Firearms Stack Exchange Archive

Smoothing action of Marlin 30A

Which parts (and which surfaces on them) should be polished in order to make the lever operate more smoothly in a Marlin 30A? Should I use a certain kind of polish? Does it matter whether I use a rag or some sort of Dremel tool?

Answer 1126

This is the kind of thing that's difficult to answer in this space. Here's an article on tuning the action. Even that article suffers from a lack of pictures and advice about technique.

You can use a dremel if you're judicious in it's use, but it's a difficult tool to use well - often the most direct route is going to be fine sandpaper on a backing stick. Large buffing wheels are great for large surfaces, but will round the external corners on depth-cut cams and the like, which is not desirable. As a general process:

  1. Know what you want to do.
  2. Know how the parts you're altering affect the function (to include pieces you might be incidentally polishing because they're adjacent to the portion you're focused on.
  3. Proceed with patience. You can always polish more, but it's very difficult to put material back.
  4. Make sure you remove all abrasive compound from the parts before re-assembling.

Answer 1125

I'm not familiar with the Marlin 30A, but I will put forward that Dremel Tools are the bane of the home gunsmith. They spin so fast that it's easy to make mistakes, and it's hard to keep pressure even across an entire surface -- the upshot of which is uneven polishing and uneven surfaces. Something like this Harbor Freight grinder / buffing wheel will give you better results than a dremel.

Also, read this Wikipedia article on polishing metal. It's got a chart that shows you what kind of buffing wheel to use and what kind of compound to use for various metals. For your purposes, you're probably interested in the Initial Buff or Final Buff stage of polishing.

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