Yes, I did get your PM. Thanks for the information, and sorry I didn't reply. Usually I do reply to PMs.puma guy wrote:Thanks for the initial range review. Looking forward to your next one. BTW, Did you remove the front sight hood? That helps a little. Being that your a lefty here's a little story about my older brother, also a lefty, shooting my Marlin 39 Mountie .22 lever action. He complained to me that the gun wouldn't fire after the first shot. (I had chambered a round, let the hammer down and handed it to him and went to shoot at another spot.) He handed the rifle to me and it functioned fine. I filled the tube mag and gave it back to him with a round chambered, hammer down. He pulled the hammer back, shot the first round and then levered it to shoot again. I noticed he was turning the rifle on it's side to lever it and that's when I saw the problem. The round fell off the lifter and out the ejection port before he pulled back on the lever. There was a little pile of .22 cartridges where he'd been shooting before. I told him to keep the action vertical when he racked it and it did fine. I don't know if a 336 would do the same thing or not, but something to keep in mind.
I've never tried the Hornady Leverevolution in 30-30, but I'm definitely going to try some. Thanks again for the report and Happy New Year.
(did you get my PM regarding Marlin?)
Yea, I did take the front sight hood off. Actually, in the box, the front sight hood was included as a separate part, not mounted on the rifle. I put it on, and then took it off a couple of days later because I hated it. So that wasn't an issue yesterday....it was just that I was shooting from a shaded place (the 50 yard range at Elm Fork) into sunlight, and the bead wasn't lighting up.
As far as the alignment of the magazine tube goes, I showed it to my gunsmith son, and we can fix it. Because the barrel is short (18"), there's no barrel band at the muzzle end, holding the barrel and tube together. Instead, there is a dovetail on the underside the barrel, with a steel wedge dovetailed into it. The wedge is what keeps the tube aligned with the barrel. There is a screw in the end of the tube that threads into that wedge. The wedge isn't properly centered under the barrel, and needs to be drifted further in to center it. I think it is probably a very easy fix, and I'm going to take a punch to that wedge today and try drifting it over to center it under the barrel.
The issues with the fit and finish of the stock, I can live with, because this is essentially a "knockabout" gun.