[blzeye]

The same smith who cut/crowned the barrel re-crowned it, free of charge. He did nothing else to it, but he wants to cut the rifling back in the throat as he thinks this will help a lot. As of now, I'm not doing anything else to it, except maybe run the Final Finish bullets thru it. I ordered them last week, but they won't be in for a few weeks. Never tried them, but I might on this gun. I called the smith today & left a msg. that it's shooting fine now. I probably won't deal w/ him anymore. Nice guy, but I don't trust his work.

 

[WYcoyote]

I'd think about calling it a keeper now.
Other loads may shoot even better and you are right, plenty good for a woods rifle.

 

[airtractorfan]

Recrown It and You should be good to Go. I have cut XS & XL guns from 16 18 19 & 20 inch barrel they all shoot wounderful . sounds like a bad Crown .

I'm with you on this one. I recently purchased a XS7 308 [Camo stock] and it is at the gunsmith as we speak removing 2" from the barrel and re-crowned. I wish Marlin would offer the XS7 in the 18-20-21-barrel lengths and I'm sure they would sell more of them.