..........I'd read someplace that Marlin had offered such a rifle at one time. Naturally I did a search and turned up some info, and some of the info was also contradictory. Howsomever I decided to continue rather such a factual beast ever really DID in fact exist. Also, my intent was NEVER to defraud anyone but merely to produce a 'Repro' using some parts I had on hand.
I started out with a standard model 1893 in 30-30 (26" tapered octagon bbl, crescent butt, f/l magazine). The bbl's bore was toast and I should have had it rebored but instead gave it away. Over time I picked up a NOS Marlin bbl from Numrich stamped as being for a M36-CS. It was chambered 30-30, and tapered round 22" long with 4 groove rifling. The barrel came within an ace of clocking to the action.
I had to make a shim finally ending up with one .005" thick tightly snugged the action up against the bbl's shoulder. Having that done I assembled the action and on a range trip sometime later fired 10 factory Remington loads through it. All was okay. I finally decided (again after quite awhile) that I probably should finally finish it up.
Next up was to mill a dovetail for a front sight. A machinists square was laid against the flat sided action to make sure it was set up to match. The barrel was apparently set up for a ramp type sight as it had 2 holes D&T'd in the barrel. I realized that holding the tapered round bbl would be a trick to clamp in the milling vice, so I used this:
I parted off 2 pieces of hex brass, then with a 1/2" ball endmill cut a slot in both ends of each piece, with the 2 slots 90º to each other. Then I parted off a couple pieces of 1/2" OD rod and clamped it in the vise as shown above.
Then the dovetail was cut. Downward pressure was nil, as was the side load. It went off without a hitch.
And here it is. The button magazine holds 3 rounds. Both the buttstock and handguard were new replacement wood from a place in Texas IIRC. I sent the buttstock off to Waksupi (along with a Win M92 buttstock) to have the buttplate fitted, as I'm no woodworker. The serial number on the action dates it to 1901.
I liked the Marlin "S" type buttplate, which Marlin appears to have used as a special order and also quite a bit on carbines, but I'm not a student of Marlins by any means.
The only thing that 'doesn't really fit' is the handguard nosecap. It was intended for the original hexagonal barrel. However it doesn't look bad, and maybe one of these days (I doubt it) I might take it off and MiG weld on some steel and then fit it to the barrel.
..................Buckshot
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I thought it wasn't bad for a first outing. I have 100 old Sierra 125gr PSP's I plan on banging away through it with various book loads before I begin any serious work with cast lead.
