The Marlin/Glenfield 60

Why in the world would anyone write about the Glenfield 60? It seems most gun writers won’t. I can’t remember ever seeing an article on them. Despite the almost universal disdain for the inexpensive .22 by the pros, people buy them and gunsmiths see them in their shops on a regular basis. While there are hundreds of accessories available for the more expensive Ruger 10/22, finding anything except factory parts for the 60 is nigh on impossible.

Still, with 11 million of them out there, every gunsmith, professional or amateur, needs to understand a little about them. I was able to pick up a used Glenfield from Gunbroker.com for a $67.00 bid plus $25.00 shipping for a total All the splendor of an inexpensive .22 that has sold 11 million units. price of $92.00 delivered to my favorite FFL holder at Family Pawn on Paris Road in Columbia MO.

Since I bring a lot of guns through their shop I have spent a lot of time and effort to cultivate a mutually beneficial business and personal relationship with the guys that keep me supplied with guns to renovate and write about. Fortunately that was an easy task as they are as friendly a group as I have ever done business with. What other semiautomatic .22 can you get at under $100?

The gun I received was a newer model and my first task was to learn as much as I could about the gun and that starts with disassembly. I have three editions of the NRA Firearms Assembly books and the Marlin/Glenfield 60 isn’t covered in any of them. Did I mention that most of the industry ignores inexpensive guns?

Searching my other reference material didn’t turn up any information so I downloaded an exploded drawing from the Numrich Gun Parts site (gunpartscorp.com) and relied on pictures I took with my digital camera.

Careful stoning of these two parts can improve trigger quality. Removal of the barreled action from the stock is as simple as removing two screws. The rear trigger guard screw and the take down screw located on the bottom of the stock just ahead of the trigger guard hold the stock and action together. Once that is accomplished you will find all the working parts located in a subassembly attached to the receiver by three machine screws. Removal of these separates the subassembly from the receiver.

The subassembly itself is held together bye-clips on the end of through pins. Before attempting to disassemble it, I highly recommend taking some clear pictures of the location of the parts and springs. It’s not really all that difficult but once the e-clips are removed it seems to simply fall apart, dumping parts on the bench and making you wish you had paid more attention to how it all went together. The most common ailment of the 60 is a broken recoil buffer.

This is a nylon piece located at the rear of the subassembly and no further disassembly is required to remove and replace this part. I decided early on that I wanted to disassemble the subassembly and clean up the edges on A solution was needed to mate the two. all the stamped parts, as well as do some trigger work to make the pull lighter and smoother. The internal parts are stamped so a little deburring goes along way to making large improvements in the feel of the trigger.

The trigger presses on a transfer bar that is mounted to the side of the assembly and has to slide forward to disengage the sear. Deburring that transfer bar so it slides smoothly will help improve the trigger. On most semiautomatics I will polish the feed ramp with a Dremel

The sides of the Glenfield 60 stock will have to be narrowed with a rasp to fit into the inletting. tool and a Cratex rod but in this case the feed ramp is part of a casting and plated. Since the plating provides the only hardness the ramp has, breaking through the plating would accelerate wear so it was left as it came from the factory. Sometimes the best course of action is to leave well enough alone. In other words the feed ramp ain’t broke so don’t "fix" it!

The trigger itself is also a plated casting with a grooved face. I did use the Dremel and smoothed the groves off the face of it just because I prefer a smooth trigger. If you choose to do the same confine your efforts to just the face of the trigger where your finger contacts it so that the rest of the assembly doesn’t wear as the gun is shot. If there is one thing I really don’t like about this gun it is the stock.

The stock is birch that has been stained to a sort of walnut-like color and decorated with impressed grip enhancements. The forend and pistol grip may have oak leaves or squirrels or lines or stars and lucky shamrocks for all I know pressed into the wood. They simply look cheap to me. I suppose it should look cheap, as that is what the gun is intended to be but I just had to do something with it.

I searched all my sources for replacement stocks and all I could After carefully narrowing the Glenfield stock and matching the length it is glued into the 10/22 stock locating it even with the Ruger inletting. Wood will have to be removed from the top and bottom of the Ruger stock to get them to match. come up with were factory replacements and laminated thumbhole stocks from Boyds’ and Brownells. Personally, being old, traditionally minded and left handed, laminated thumbhole stocks are not my choice.

Unable to find a walnut replacement stock, I started wondering if carving one from a blank was my only option. If you have ever attempted to make a stock from a blank you will understand my reluctance to tackle the project on an inexpensive .22. If you have never attempted it my advice is, don’t. Save the time and effort for restocking some fine old rifle or shotgun that is long out of production and needs a stock.

While pouting over the firearms industry’s prejudice against cheap .22’s, southpaws and old men, I remembered that I had a Ruger 10/22 stock laying around. Although it was also birch, I thought it might be interesting to see what I could do with fitting the Glenfield 60 to it. A short search later turned up the 10/22 stock and comparing the 60 to the inletting showed some major work was going to be necessary to fit the two together.

Marlin uses a bare minimum of wood in their stock and Ruger uses way more than is needed. The Ruger receiver is wider and deeper than the Glenfield, making it look like the Glenfield would drop through the Ruger stock. My first thought was that I would have to fit apiece of wood into the Ruger inletting and then inlet the Glenfield barrel and receiver into it. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I had a chunk of wood already inletted to the Glenfield.

I cut the original Glenfield stock in front of and behind the inletted portion, squared up the Ruger stock inletting to accept the Glenfield center stock section after slimming it a bit and glued it in place. It wasn’t quite that easy but it was sure faster than inletting the action in from scratch.

Now I attacked the Ruger stock like a crazed beaver and cut a channel for the tubular magazine, added some wood to the sides of the barrel channel so the Glenfield barrel would fit and took a rasp to the outside of the stock, slimming it to the Glenfield’s dimensions. Still not happy, I jeweled the bolt, thinned the buttstock, carved out a pistol Here I use aboard clamped to the table of the drill press to keep the lines straight. This is a feature that was popular in the 60’sand 70’s but not seen very often today.

If it is a look you like it is very easy to do. grip, fitted a grip cap, fluted the comb and bedded the action with Brownells Acraglas Gel. Things were starting to look up and the rifle was taking shape. Jeweling metal was very popular in the 60’s when this model was introduced but isn’t often seen today. The process is really quite simple. Chuck around abrasive in your drill press, align the workpiece so you can move the piece in straight lines and make overlapping swirls.

Each circle overlaps half of the previous swirl and half of the swirl above it. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm for

the project, I forgot how hard it is to sand rasp marks out of birch and the sanding process to ready the stock for finishing took longer than all the other work. Note to self: Next time find a walnut stock! A coat of stain, a few coats of tung oil and, as a final touch, a fake forend tip which was a very easy addition. After the stock finish is dry, determine how long a forend tip you want and mark the stock next to the barrel channel. Take a strip of masking tape and mask off the edge of the forend tip.

Rough up the finish and use either paint or a permanent marker to color the tip of the stock. Be sure to color it from the tape forward so the color doesn’t seep under the tape. Remove the masking tape and you’re done. This may sound like a lot of work to do on an inexpensive .22 but it does yield a unique and pleasing rifle without the custom price tag. I ended up with a most interesting hybrid Glenfield 60 mated to a Ruger stock. I call it a Gluger.

AG Mated to a modified 10/22 stock, the Glenfield 60 takes on the look of a whole different rifle. The Ruger stock has been slimmed to match the contours of the Glenfield receiver and has been fluted at the comb, a pistol grip carved out and grip cap installed. American Gunsmithing Association