Quote:
Originally Posted by desi2358
2152hq pretty much covered the wear issues on the Marlin/Glenfield series in his post. I have seen a several of them exhibiting those problems over the years. I am surprised he reported guns being worn to the point of unreliability during proof and test firing. .....
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It was that cast in place Ejector in the 2 piece Sintered Metal feed throat that they were using at that time (approx 68 to 72) that caused the failures of the rifles while still in the range.
The tiny cast surface just barely was able to reach out far enough from the feed throat to engage the base of the .22 case as it was being held on the bolt and kick the case out of the rifle.
Some not enough to last even a few rounds before the guns would no longer eject.
Many of the new production at that time would work and go out the door.
But we would get pallet fulls of the rifles back in Warranty Returns from big retailers.
These were customer returns of new purchases they were disatisfied with for one reason or another and another rifle was simply exchanaged and given to the customer.
The 'bad rifle' then sent back to Marlin for credit.
There we were supposed to repair them and then the were being re-done as needed and re-boxed and off again to the general market and being resold. I don't recall if they were resold as New,,or Re-serviced,,or what exactly.
They were called 'Turn Arounds' at the factory.
We did this with the Model 80 & 81 bolt action .22's as well.
The number of Model 99/60 .22 semiauto rifles in this program was overwelming.
Pallets and pallets of them from all sources.
Way too many to keep up with.
The main return complaint was 'Fail to Eject'.
The issue was that Feed Throat and a quick visual check would tell you that the cast Ejector point was worn away.
Many of the rifles were new looking. Some not. They were used after all and like any used product, some customers can put an awful lot of wear on something in short order!
So at first were would strip the guns down completely and rebuild them.
Alloy frames & trigger guards got a new 'Paint Job'.,,,spray paint literally.
We actually got some returns that were pre68 (this was already early 70's). The pre 68's didn't have Ser#'s on them as that was they they were made in that era.
Since these were going to be resold, we had to hand stamp a new Marlin issued ser# on the upper front left side of the frame on those. A log book gave us the proper #'s and checked off each used as we went along.
Steel parts went over to the Finishing room for re-polish and re-bluing.
Wood went to the Wood Room for re-sanding and re-finishing with the rest of production.
We (Repair Dept) reassembled these turn-around guns.
They then went next door for another trip thru the Range for Proof, Function and Targeting.
If they made it,,they went down to Packing.
If they didn't,,a big cart of 30 of out TurnArounds came back pushed by a smiling faced Range emloyee,,,they always seemed to enjoy doing that!
Since we were reassembling using the same poor quality feed throat that caused most of the issues (not all of course) in the first place, many of our redone rifles were no better,,just maybe looked better than when we took them off the pallets.
With all that work and time, the Front Office decided to scrap the rebuild program and simply strip the returned rifles for parts.
The parts would be sent to the same Dept's for re-finishing, but then the parts would be used to on the Line in regular assembly.
Great idea.
The complaints from the Line Workers were many and loud.
Bad parts, mixed variations of parts in the same lot, poor quality markings on bbls after repolishing and blue, stuff like that.
So the next idea was to simply destroy the returned rifles,,no saving anything.
That was our 'if you have some time on your hands' job.
Save nothing. Hundreds and hundreds of semi-auto and boltaction .22 rifles simply torn apart from their stocks. The bbls cut,,then that took too long to do.,, The recv'rs were cut or hammered shut. The alloy simply broke.
Nothing was saved. Not even box magazines from the bolt action .22's, scopes, slings,,nothing. Junk it all.
Cheaper to throw away than to reclaim anything.
It all ended up in the North Haven, Ct dump.
A local enterprizing soul used to scout the dump and take it all home with him.
That and much more from the factory trash that Marlin simply dumped there.
He was making Marlin firearms in his garage and selling them.
....But that's another story.