Ladies and Gentlemen:

Based upon your experience can a 30-30 or 32 Special Marlin lever action rifle with an original barrel, be rechambered to 38-55 and the bore re-rifled to .375"?

Does this require the factory barrel to be set back?

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

Check this out.

http://www.35caliber.com/2.html

Thank you RayO.

Do you know of anyone, who has used their re-boring services?

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

No I don't,but they seem to get good feedback from those that have used them.

Jessie,has done a few marlins and winchesters for some of the members at the Castboolit.com website. I have heard nothing but praise for his work.Frank

Thanks, Singleshotlover. I took a look at Jesse's web page, and it has me interested.

Yale, I sent a 30-30 M36 Marlin to JES and had it rebored to 38-55. He does this with a .376" bore and the results were outstanding. The Marlin shoots almost exactly like my 38-55 M1885 which also has a .376 bore. I shoot mostly cast bullets in them both, but they do equally as well with jacketed.

One thing I was not sure of was whether the rebored barrel would be smooth. I shouldn't have worried. I've not spotted any appreciable metal fouling at all.

Another good thing is that he doesn't fool around. I believe the total turn around from my shipment to him and getting the Marlin back was less than 4 weeks. I recently sent a bolt action to another smith to be rebored to 7mm (only because JES doesn't reboore that small a diameter) and his average turn around is 6-8 months!

Thanks Hook. I'll keep my eye out for a nice 30-30 that is not in collectable condition, probably in an 1893 or 1936 action, and follow in your footsteps.

I always recommend a new barrel instead of re-boring; you can change contours and lengths and it is usually not much more expensive. Why would you make a .376 bore (I assume you mean groove) barrel when .375 bullets are most common these days?