Levergun Cleaning

Hey Hickok45, I have a nice lever gun in my hands, one of the most popular lever guns I guess ever made, the Marlin 336. A lot of them out there, a lot of you have them, a lot of you know someone who has one, maybe your dad has one, you're hoping to shoot it someday, or it's the rifle that you first deer hunted with. There's just a lot of them out there, a lot of history, a lot of stories, especially around the .30-30 in this gun. Now this happens to be the .35 Remington, but it is the Marlin 336 lever gun, and we're going to clean it, okay? That's what this is about. Let's take it over here to the cleaning table. It's not a shooting table today, it's a cleaning table. We don't have our beautiful leather on it, right? So we can just spray oil and make a mess, because that's what I do when I clean a gun. I don't worry about making a mess. I'm liberal with oil, and as you have maybe seen before, I use the ballast oil. It's a cleaner and a lube, so it's all I use. I have since 99. And you know, for whatever lube you use, if it's a one solution, do all, then it'd be the same. Now you may have a cleaner and then you use a lube, so that's the only thing that might be a little bit different. All right, now I'm not going to break this thing down every little pin. This is not a total disassembly endeavor here. I just want to show you how to clean it if you have not taken one of these apart before. How to get to the chamber and clean it from the chamber in, which is always the best, okay? So first thing you want to do, of course, you want to clear it. There's nothing in there. I can see all the way down that chamber. And then you want to bring the bolt back to about right there, you know, where it rests against the hammer, about that point, okay? And then you want to take the lever off, and that requires a screwdriver. And if you're going to own firearms, hundreds of dollars worth of firearms, probably thousands, please invest in some good screwdrivers, some flat ground, hollow ground, some good screwdrivers where you won't mess up these screws. I have several, and it took me a while to get to that point. I used to just grab a screwdriver. I was always careful, but I have to be careful out here on the shooting table I don't lose something. So there's the bolt that comes out of there. Again, I'm showing you what I do, okay? I'll just soak it down while I'm doing it. Now, this gun is not really dirty, but let's assume it's really dirty. So that releases the lever. There it is. This pulls right out of the bolt, okay? Now, it's not in too bad a shape, but what I would normally do is soak it down there, make sure it's clean, okay? Let it soak, doesn't really matter. I don't need to touch it for a while. Then I pull the bolt out. Just continue. See, it's free now to come right out. That kind of hangs on the ejector there a little bit, but it comes on out, all right? Then the ejector is just sort of hanging there. I should have shown you before that. I put my finger on it. On the other side, you notice this little bitty whatever right there. That's the ejector. See, it disappeared. That's all that holds it in. So I'll just dump it out. There it is. There's a little knob on it, and it just sticks through the receiver. So that's it. It has a spring on it, and that's what ejects the case. I'll put that there. Now, it's not dirty either, but here's what I would do. I'll just soak it, all right, and let it soak. Then I work on the bore. I think a lot of people tend to use this method, probably. You take the little pieces off that are important pieces that have grit and grime on them, whatever. Some people will soak them, literally put them in a dish or a jar of some kind of solvent while they're working on the barrel, perhaps. I just put them somewhere and then spray them down. Okay, same thing. Now, it all depends on how dirty something is, doesn't it? And this isn't perfectly clean, which is good. I use Q-tips a lot. Some people don't like them. It's okay. And if I see anything I can reach with it. This is not a total breakdown in cleaning. This is just get the stuff there you can see. But one of the reasons you want to take the bolt out and work from behind, of course, is you don't damage the muzzle of the rifle. That's pretty important. Now, you might be careful and not do that. Some firearms, you have no choice but to clean from the muzzle. But it's always best if you can clean from the chamber, okay? And the bolt is in pretty good shape. I'm not going to just drown it in oil, especially on the front, you know, getting a firing pin. What I'll do with it usually is I'll take a toothbrush and I'll just make sure it's clean. Now, if it gets to a point where it's really dirty, lots of grit, I might just go ahead and hit it with a solvent or balistol, soak it, and then maybe dry it out with alcohol inside, take it apart, all that kind of thing. But this isn't that kind of cleaning. This is just, just get it pretty clean, ready to go again, okay? Not having any trouble with the firearm or anything. So there's not like grit or something inside the bolt that's giving me trouble. Okay, so I've got the bolt out. So I have total access. I can pick that up. I can see right down the bore. That's the beauty. I'll bet you can too. See right down that bore, see? So I can use a cleaning rod and just stick it right down through from the chamber in. That's always best, okay? So now I tend not to use cleaning rods as much anymore, but let's just pretend I am. What I would do is patch there, and I would just go in from this end, okay? Right up into the chamber, and right on out, just like that. Now a lot of people will advise you to go and take those patches off and then keep running patches through until they get clean. I tend not to do that. I'll have to be honest with you. That would be the best way to do it. Depends on what kind of shooting you do, what kind of firearm it is, and all that kind of thing. I'll run that through a couple times, and I'll get another patch, a couple of patches, and do the same thing until it's clean. Now what I tend to do more often these days, though, and not, is to use the bore snakes. I kind of like them. For one thing, it obviates the need to even take the bolt out if you want to. Depends on how much it needs cleaning and how much you want to clean it on that particular day. Of course, with that out, it's even simpler, but if you've not seen how these work, you know, they've got a little weight on the end, you just get it started down the barrel. This is a .35 caliber rifle, you know, .35 Remington, and I'm not even sure. I think what I have