Marlin 1894 Cal. .32-20

[GabbyJs]

I have a Marlin 94 in .32-20 that I'm having trouble with cartridges firing. I'm using a Wild West Guns trigger with a Wolfe hammer spring, that has slightly over 2 lbs. trigger pull on the Lyman electronic gauge. I've tried CCI200, CCI-BR4, and Rem. 7 1/2 primers. I've sorted both Rem. and Starline brass to eliminate any rim thicknesses under .060" to eliminate headspace problems. I made an expander plug that sizes the brass to a straight outside, and then gradually size the brass back down to .32 cal. till it fits my chamber. There is only about a 1/4" straight section for bullet tension. I am considering using a CCI500 pistol primer in the rifle chamber, since they supposedly are for softer hammer blows. I've been loading 9 gr. of Alliant 2400 powder. I'm using Laser Cast 115 gr. bullets. Has anyone had any bad experience using the pistol primers in the Marlin rifle chamber? Any other thoughts to offer? I want to keep the trigger pull to match my other rifles.

[44 mag]

All I use in mine is the federal 205M and have had no issues and I did my trigger myself and it is A bit liter than yours and I have never had A fail to fire. Federals seem to work the best in all my lever guns. I was using CCI and was having alot of fail to fires. Good Luck!!

[the ex pom]

Check to make sure the hammer is free falling and not hitting the half cock notch on the way down, then Id drop the firing pin out and make sure its is not broken. The last marlin 94 i saw that was misfiring had a broken firing pin it had broken in 3 so was very erratic with ignition. I have used both rifle and pistol primers with no problems.

[boats]

Might switch out the Marlin "Saftey" two piece firing pin for a one piece . I found my Marlins were not hitting primers hard enough with light hammer spring tension and all the two piece parts to go though. One piece I never have a problem. Only one thats still 2 pieces is my orgional 1894 and she runs a trigger pull heavier than my newer Marlins.

I don't remember who I bought the one piece pins from but the Cowboy Action guys should know.

Boats.

[glen ring]

My Marlin 25-20 was doing the exact thing. I took the old firing pin out and replaced it with a one piece pin. I then had NO misfires. I think mine may have been purchased from evil roy? I am definitely not a gun smith and I changed it out in a matter of a few minutes.

[PhxShooter]

Based on personal experience I'm gonna guess that the problem comes from the Wolf Hammer Spring. If you simply replace it with the standard Marlin spring your misfires should go away. Yeah the Wolf lightens the trigger pull but who cares if the gun doesn't go bang. My 1894's have 1lb triggers with the original spring in place. Tried the reduced spring first but had MANY misfires. Then did it right with hammer/sear work using the original spring and all the problems went away. Haven't had to touch the triggers in well over a year now.

[TURKEYSFEARME]

A friend of mine has a rifle that was tricked out for cowboy action shooting and it has a light hammer spring, the action is smooth and has a good trigger pull but sometimes fails to fire.
In our game faster lock time is more important than a smooth action, I would put the factory springs back in and just work on polishing the factory trigger, I got my 32-20 to 1lb with factory parts just by polishing and shortening the sear engagement.

[Tlee]

Based on personal experience I'm gonna guess that the problem comes from the Wolf Hammer Spring. If you simply replace it with the standard Marlin spring your misfires should go away. Yeah the Wolf lightens the trigger pull but who cares if the gun doesn't go bang. My 1894's have 1lb triggers with the original spring in place. Tried the reduced spring first but had MANY misfires. Then did it right with hammer/sear work using the original spring and all the problems went away. Haven't had to touch the triggers in well over a year now.

Agreed... I've been able to reduce trigger pull by stoning/polishing or modifying the angle on the sear on all but one of my rifles. On it I had to use a lighter hammer spring, however that particular rifle will only reliably ignite small pistol primers. If I use small rifle primers it will FTF on about 5%, sometimes even if I re-cock the hammer and try a 2nd attempt. On that particular rifle I found different firing pins to not help.

-Tim

[boats]

It's a balance, everything has to work together. Hammer spring, how smooth everything is. Mimimum drag on the firing pin. Primers well seated and even one brand of primer to another makes a big difference. For me stoning the sear hammer relationship is the last thing I will try. With a Jig most people can stone square, free hand not many can keep things like they should be.

