New 1894 VERY rough?

A confession: I bought an 1894C back in the 90s (I believe it was the first year they introduced the Cowboy model and the Ballard rifling). The dealer had a cowboy and a regular 1894, and after a bit of soul-searching I went for the standard. I guess my main rationale was that I liked the carbine length better for my intended purposes (mostly target shooting with some pig hunting mixed in). Anyway, after shooting it a bit, I pretty much got out of shooting for a while (too much time spent taking kids to soccer practice, working, and doing all of those other necessaries -- along with living in the SF bay area, a location hardly rife with easy shooting opportunities ). Long story short, I took it out of the safe yesterday, went over it with some good ol' Hoppe's Number 9 and oiled her up. Then, following the sage advice I'd read about here, I settled in front of the TV and worked the lever a couple of hundred times. Now, it wasn't bad to start out with, but DAMN! It's slick as anything now!

Moral of my story -- before you start removing metal, at least try this method; it doesn't cost anything and can't hurt!

I agree with most. Take it apart and clean it before you do anything to it. Even just sitting and cycling it. It is suprising sometimes what kind of grit, dirt, burrs, etc can be roaming arround loose in the action.

Look at the bolt. run your fingers across it and the ways in the action. do not worry about tool marks right now, They are often harless. you are looking for burrs, rolled over edges etc. Knock or polish off any burrs or rolled over edges. Do not do anything else at this point. Just put it back together, lubricated it, and sit down and cycle it. It will probably clean up very quickly. If it doesn't it may be a clearnce or geometry issue. Highly unlikely but they do occur as tools wear and are reaching then end of thier life.

Like some have said do notpolish for the sake of polishing. It may be a huge waste of your time. After cylcling it several hundred times and you still have issues, you can take it apart and look at the wear patterns. That will often show you the problem, especially a clearance or geometry issue.

Well, I guess I'll be the preverbial red-headed stepchild and list a slightly different method.

And I mean.....slightly.

The above post are pretty good to bank on.....with a minor exception.

For sure, clean it and lube it accordingly.

BUT, before you sit in front of the tube working the action a few 000 times to help smooth it up alittle, you really should focus on WHERE that rough spot(s) is located.

Example: I had a friend bring his Marlin .44 mag Cowboy over because of bad stiffness in the lever operation. Basically, he could only open the lever half way before serious drag started to occur.

Sure, working his lever a couple 00 times would have eased it alittle, but it would have also messed it up alittle.

Diagnoses: without the lever, the bolt would slide easy in the receiver, even when the ejector was in place.
When the lever was placed on the rifle without using the bolt, the stiffness problem became obvious.

His problem was that the end of his lever that is up in the receiver was just alittle to long and was dragging on the upper portion of the receiver itself.

Working his lever a few 00 times would have improperly worn either the knife edge of his lever and/or caused a bad, yukie groove (or indent) in the upper portion inside his receiver.

CURE: I just polished out alittle of that lever tip to allow his lever to open/close without the levers edge dragging on the upper portion inside the receiver. Plus, I made sure the correct amount was removed that ensured good bolt closing tolerances.

Originally, his rifle was one of the stiffest I had ever encountered but yet was one of the easiest to fix without other slicking techniques.

So, try to evaluate each situation carefully. Don't be afraid to talk with knowledgable folks and gunsmiths. Sometimes, alittle can go along way in helping cure problems.

Best regards


..........Widder

Widow maker makes a very valid point. If we patiently try to determine exactly where & what is causing a problem its easier to adress it without possibly screwing something else up. Unless its something I can identify immediately I'll take out a part at a time & try to see when the problem stops or starts. In this case he just had to yank the bolt to figure it out. Often times theres a hitch at the top of the lifters travel. Its at that point the lever needs to snap over the carrier rocker or the button in newer 94's. It just so happens that thats exactly where the bolt starts pushing in the ejector, so often folks think its the ejector & waste time on it when its got noting to do with the trouble. But, if you yank the bolt or even just the ejector it becomes obvious thats not the trouble. Thats a common one but theres more, theres alot going on in there when we cycle the lever & its best IMO to figure out the catch before just randomly polishing things. Of course polishing donr carefully wont or shouldn't hurt anything, but it might not help either. In Widows example for instance the gun woulda been smooth everywhere except where it bound up. In mine simply polishing the correct place on the rocker & lever would have fixed it.

So, after cleaning it all out real well, if its still gritty try it without the bolt. Try it with the bolt but no lifter. Those 2 parts are where most issues come from, isn't much else inside.