oftentimes these flaws can be discovered during the cleaning process. New Sniper Book American Gunsmith contributor Gary Yee recently released World War II Sniper: The Men, Their Guns, Their Stories. This project started

around April 2019 and both he and his editor had been making changes up to the last minute. This book has over 200,000 words, 352 pages with 12 pages (over 1,100) of endnotes, 12 pages of bibliography, and over 400 photos. From Gary Yee: "The book was supposed to have been Voices of Snipers and comprised first hand accounts. However, British copyright laws limited the words from each memoir and with only about 11 known WWII memoirs, I declined the contract.

Still, I had amassed over 70k words of raw material (much of which had to be paraphrased to shorten it) and since it was started, I decided to finish it. "Unlike other writers, I don’t outline a book and then fill in the details. The problem with that is that there may be no details to fill in. Language barriers, money, and a lack of ability to travel meant it could only be on what was uncovered during the research.

The difficulty was taking over 1,000 unrelated but important facts and blending them into an educational and enjoyable narrative. Since there was no organization for the book, that was developed along the way. "The experience drawn from Sharpshooters (1750-1900): The Men, Their Guns, Their Story provided the pattern here and it was decided to organize it in three basic groups: selection and training, combat accounts by snipers or witnesses, and the equipment.

Research often entailed reading a book to find a paragraph or even just a sentence that would provide insights into sniping or snipers. As the information was gathered, it was decided to break down the selection and training by nationality. That made sense to me. The heart of the book is the combat section broken down into Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific Theatre. Each of these were further broken down into three chapters.

While the book really doesn’t attempt to give an in-depth appreciation of the campaigns or battles, some cursory coverage is given so that the sniping incident can be told in the context under which it happened. "An example is the Western Europe chapters. From reading them you can see how different things were interwoven to tell the story of WWII snipers and sniping. Obscure, little known, or long forgotten incidents were brought back to into a narrative that I hope is both fun and educational.

The entire book is like that. Originally, the manuscript had a chapter containing a lot of interesting little things that couldn’t quite be woven into the narrative. Insufficient background on the incident or lack of date or location meant inclusion could be awkward. Here the publisher and editor did a terrific job in placing those factoids into text boxes and there are numerous text boxes, many with pictures, that help illustrate the book.

Some text boxes can be several pages long but most are just inserts into the text; much like what one would find in a magazine. "The book is a bit too pretty and the designer did a smashing job. My fear is that the reader will be overwhelmed by its presentation, read the text boxes and illustration captions while ignoring the text and the introduction which sets the tone for the book. Another factor is the sheer volume at 352 pages in an oversized 10 x 8" format instead of 9 x 7" as I had hoped.

Since it is thicker than any other Casemate Illustrated History series book, the publishing team had a special meeting to approve the additional pages. Having gotten into woodworking just to make more bookcases, I’ve now five shelves filled with accounts by GIs or Marines, three with German, one and a half of Soviet, and one of British. This is in addition to all the sniping books that I already had before the project was started." AG