[scout1]

I have several Marlin 1894's. All except one function very smoothly. One of them has a problem. It is sensitive to position of the rifle when attempting to work the lever. Example: The lever will not open with the rifle in the horizontal position and the lever facing up. It seems that the lug on the lever is not disengaging from the lug on the locking bolt. None of my other 1894's have this problem. What is causing this and what corrective action can I take.
Thanks, Jim

 

[Leverdude]

Dont use it upside down. ;D Seriously. You can probably make the others do it if you try but usually the lever hangs onto the locking bolt until the bolt has moved enough to not let it fall back in. Theres nothing but gravity holding the locking bolt down after the lever disengages from it.
Is the gun smooth otherwise? Someone may have worked on the lever/locking lug mateing surfaces, but as I said, its not unheard of, pretty common really.

 

[scout1]

Dont use it upside down. ;D Seriously. You can probably make the others do it if you try but usually the lever hangs onto the locking bolt until the bolt has moved enough to not let it fall back in. Theres nothing but gravity holding the locking bolt down after the lever disengages from it.
Is the gun smooth otherwise? Someone may have worked on the lever/locking lug mateing surfaces, but as I said, its not unheard of, pretty common really.

Leverdude I'll try and not use it upside down. LOL. It feels like in combination with gravity working against the locking bolt that the lugs either on the lever or the locking bolt are just a bit too long to allow proper disengagment. The gun is smooth otherwise. No one outside the factory has touched the internals.

 

[Leverdude]

Try swapping levers first to see if it makes any difference and if it dont then try swapping locking lugs. Just DONT get the lugs mixed up as they determine headspace and might be different. If swapping lever makes a difference then try & see whats different about the one that hangs up. If id didn't then try the same with the lugs.

 

[scout1]

Good advice Leverdude, I'll try that in the next couple of days.
Thanks, Jim

 

[scout1]

Well I tried swapping levers. I took the lever from my 44 (good) and my lever from my 45 (bad). The lever from the 44 when put into the 45 did not help with the problem. The lever from the 45 would not even fit into the 44, could not close due to fit between the lever catch and the rollpin. I have not had time to try swapping out the breech blocks.

Thanks, Jim

 

[Leverdude]

I'm not that surprised. Most of the time lever swap no sweat but its not unusual for them to be tight where the latch is in a different action. Might be the hook on the bottom of the locking bolt is on the short end of tolerances & unhooking just a tad sooner than normal.

 

[Golfbuddy45]

This is one of those things that surprised me when I worked on a problem with one of my 1894CSS .357 rifles. I have two of them built at North Haven within a year of each other yet when I swapped the levers for a carrier lifting problem they did not work the same in the other rifles. I had always assumed every part was made exactly the same and could be swapped interchangeably in any rifle of the same model but that is not the case. It is obvious that when you order a stock part from Brownells or Midway it will not necessarily work correctly and might need some tinkering to fine tune the action.
As for upside down I can not figure why you would ever need to do that.


GB45