Are the marlins finicky about nose length or profile particularly? I've been thinking of starting to cast my own and wanted to use the NEI mold #337,a 350 gr gc flat nose,will it work? * KevinNY

Kevin,

The bullet you are looking at should work well in the Marlin leverguns... it has the right nose length and a good meplat. * Make sure that you have Walt cut it, so that it throws at least a .460" diameter bullet with your alloy. * You will need to size them to .460", and .461" as cast diamter would be best.

I do have a concern about the bullet. * Having no experience with it, and looking at the line drawings, it appears that crimping must be done over the front driving band, which would necessitate shooting compressed loads or loads with compressed fillers to keep it from setting back in the case during recoil.



As far as I can tell there is no crimp groove as such, so far as I can see. *That would be my only qualm with this bullet. *Other than that it appears to have great potential.

I hope this helps.

God Bless,

Marshall

Marshall,
            Would the use of a lee factory crimp die get around your concern,or should it be held to a low velocity practice bullet?
                                     KevinNY

Kevin,

Perhaps the Lee Factory Crimp Die would overcome that potential problem... but only testing will tell... I sure don't want to step out and say it will, when I'm not 100% sure.

The bullet does have a nice meplat and graceful ogive.  It has the potential of being an excellent meat harvester!

God Bless,

Marshall

Thanks Marshall,
                         Check NEI number 346, a 440gr GC.  Looks perfect but a bit heavy for my needs.
                                             KveinNY

Kevin,

I will have to agree, looks like they have done everything right... perhaps a bit heavy, but what a sledgehammer when it hits!



From the drawing, it also appears to have a decent crimp groove as well.

For your purposes it would be nice if it was a hundred grains lighter.

Thanks for the post!

God Bless,

Marshall

Marshall,
         I just spoke with the nice folks at NEI and they inform me that they can shorten that bullet by 1 grease groove and it would come in around 350 grains,also said the meplat is about .380!! Sledgehammer indeed.  Still think that blunt a bullet will feed ok? I know Garrett makes a .360 meplat that works in his loads.
                                 KevinNY

I can't say for sure that it would work without trying it, but I have a hunch that it will work without a hitch!

Don't take my word on it however, I haven't given it a try!

Let us know what you do!

God Bless,

Marshall

I emailed Jim Brockman who is making my guide gun and he informed me that my rifle will feed a .385 Meplat as long as the nose length is fairly standard.  Now I just have to wait for the NEI catalog to measure the nose from their actual size diagrams and I will know if I'm in business.   Now Jim is doing some work to perfect the feeding so I don't know if this applies to all Marlins,anyone with some experience in the area is welcome to jump in and share it.  KevinNY

A question! I read some time back that the original Marlin 1895 in 45-70 had a longer action then the current model.
Does any one know this to be true?
Jim

Yes, I know this to be fact!  The original Marlin 1895's did have a longer usable overall cartridge length than the new ones.   Something changed when they put that stupid cross-bolt safety on their leverguns, and we lost a full tenth of an inch of usable overall cartridge length.

Our .45-450g LFNGC bullet was designed around the old .45-70 Marlin 1895SS pre-crossbolt safety guns.  It fed perfectly in them with no alteration what-so-ever.  Talk about some stopping power when that thing is wound up to 1900 fps out of the Marlin!  OUCH on both ends!

If you are lucky enough to have a pre-crossbolt safety gun, then you can indeed use a longer overal cartridge length.... sorry all my data is down in the shop office, and I'll have to look up exactly what that C.O.L. is for the pre-crossbolt safety guns.   I'll post it later if you're interested.

Hope this helps!

God Bless,

Marshall

The M1895 in 1895 was able to feed a 2.73 inch COL. You can't load these old collectibles up to the modern specs. tho.

Another question.
I'm assuming that most if not all ofthe older Marlin 18895's have the Micro Groove rifling! Would it be worth the cost to send one of these off to a gunsmith and have him replace the factory barrel with a Douglas product? I see no reason to ever shoot jacketed slugs in a 45-70 so why not get the more traditional rifling that works better with cast slugs?
Jim