Marlin 336 ejection problem solved

[texasmac]

Hi Guys (and gals),

As you can see I'm not a very active contributor to this forum but I thought I’d share a recent problem and fix on a 336 .30-30. Having bought the rifle new in 2006 for whitetail deer hunting, I've only put 150 rounds through the rifle so far. So the rifle is broke-in so to speak but certainly not worn.

During the last couple of years the rifle has experience intermittent ejection problems. What was also interesting is fired cases were much more likely than unfired cartridges to not eject. There was no problem extracting the fired case from the chamber but the case head had a tendency to fall out of the bolt face prior to the rim hitting the ejector, but much less so with a loaded round. Searching the Internet I found several reports of the same problem but no solution. So I tore the action apart today and experimented by hand inserting both loaded and fired cases into the bolt face & under the extractor spring, then popping them out of extractor spring the same way as the ejector would function. Everything looked good. The extractor spring was not worn but the rims of fired cases or loaded rounds were not being held very tightly by the extractor spring. So I remove the extractor spring and bent the spring slightly to put more force on the case rim. Problem solved.

As to why the problem was worse with fired cases, I can only surmise that the weight of the loaded cartridge kept the cartridge rim from shifting and popping out from under the extractor spring. Realizing that when the action is fully closed the extractor spring is forced back by the tapered slot in the breech face, from now on I plan on storing the rifle with the action slightly open to take pressure off the spring. For 13yrs between hunting seasons the rifle has been stored with the action fully closed, “setting” the extractor spring back a bit.

BTW, if the problem rears its ugly head again I’ll replace the extractor spring. Hopefully my experience will help others with the same problem.

Wayne

[marlinman93]

You hit the nail on the head with your analysis of what was wrong, and also why fired cases ejected better than loaded cases. Good job Wayne.