I really don't like this design but we'll see
if I make a mess of it or "fix" my gripes. The bedding is horrific on this old Marlin. They made possibly millions like this. One stock bolt holds this tube feed entire assy. down. You can see from it's forward position that it sort of pulls in the middle. This presses the barrel down in that barrel channel. If you try to remove wood from that channel the barrel only tries to go deeper, then the ass tilts up like a teeter-totter. My objective was to bed the rear portion and up to about the front of the rear sight. My theory was to force bed the back 1/3 and float the rest. To make matters more complex the positioning of that bolt point makes the wood want to "spread" down the barrel channel if I put too much pressure on it. We'll see.
I made quite the mess this weekend. I'm cleaning it up today to see if I got it to what I was thinking.
![[image]](images/uploaded/202101111706105ffc858211370.jpg)
The “trick” is to shim the bolt
Washers or a spacer to raise the action a little bit, then glass bed. Modeling clay for dams, lots of release agent (car wax if nothing else).
In conjunction with the bedding I can see that.
I tried it before to see if I could just jack it up and float the front. No dice, it teeters. I'll see what it looks like at lunch. I have zip ties holding it in there.
Anything is bound to help. I cannot believe it shot as fair as it did with all those pressure points along the barrel and torque on the action itself.
Then you bed the rear
If you didn’t on the first bedding operation.
This is two runs. Feels solid, barrel floating.
It’s not trimmed out but I think I’ll leave it. Everything works. It don’t have to be pretty. It used to be a $150 rifle. Cripes even beaters are bringing twice that now. If I can get consistent 1.5” 100 yd. groups without it opening up with barrel heat I’m happy.
![[image]](images/uploaded/202101112015495ffcb1f525acf.jpg)