Few fails to fire not altogether a bad thing. Will show up a flinch right away. If cocking again makes it go off good. If not eject the cartridge put another in and try again. I aways keep a extra in my pocket. Mostly in case I drop one duing the load period. Don't have to go looking for dropped. Way I see if if everything goes off all the time it's hitting too hard in a target rifle with the result heavy trigger pull. Hunting another thing all should fire. One or two out of a hundred OK with me

Boats

[Jason]

I disagree that it's OK to have occasional failures to fire. Having any that actually fail to fire usually means that there are others whose ignition is not consistent, which hurts accuracy. I definitely agree that most people can't stone square free-handed. Speaking of that, my only jigs for doing that are homemade by machinist friends. Does anyone know of a commercially-made jig for being able to more effectively control stoning angle for trigger/sear surfaces?

Edit: clarification

[GTKF]

A friend of mine has a rifle that was tricked out for cowboy action shooting and it has a light hammer spring, the action is smooth and has a good trigger pull but sometimes fails to fire.
In our game faster lock time is more important than a smooth action, I would put the factory springs back in and just work on polishing the factory trigger, I got my 32-20 to 1lb with factory parts just by polishing and shortening the sear engagement.

My CB 44 was also worked on for CASS before I bought it. Very smooth with a nice trigger. I would get about 2-3 misfires per box of 50 when using CCI primers. I switched to Federal primers and haven't had a problem since

[jnyork]

I had exactly the same experience with my Marlin 32-20, put in the light hammer spring and had misfire after misfire. Tried several kinds of primers, finally stumbled upon Federal 200 magnum pistol primers. Have fired about 1500 or so of these in the last year without one misfire.

[Tlee]

I disagree that it's OK to have occasional failures to fire. Having any that actually fail to fire usually means that there are others whose ignition is not consistent, which hurts accuracy. I definitely agree that most people can't stone square free-handed. Speaking of that, my only jigs for doing that are homemade by machinist friends. Does anyone know of a commercially-made jig for being able to more effectively control stoning angle for trigger/sear surfaces?

Edit: clarification

Jason -

I use a jig that is made for stoning 1911 triggers:
http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools ... 17780.aspx.
It works great for the sear alone on the Marlin 2 piece trigger setup on the 336/1894. Allows me to come up with a direct correlation between the sear angle and the desired trigger pull, typically within about a 1/4 lb. Some mating surfaces on different hammers will have an affect as well, usually more with creep than actual pull. I've yet to figure out a way to use it for one piece triggers (like the one from my earliest vintage 336A or a 39/39A). For one piece triggers I've had good luck stoning them free hand. I've done several that are in the 1 pound range, and even one that pulls 14 oz, and yet is still a safe "no A.D." pull.

-Tim

[GabbyJs]

Gentlemen, thanks for all the good information. I've had good ignition with CCI500 pistol primers, the only ones that I have during this "shortage" period to try. I also ordered a one piece firing pin from Evil Roy. If a FTF problem continues, I'll replace the Wolfe with a factory spring.

[Jason]

I use a jig that is made for stoning 1911 triggers:
http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools ... 17780.aspx.
It works great for the sear alone on the Marlin 2 piece trigger setup on the 336/1894. Allows me to come up with a direct correlation between the sear angle and the desired trigger pull, typically within about a 1/4 lb. Some mating surfaces on different hammers will have an affect as well, usually more with creep than actual pull. I've yet to figure out a way to use it for one piece triggers (like the one from my earliest vintage 336A or a 39/39A). For one piece triggers I've had good luck stoning them free hand. I've done several that are in the 1 pound range, and even one that pulls 14 oz, and yet is still a safe "no A.D." pull.

Thanks, Tim. Thanks for mentioning the specifics on the Marlin triggers, as my current project is my 1948 model 336A with the old trigger design. The angles on the trigger and hammer weren't cut anywhere close to square or even parallel with each other from the factory, so this one is taking a lot of effort to correct. I was hoping to find a jig that I could use to let me do controlled coarser cutting that I want to do freehand in the limited time I have to work on it. I'll keep looking.