here is a .40 caliber handgun snake, tell you the truth, but it seemed to work. I don't think I ever bought a .35 caliber snake. Maybe I did. Maybe that's it. Okay, and that one time through generally does it. These things are pretty amazing. Put a little bit of lube on it, and it's got a bristle on it, brass bristle there, so it cleans and even polishes as it goes through. Yes, it's like a mirror in there. So, so I like these. Now if I've got a really dirty bore, I won't do it as quickly. What I will do quite often, if I've been shooting it a lot, I will take the ballast awl, and I will just, as soon as I get to this point, or maybe even before I've taken it apart, I'll just spray the heck out of that bore. I'll just soak the barrel. I'll just spray, spray, spray, and then lean it in the corner, and just let that barrel soak for a while. I really will, before I start running patches through it. Just depends on how dirty it is, what it comes down to. The one reason I use this stuff is, you notice I get it on the wood. It doesn't matter. It enhances the wood, enhances the finish. You don't have to worry about what you get it on, your fingers or anything. In fact, usually before I finish, I will take the wood, you know, and just rub it in. It's like a furniture, it's not like polish, but it's a nice oil for that too. It enhances the beauty of the firearm. Okay, but whatever lube you use is fine and cleaner. Everybody has their own lube and cleaner they like. That's just what I do. And again, it's always nice to get at a lever gun or any rifle or handgun from the rear, just like that, like I did. That requires taking off the lever and getting the bolt out of there. And as you see, it's not very hard. It was pretty simple, wasn't it? I took out the one screw that held this on, and that was pretty much it. Then you just have the trick of getting this out, which is not all that hard. Okay, if I can do it with my large hands, then you can do it. So now the bolt is in good shape. You can lube it a little bit. I don't dump lube on there, but just make sure it's kind of like an AR almost. It's got a little coating of lube on it, okay? And this gun is pretty clean, where if it had been fired a lot, I would be working on the inside of the receiver and making sure that was, you know, really good shape in there. I'd be cleaning on that, but it's just not that, you know, that dirt is in pretty good shape. So let me get the bolt back in. Now, before I put the bolt in, I need to put the extractor back in. Make sure you don't lose this little piece. And if it's in a little groove there, and get that little nub in the receiver. If I can manage to do that, muster up the coordination to get it in there. It's a little tricky, but I'm trying to do it in front of the camera. Let me get over here where I can see better. There, I think that's closer to it. Tricky guy there. Oh, okay. Here I can see it better. Yeah, yeah, if you eyeball it from back here where the bolt goes in, it's easier to see. You see that it fills up that little hole? See, that's what holds it in. There's not a screw or anything. It's just the pressure of the bolt. So right now, it's just pressure of my finger. Okay, and then gravity. Gravity is your friend there. Use gravity to your best advantage. Okay, now put the bolt in, and you know how that goes. The extractor is going to be on the right side there on the outside. I hold the hammer down. You just push it in, and the extractor fits in that little groove. And then as you're moving back, you don't want to push your bolt all the way forward. You end up getting the thing locked, and then you can't get the lever back in because it has to slide up in that little groove. So put it right back where it was, just resting on the hammer here pretty much. Sometimes a little bit of trial and error involved. And what I do is, and I clean, of course, my bolts and everything. It's in good shape, and I'll go ahead and stick it back in just a little bit and make sure that, yeah, it's right. I'm working the bolt now. Okay, so then I tighten it up. I need the big screwdriver. All right, the lever back on. Can't pretend to be John Wayne if you don't have a lever on your lever gun, can you? Looks like it works. Make sure the ejector's in there. You can see a little groove fits in that little groove. Okay, so you're back in business. That's all there is to it, really, taking apart. You know, really every Marlin I can think of is basically the same. Take the lever off. You open it up about that point. Take the lever off and pull the bolt out. Make sure you don't lose the ejector. It's going to fall out on you if you tilt it around. And then just reverse the procedure. That's all there is to it. But it's very, very simple to get to the rear of that barrel that way and clean it however you like. If you like boar snakes or you like rods, it just makes it easier and you don't damage the crown or the muzzle that way. So really, people who are really obsessive about accuracy and everything with a rifle and any firearm will tell you the least little scratch, you know, there at the mouth of the boar, at the muzzle, can make a difference. We'll get into that another day, okay. And then, of course, if you want to take the whole thing down, you know, don't be afraid to do that either. You take that screw out, take this screw out, pop this off, the spring comes out of the magazine, take this screw out, take off the barrel band. I mean, they're not that hard to take apart. We might do that in another video sometime. But this is just a basic field stripping to do a pretty good cleaning of the firearm and then lubing. Now, like I say, I just lubed the all this is lubed. The characteristics of what I use, the Ballistol, if you use it very much, it just kind of has a film, it cures things. And so I don't have to just dump it on there every time, but I make sure everything is lubed well. And one last thing with a lever gun or any older gun like Colt single actions and these guns, always check your screws every now and then and make sure like that one, I had a little bit of a turn on that one. They will loosen up just a little bit. That one's a little bit loose. So just check your screws periodically. It's not a big deal. That always bothers some people for some reason, that a screw might loosen up on a firearm. Not to me, it usually means it's some classic type of firearm. So have some good screwdrivers and check the screws while you're doing that. Okay. So Marlin 336, that's how I break it down and how I clean it. Works for me. So hopefully you get a little bit out of that for you. Life is good.