I recently came across a cheap Marlin 336 in 30/30 that is in very good overall condition with pretty wood to boot. The fact that it had a bulged barrel about 4" back from the muzzle made it cheap so I bought it. I contacted Marlin and they will rebarrel it for $140 which seems reasonable to me. I bought this rifle to basically be a truck gun, in the sense that if it got stolen, I would not suffer much monetary loss. The question I have is this, have you ever had a rifle in this shape that shot with any reasonable accuracy? I realize there are no givens, just curious about your experience. Cutting and recrowning are out, unless I solder an extension on to keep it legal, and if I wanted to go to that much trouble I would just send it in for the new barrel. I need to take it to the range to find out, but its been raining damn near non stop for about two weeks so I figured I'd ask Y'all. Lee.

I don't think there is any inexpensive way to do this. I wouldn't continue to shoot it with that bulge. The barrel is weakened at that point and may burst or blow off at any shot and it may never. It just doesn't pay to take chances. If you have a lathe or access to one, cut the barrel off, as you suggested and turn a piece of round stock to exterior diameter of the barrel, bore it out to at least .400" and silver solder it to the end of the barrel. If $140 brings the cost of the rifle to what a new one would cost and you plan to use it as a "beater", adding an extension would be cheaper unless you have to pay someone to do it.

Lee,

There is a guy in one of the leases I'm in that has a Savage 110 30-06 with a perfect donut around the barrel 2" from the muzzle . He said he accidentally got an obstruction in the muzzle without noticing and fired at a deer never realizing he'd buldged the barrel until later on. He said he shot some targets with it and it was just as accurate as it had ever been. Matter of fact he's killed a pile of deer with it since.

I would have had the barrel cut and crowned myself. He just got lucky in many ways....

Reloader

many moons ago i had a m1 carbine with a good sized buldge about mid barrel. the thing shot just fine

I have never seen a bulged barrel rifle shoot, but anything is possible. Only way to know is to shoot it and see how she looks.

Otherwise, the $140 rebarrel cost is dirt cheap. I would go that route unless you do the work yourself to shorten/solder the current barrel.

Lee
How big is the bulge?
If the bulge is big and the bbl looks stressed I would rebarrel it for sure. If it is a small bulge I would shoot it first with a couple of different loads.
If it shoots OK then I would use it like it is.

I would mike the bulge and see if it is getting bigger as I shot it.

The bulge is minor enough that a local gun shop took it in trade without seeing it. A customer noted it when it was on the rack and they pulled it. I've been friends with the manager for years and he called me to see if I wanted a project. I have about $100 in it, Marlins rebarrel price is totaly reasonable. I have a lathe and a milling machine and have done a bit of barrel work so doing an extension is no problem, I just really don't want to put a lot of time into what essentially would be a close range hunting/self defense weapon that I can leave in the vehicle 24/7 and not worry if it got stolen(money-wise) I will eventually get to shoot it at the range and was just curious about peoples experiences with this. I figure with 30/30 pressures being relatively low and not being too bad, if it shoots 3"@100 with a K-3 scope, I'll probably leave it as is. Thanks to all for the feedback! Lee.
Tony, miking the bulge and checking it is a good idea, will do! Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by lee440:
...I have about $100 in it, Marlins rebarrel price is totaly reasonable. I have a lathe and a milling machine and have done a bit of barrel work so doing an extension is no problem, ...

Hey Lee, I agree that the quote from Marlin is excellent. I beleive they quoted $143 on putting a longer barrel on a Guid Gun for me, and that included them Shipping it back to me.

Since you have barrel experience, would it be feisable to:
1. Remove the barrel and turn down the "Bulge".
2. Then "Bore Out" the first 4" of the existing barrel to a larger Internal Diameter.

That way the Sights would remain, the Bulge would be gone, and there would be no "sawed-off rifle" issue to deal with by having to add the sleave.

Too much time and trouble?

In my young and dumb days, at the tender age of 14, I was elk hunting above my folk's property and took a nasty fall. The barrel of my 721 30-06 planted itself about 3-4 inches into some really soupy mud on a logging road I was crossing. Even though I knew better, the first real dumb thought that came to mind was to fire a round to get the sloppy, watered-down mud out.
Well, it came out, and lucky for me it wasn't obstructing the bore like clay.
After I pulled the trigger, I had a moment of realization that said......WTF did I just do?
After the hunting was over that day, I mentioned the incident to my dad, who needless to say, nearly tanned my hide. He looked it over and detected a slight bulge about 2" from the muzzle, but only on one side......When I say slight, I mean you couldn't see it until you held it up to the light and watched the ray of light bend at that area of the barrel.

Well, the gun still shoots well. In fact, this gun continued to shoot the famous "one-hole" groups with Nosler Partitions for years after that. I finally restocked the rifle and cut the barrel off and recrowned it.....it's now around 22" and still shoots just as good.

