The .32cal Marathon inline is done, little pic heavy

[ShawnT]

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.

 

[Fmfdred56]

Solid work! That looks real nice!

 

[bacass]

Looks great Shawn! Glad you where able to deal with the barrel issues as well. The Tru oil is blinding at this point, but can always be scuffed back a bit when cured.
Looks like both you and pupsdad will be sighting in soon. I'll be bringing my Firehawk .32 to Maine this week for some braised rabbit
later this year.
Enjoy!

 

[Confederate rifleman]

Very nicely done Sir! Still think the action is a Remington 514 clone.
Fuzzy tailed tree rats BEWARE!

 

[WV Hunter]

Nice work Shawn!
Now that is more like it on the weight :yeah: :yeah: :yeah:
I think I might tone down the shine on the stock also. Can't wait to see the range report!

 

[ShawnT]

Thanks guys. Yea it is a bit shiny at this point. Was not easy to get pictures because of that and had to move into a little bit of shade to get those. :lol: I don't plan to do anything about that for a few months. I've used the stuff for years and to me the longer it is left alone the harder it gets. In the late summer early fall I will probably go over it with something to tone that down. 8)

As for the barrel that did take some doing and a lot of thinking on how to get up in there. I don't think it will bother its accuracy anymore than anything else. No idea how it will shoot anyway. It does have the traditional 1 in 48 twist. I did not get too worked up over it though, just figured if it don't shoot to suit me I will make a call to Joe at GunWorks and see if he can replicate this little skinny barrel with one of his Oregon's in 1 in 30. :wink:

The Trigger was also an odd thing to work on. It is about as basic as you can get. The Trigger itself had way too much slop side to side so it would cock back and forth. I thought about trying to make a new one out of wider material but decided not to as it would be a lot of work. I was able to get some real small shims from McMaster Carr and got that tightened up. Then took the spring to a hardware store and found one I thought might work but had to re-form one end that seats into the action. My RCBS trigger pull gage only goes up to 72oz and that would not set off the trigger with the stock spring, burry the pointer and kept pulling. :shock: Now it pulls at just about 1 1/2lb which is what I like and am used to. Back around December I ordered the block of Nylon to make the thimble with but that was a fun project in itself. Never thought about the threads in the nylon. So sanding and shaping it was fun. Then trying to polish it was not so easy as I could not find sanding drums finer that 320 grit. The only other issue was getting the hole for the barrel right. I ended up ordering a 16mm drill bit to do that. There is a tiny taper so it slipped over the muzzle till about the back of the dovetail for the front site but then you have to really push on it to slip it down. I then put a little Gorilla Epoxy where I wanted it so I think it will stay in place pretty good.

Mike,

When I put it on the scale with the scope I got a big grin on my face. 8) I knew it was light from when I weighed it after getting it, but was surprised at the finished weight as I figured it would be a bit more.

Confederate rifleman,

I do believe you are correct. Not sure if Marathon copied it or Remington. This one was made in 1986 but as far as I can tell they were only made 2 years. I have looked at the "Schematic" of the Remington on Numrich and it sure looks a lot like it.

 

[pupsdad]

Sweet little rifle. I'm very close to being done and don't want to hurry and make a mistake. Please post as soon as you shoot it.

 

[ShawnT]

Sweet little rifle. I'm very close to being done and don't want to hurry and make a mistake. Please post as soon as you shoot it.

Thanks, I am "Hoping" the weather will give me a break on Saturday or Sunday. After that it will be mid June. The Following weekend I head to Ohio for 2 weeks and then right after getting back Boss says he may send me to Mass for a week. :d'oh!:

We have not had good weather for shooting since one weekend back in January or first of February. Mother Nature tried to wash Long Island off the map this past Saturday, and the Wind has not stopped Blowing for about 3 1/2 Months now (Not just a light breeze either) (Like Troy Landry says "Tree Shakers") Never seen anything like it since I came here.

If this little guy shoots it will really be nice to carry in the woods. If it shoots I am thinking of either making a Trigger for it or making a Trigger shoe. The Trigger is quite Skinny on it.

I don't blame you not rushing. I started this one back in Late December. :lol: