I am posting this to see if anyone else has had any problems with a new 336.
The son of a friend brought me a brand new Marlin 336 that he was going to scope but could not remove the plug screws on top of the receiver. Fortunately he brought it to me before he buggered up the screw slots too badly.
I soaked them in Kroil for a while an pulled out the fitting bit from my Brownells screwdriver set. I figured he had used a regular screwdriver anyway and that was part of his problem......well they wouldn't budge. No problem, I'll just lay the heat to them. So, I fire up the torch and proceeded to heat them up a bit to break them loose. Brownells bit number one ruined. Twisted sideways, screws no budge. OK, find another bit. Got another, heated, Kroil, twist.....Screwdriver bit chipped. I quit while I was ahead and took it to a gunsmith fried of mine this morning to drill them out. He heated, kroiled, turned,...nothing. Long story short... we drilled out the centers of the screws but a screw extractor would not remove what was left. We ended up drilling them and retapping them...6x48 right? Well, the owner did manage to remove the very front one before he brought it to me so all we had to do were the other 3. Drilled and tapped them 6x48 so we decided to chase the threads on the front one only find out it is 8x40. ??????? What the heck???

I think Marlins have 8x40 threads from the factory.

Yup, factory drilled & tapped 8-40. Shouldn't be that hard to remove though.

Recently, a local hunting preserve ordered 4 identically prepared Marlin 336's plus scopes to be used as loaner rifles for clients. I had to order 13 rifles from my distributor to get 4 good ones!!!!

Apparently, when The Freedom Group/Remington took over operations from Marlin QC went south. Hardwood stocks were switched to laminates (ala Rem M870). They failed to mark the shipping boxes as to which rifles had which stocks. I had to send 2 rifles back because of the wrong wood, 4 rifles with frozen plug screws, and 3 because the front sights were mounted 5 degrees off TDC. It appeared to me that sacrificial plug screws were used during polishing and bluing and were left in. Many screws had little if any screw slot left, and the thick bluing appeared to rust weld them in. I broke/bent three bits trying to get them out. Heat, Kroil, impact driver, had no effect. Frankly, (as I explained to the Marlin customer service rep), I shouldn't have to do that. She agreed.

I had to spend nearly $5,000 to get 4 good guns, plus go to the trouble of packing and shipping back those defective ones. We had to haggle with the distributor for a month before we got re-reimbursed for the shipping. We ended up making $320 on the deal not counting labor. I personally spent 3 hrs on them.

There will have to be a lot of changes at Marlin before I will ever buy another. I am steering clients to buy a good used specimen pre-takeover.

Yeah, they may come 8x40, thats fine. I just could not believe how difficult they were to remove. I am glad to know I am not the only one, just sad thats the case. I lamented several times that I wished he had asked me before he bought it. I too would have suggested a good used rifle.
So, did Marlin give any reason for the frozen plug screws?

quote:

Originally posted by Magnum Hunter1:
So, did Marlin give any reason for the frozen plug screws?

No, never a reply. The CS rep acted shocked and dismayed when I initially contacted her. She took down serial numbers and descriptions. I was pleased with her empathy. There was never any further contact from Marlin.

I've pretty much always been a Marlin fan.

BUT, with Marlin's new owners and the moving of the Marlin operation to new quarters, I will not be surprised at anything which may come out of their "new-ish" shop.

Their new owners have not been famous for their QC the last few years, even before purchasing Marlin.

And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of the best, most highly skilled" and experienced "Marlin-makers" did not move to the new location with the equipment.

I HOPE Marlin is going to be turning out guns that will do their tradition proud, with few if any glitches in QC...but time will tell.