Of course, this was only a mild case of stupidity; the other extreme of the spectrum could have proved to be fatal.

When I read on the newsgroup rec.guns, before there were internet gun forums, about a 1" group, I considered it my goal.

Everyone on the internet got at least 1" groups.

But at the range, everyone said they shot 1" all the time, but I never saw anyone do it.

After a year of looking at shooter's targets, I found two guys who could shoot a 1" group.

1) One of them had a newish Win 70 Coyote Stainless .223 with a benchrest in the front and rabbit eared bags in the rear. He was at the range every day, and said only Federal Gold match would produce those groups.

2) The other guy had a WWII surplus Mosin Nagant 91/30 that he got for $7 from Sears. He seated 180 gr Sierra bullets long and jammed them into the lands. He had an old Fajen stock, home made scope mount, and ancient and dim 18X Redfield. He had poured a lead lap and lapped the bore with valve grinding compound to get out a tight spot. He had used Outers foul Out, and said that the copper came, and then the rust came out.

As I looked down the bore of the 91/30 I saw the most corroded pitted mess for a bore I have ever seen in my life.

And he can shoot 1" groups with it.

10 years went by.
Now on a day with no wind, if there are 10 guys shooting, at least one of them will get a 1" group.
But I still remember the sewer pipe that could shoot 1" groups.

Hot core had it right, if you've had barrel experience than just drill out to the buldged section and call it good. How long is the barrel? If it's long enough to cut down and recrown without the BATF on your back, than that would probably be your best bet. Good luck!

lee,
had a barrel taken off a .270 of mine and was unawares of the "bulge" it was that difficult to note. how it happened to me is beyond me-just don't know when or how. In any case the smith noticed it and I sent it out to PacNor and is now a .338-06-cool. But case in point if any doubt either replace it or cut it back. One mentioned metal "fatigue" at the place of stress-good point.

How much does it bother you? What kind of accuracy do you expect from an undamaged 30-30 and how does this rifle compare? Answer these two question and then proceed either to rebarrel, bore out or leave it alone.

I'm possibly all alone on this one, but if it was mine I'd leave it be until I could test fire it. Then if it shot well enough to meet my needs as a "truck gun", I'd probably still leave it be for another hundred years or so .

I guess the questions I have for you are:

- What kind of bargain would it turn out to be if you bought it because of its low price, then added $140 to the cost? Would that end up causing you a bit of buyer's remorse?

- How much accuracy do you need?

- Just how badly ringed is it? If it is, as you said, so faint as to be imore or less invisible unless you really look for it, I would not worry in the least about it coming apart. You are, after all, talking about pressures appropriate to a 30-30, and down at that end of the barrel they are very low indeed.

There are many, many rifles fired every day with cartridges of that pressure which have visible rings/bulges back at the chamber from the ill-advised use of fillers/wads in their loads, and they don't seem to be coming apart in wholesale numbers with any great rapidity.

The NRA has had that question asked many, many times, and for about 60 years they seemed to give about the same answer, except they usually added that it is not too often that accuracy seems to be even affected by a relatively small ring or bulge, let alone destroyed.

I had a friend with a Ruger 77 in 270. He accidentally left a patch near the muzzle and got a bulge when he fired it. It still shot groups around 1" at 100 yds.

You might try keeping an eye on Ebay to pick up a used barrel for cheap. I have an extra 30-30 barrel that I picked up to play on. It has a different store brand name on the barrel, but I'm pretty sure it's a Marlin barrel with the square shank threads.
Nuemrich might have cheap barrels also.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Marlin-1893-S-R-Carbine-barrel-38-5...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Here is an 1893 barrel in 38-55. I don't know if the barrel threads are the same or not?

Well, its raining again today, but I believe that I will try it as is and like I said earlier, if it shoots around 3" or less, its good enough. I had thought about boring it, that would save some work on turning an extension and soldering it on. If I cut it back, it would be 15" long, therefore, extension.The money is really not an issue, even if I have it rebarreled by Marlin, I would only have $250 in it and the dang things are close to $400 new now. My big problem is that I can't leave a broke gun alone. Thanks for the feedback! Lee.

Sometimes a bulged barrel can shoot remarkably well. I once tested a Weatherby MKV in 300 which was bulged about 1 1/2 inches back from the muzzle. I didn't expect it to do much but the first shot hit 2 1/2 inches high and centered at 100 yards. "Fluke", I thought.
The next shot and there was no hole visible. "Well, there you have it; missed the paper", I thought knowingly.
I fired one more to be certain and it hit about 3/8 inch to the right of the first one. A closer look revealed the first hole to be slightly oblong where the second shot had passed through. That rifle wasn't hurt too badly by the bulge. Regards, Bill.