[ozlife]

Hi, my Marlin 30-30 lever has the dreaded jam of 'letting two in'. I have read about the fixes on many other forums but I'm not sure how to go about it personally. My jam is caused by the lever snail cam gouging out a furrow in the receiver metal. The gouge is slightly off camber, that is it is deeper on one edge than the other. I'm thinking this is probably due to the carrier screw not on tight and the lever also has some play in it.
I have two pictures attached which show this. There are a lot of complex fixes on other forums like welding the gouge up and sanding it off. Do you think I should just buy another carrier? Maybe Marlin has upgraded to better steel than the original soft crap i have. The snail cam leading edge has a nice rounded bevel is not sharp.


I decided to try and re-surface the carrier where the gouge is. I used a segment of hacksaw blade ground down to the right length and width. Hack saw blade provides a tough and slippery surface. Once it was the right dimensions I used a contact adhesive to bond it to the arc on the carrier, essentially providing it with a new surface for the lever snail cam to slide along.
I have simple tools in the shed such as files, a bench grinder, hacksaw and glue.
First thing I did was to use small hobby files to file the gouge out of the carrier's arc. I made sure the arc radius was unchanged taking about .5mm off just enough to remove the gouge. I left the surface a little rough to help the glue bond.
I ground down a hack saw blade to the right dimensions to cover the length of the arc.



The above picture shows the start of the grinding process.
Once the dimensions were right I could manually bend the segment to the correct radius so it sat flush and there were no gaps between it and the carrier arc.



The above picture shows the positioning before glue was applied.



I cleaned the underside of the hack saw steel with a wire brush to get paint and roughen up its surface for gluing. Checking it still fitted snugly in the arc.
I used a hammer to rest on the hack saw shim to make sure of a good close bond.

Next day I used a jeweler's screwdriver to take off excess glue from the edges of the shim steel and any on it and around the carrier.

 

[ozlife]

Here is the shim before final cleaning.



and finally in the Marlin 30-30



The first thing I noticed was that the action was much smoother. I think this is because the lever snail cam isn't ploughing its way through the mild steel of the carrier.
I have started testing for jam with by dummy rounds and there has been none yet but it is early days. Still it is very encouraging because previously I would have jammed up by now.
Ill be off to the range and try a lot of rounds through it and let you all know how i go.
Phil

 

[Oz]

Good work Mate. Hope it goes well for ya.

Mark.

 

[ozlife]

Thanks Mark, so far it hasn't missed a beat. I don't want to put the Mozz in me but I'm quietly confident.

 

[Oz]

She'll be right mate.

 

[curan]

Nice work Ozlife. I reckon you've got it beat forever!

 

[Bibbyman]

I use the same method to adjust the timing on my 1894 earlier this week. I used a piece of flat spring stock .027 thick and attached it with JB Weld.

This fix is documented on the Marauder web site.


A New Carrier for the Marlin 1894cs

 

[ozlife]

I put 150 rounds through it at the Wodonga range and 100 and 150 meters and it didn't miss a beat.

 

[RamCharger]

Feels good when ya get one fixed! Good work!

 

[old-machinist]

Thanks for posting this ozlife, looks like you've got it licked.