- Joined
- Oct 4, 2005
- Messages
- 4,905
- Reaction score
- 477
Today I finally finished up the little .32cal Marathon Kit i picked u last fall. I do have one thing left to do but have not decided how or what I will use for a ramrod retainer spring. Plenty of time to figure that one. Here is a link to the post I made when i got the Kit. I will not repost the same pics but will post a few for comparison. Here is a link to that post.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29122&p=228549&hilit=Marathon#p228549
Overall It was not a bad build, just took me longer than expected this winter as I got busy and did not work on it, or hit bumps in the road and had to ponder my next move or wait for a tool or some such. I did find some flaws in the barrel. I am quite certain these were just re-bored 22Lr rifles. About 4 or 5 inches up from the breech plug I found some actual chips, not burrs, in the bore on one side that sort of corresponded with the imprinting. Have no clue how that one could happen other than bad tooling. It took some pondering an rigging up some "tools" to get that smoothed out. I even did about 200 strokes with JB bore paste to smooth it as much as possible. In the end there is a slight tight spot but may not hurt anything. Next thing found under a magnifying glass was some more small chips in the crown. I removed those and buffed with a needle file, then cut a crown with a chamfering tool by hand and polished it. The action, barrel, and other parts were "Cleaned" up and all were cold blued. Some of the metal did not take blue all that well, bolt end cap and bolt handle, but in the end it looks more like an old 22 and some of the blue looks like patina. Some of the pictures will look like Dark blue but it is really just the lighting. The original trigger spring left this rifle with a VERY heavy pull weight that my RCBS pull gage would not measure, So it was replaced with one I found and now has a trigger that measures 29oz. I also added shims between the trigger and the trigger cutout in the action to get rid of side-to-side slop. Trigger actually is pretty nice now. I rounded the forend tip, cut off the butt of the stock and added a pachmayr rubber butt plate. I wanted something to protect the butt when loading. The stock was maple and stained very heavily with Walnut stain then finished with Tru-Oil. The stock originally just had a curve cut into the stock and smoothed over. I added a ramrod channel to the stock and made a ramrod from a Carbon Arrow shaft. Then made a thimble from a block of black nylon I got from McMaster Carr. Today I finally got the thimble finished and installed so installed the front site and also installed a set of Weaver Rings and a Weaver 2x7x32 muzzleloader scope I had. It is bore sighted and ready for the range just not sure when I will get out. After the finish has had a few months to really cure good I will install a set of sling swivels. The rifle does have a tight bore and I could not start a .315 rb with pillow tick but the .310 starts good. I weighted the rifle after installing the the rings and scope and with the ramrod it weights 5lb 8.2oz. Should be fun in the woods.
Had to edit this due to photobucket.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29122&p=228549&hilit=Marathon#p228549
Overall It was not a bad build, just took me longer than expected this winter as I got busy and did not work on it, or hit bumps in the road and had to ponder my next move or wait for a tool or some such. I did find some flaws in the barrel. I am quite certain these were just re-bored 22Lr rifles. About 4 or 5 inches up from the breech plug I found some actual chips, not burrs, in the bore on one side that sort of corresponded with the imprinting. Have no clue how that one could happen other than bad tooling. It took some pondering an rigging up some "tools" to get that smoothed out. I even did about 200 strokes with JB bore paste to smooth it as much as possible. In the end there is a slight tight spot but may not hurt anything. Next thing found under a magnifying glass was some more small chips in the crown. I removed those and buffed with a needle file, then cut a crown with a chamfering tool by hand and polished it. The action, barrel, and other parts were "Cleaned" up and all were cold blued. Some of the metal did not take blue all that well, bolt end cap and bolt handle, but in the end it looks more like an old 22 and some of the blue looks like patina. Some of the pictures will look like Dark blue but it is really just the lighting. The original trigger spring left this rifle with a VERY heavy pull weight that my RCBS pull gage would not measure, So it was replaced with one I found and now has a trigger that measures 29oz. I also added shims between the trigger and the trigger cutout in the action to get rid of side-to-side slop. Trigger actually is pretty nice now. I rounded the forend tip, cut off the butt of the stock and added a pachmayr rubber butt plate. I wanted something to protect the butt when loading. The stock was maple and stained very heavily with Walnut stain then finished with Tru-Oil. The stock originally just had a curve cut into the stock and smoothed over. I added a ramrod channel to the stock and made a ramrod from a Carbon Arrow shaft. Then made a thimble from a block of black nylon I got from McMaster Carr. Today I finally got the thimble finished and installed so installed the front site and also installed a set of Weaver Rings and a Weaver 2x7x32 muzzleloader scope I had. It is bore sighted and ready for the range just not sure when I will get out. After the finish has had a few months to really cure good I will install a set of sling swivels. The rifle does have a tight bore and I could not start a .315 rb with pillow tick but the .310 starts good. I weighted the rifle after installing the the rings and scope and with the ramrod it weights 5lb 8.2oz. Should be fun in the woods.
Had to edit this due to photobucket.