I am accustomed to taking care of bolt action rifles. Levers are fairly new to me. What is the best way to keep the bores clean? I really don't want to shove a cleaning rod through the muzzle. Or should I get mine converted to a take-down? Then I assume I could clean in a more conventional way?

Andy

Other than a take down levergun, the Marlin is easiest to clean from the breech. Removal of lever, "catching" of ejector, pulling out of bolt gives you ability to clean from the breech.
You can google disassemble of Marlin for step by step approach, but it is easy to do.

I use a bore snake, no problems on a win with a scope.

quote:

Originally posted by MFD:
Other than a take down levergun, the Marlin is easiest to clean from the breech. Removal of lever, "catching" of ejector, pulling out of bolt gives you ability to clean from the breech.
You can google disassemble of Marlin for step by step approach, but it is easy to do.

It is very easy for a Marlin.

A cat could do it, sometimes it takes a pair of cats, cause they don't have thumbs.

If large enough bore you can run a loop of weed trimmer line through and put a piece of cloth in the loop and pull it through--cant brush that way but can get a tighter patch through than what you can push with a rod.

Otis cleaning kit.......receiver to muzzle.

I made a bore guide out of a chunk of hdpe. Bored it to just slide over muzzle, center hole that just fits rod. Works like a charm as long as you don't get too carried away with the scrubbing.
C.G.B.

Making a bore/muzzle guide as described earlier here works great.

Still, as most folks who use lever guns don't spend their lives cleaning them (unless they're into something like Cowboy Action Shooting). I doubt many hunters will mess their muzzles up too badly or too quickly by cleaning them from that end. At least not with the amount of shooting involved in hunting.

For a long while, if a person shoots their lever gun a lot, their increase in skill with it will more than offset any slight decrease in accuracy from muzzle wear.

So don't waste life sweating the small stuff. Clean it however you can with whatever you've got, from whichever end. Get out there and ENJOY that thing!