My wife's 336 has locked up and I cannot get it apart. We were at the range and she was having trouble getting the bolt closed. I noticed the ejector was not sitting correctly and repositioned it to it's normal spot and closed the action. After she fired a round the action locked up and will not move. I have managed to disassemble all of the action except that the bolt is still locked in place. Makes me think the ejector failed or broke and is locking the bolt in place. I am a pretty fair hand with gunsmithing but this one has me stumped. There is no rearward play at all. The bolt is locked up hard. Any thoughts on how to get it freed up? Thanks.

Mart

Remove the barrel. it should be easier to deal with whatever the problem.

I was able to install the lever without the rest of the parts and the bolt came back, a little hard, but the lever gave me just enough advantage to pop it back. The ejector spring was bent. I'll order a new ejector.

Odd that it wouldn't move at all while it was fully assembled. Couldn't budge it at all. Thanks.

Mart

The ejector 'not sitting correctly' sometimes comes from cleaning the rifle from the muzzle.
The cleaning rod and/or tip comes down the bore and through into the breech,,the bolt is retracted of course & the ejector is standing out in the 'ejection' position by it's spring.
The cleaning rod/tip can strike and/or snag on that ejector and bend them quite easily w/o the person knowing it.

The ejector can also be somewhat easily snagged and damaged right from the ejection port by someone digging a cartridge out of the port,,one that didn't eject or a fail to feed round,,ect.

Marlin used to instruct owners of the 336 to clean them from the breech by opening the lever 1/2 way, remove the lever screw, remove the lever, pull the bolt from the frame and remove the ejector.


Closing the bolt on a damaged ejector jams it into the bolt raceway sometimes. It's hardly noticed when closing the bolt as the leverage is better on the closing stroke than the opening stroke. That's when you find it,,you can't get it open.
By stripping the action and removing the locking bolt, that's usually enough resistance out of the way to allow the lever to push the bolt jammed by the crumpled ejector/spring back and open.

Just a guess at what's going on. Might not be but it's happened quite a lot in the past to other Marlin owners.