16ga.com ~ View topic - MARLIN 90 , A TUTORIAL ON REWORKING THE CLASSIC OLE GUN

I am dedicating this to Ron Thrash ( AKA , Woodcock ) one of the greatest proponets of the Marlin 90 I have ever known .

Ron wanted me to build a set of 32ga. barrels for his Marlin 90 .410 frame , I wish I had built this for him now .

Press on, My Friend !!
I trust all is well with you and yours.

Retirement ROCKS!!!!!!!! Love it !!!

Mike

I have been waiting for this Nick. I'm sitting on 2 90's that I need to go through. Figured I'd wait for your published instructions. Hooray!! Can't wait!!

Hope all is well with you,

JT

Nick,

How difficult is it to change a converted ST back to DT? I have a pre-WWII 16 ga. ST that must be a conversion because it does not have an inertia weight like my Skeetking or my ST that was made in 1957.

Hello Barry .

If it was a single trigger , well it is difficult , but if it was a converted gun to a single trigger , if one has the parts it is real easy .

Regards, Nick

Barry watch the tutorial and you will see the parts needed .

DISCLAIMER

The following transformation of the Ugly Duckling into an Ugly Duck is performed by untrained , unskilled , Geneticaly Challenged Ozark Americans .

Therefore this should not be attempted by Trained Professionals under any circumstance.

CNH2

This is what I use to start the dismantling of a Marlin 90, as you can see this is a very heavy 26" gun , when we are done with it I hope it is just a wee bit lighter .

This is John Griffons ( AKA Stack 16) Ole Girl and she is going to have a transformation to my liking and hopefully Johns as well .

This ole girl will go on a weight reduction program first of all , the barrels will be welded up and set back on face , the girl will be turned into a Funeral Gun first and foremost , the stock will be bedded and turned black in color , the iron will be blued by rust blue method , the triggers will be attended to like they should be and made into english straight stock with no checkering at all .

This is what were starting out with .

The numbers everyone but me is interested in , all I care about is pre war and post war everything else is for the collectors to have fun with .

Deep hole that will get some acraglas put in it .

Here is where I will TIG WELD the hook up and fit and dress it back down to put the ole girl back on face .

This will give everyone a reference to fall back on , I drew up these prints in atticipation of building this Model one day in the future .

A very simple straight forward design that is very reliable , but has very little mechanical advantage for the triggers , this makes doing everything just right critical for a good trigger pull .

Lets start of with removing the recoil pad or but plate , this may be a Phillips or a Straight blade , all depends on if someone has replaced the screws or not .

Use a Tire Iron or large straight bladed screw driver to remove the stock .

On a spring clip forearm grasp the top of the forearm and pull straight down , on a Deely latch simply pull the latch and remove the forearm .

I know this is pretty simple and comon knowledge , but turn the toplever to the right and break down the gun and remove the barrels .

Remove the back screw in the trigger guard .

Place the parts and screws in masking tape and write on the tape what the part is and the location.

Member Joined: 02 Sep 2010 Posts: 829 Location: SW Ohio

Need to bump this back up. Looking forward to the next installment.

Joined: 09 Jul 2009 Posts: 510 Location: Central CT

Nick,

You mis-named this thread. You should have called it, 'How to keep a bunch of dumb flatlanders in suspense'. Guilty as charged here in CT.

Now hurry up and tell us what we need to know!!!

Pretty please, Nick!!

Disclaimer : If your Lazy , have little Patience , or cannot follow very simple directions , then you do not need to be in a trigger in the first place .

People think doing a trigger is a fast process ! I will tell you after doing thousands of the things IT IS A VERY VERY SLOW PROCESS to do a Marlin 90 trigger it should take you at least 4-5 hours for a good trigger and all day and then some for a Great Set of Triggers .

I know , I know , Billy Bob down the way can do it in 30 Minutes , well it looks like Briley and others out there that do this all the time have had wonderful results from what I have observed , I know this is not how anyone else would have done it , but my triggers are a very respectable user friendly trigger when I am done .

I will tell a story about a guy on the trapshooting path many years ago , this guy lived in Kansas and was a big oaf , bigger than me , nice guy mind you but a PIA some of the time as well .

Now Charlie was a perpetual gun trader , a good shot but would never stick with a gun very long , he would bring me a gun to have the trigger worked on , ( Pull and Release both ) he would tell me to make a trigger 2lbs 3OZ on an Auto Loader , now this is getting a bit on the light side indeed on an auto , early on I would set things to the exact weight specified for the customer , well here they would come back and say the gun went off by itself or this is too light would be the remark .

I quickly learned that Shotgunners as a whole really didn't play with a full deck according to Ray Barnes of MoneyMaker Guncraft , who at the time I was working with and did so for 15 years .

Ray would say to me , Nick make it fast like you like it or he would tell me to make it slow , he knew these guys real well and what they shot like and could handle , let me tell you that a trigger will ruin a shooter quicker than anything else ( I can take a shooter that is shooting behind a target consistantly and slow the trigger down and get them to hitting , just like someone that is always infront of the target , I can speed the trigger up and get them to hitting ) , just recently I purchased a new Air Rifle and it would only do 3" groups at 100 yards after a little TLC on the trigger it now does under .750 at 100 yards , big difference .

Now back to Charlie , he just knew he needed a nice trigger , but folks down the line filled his head with exact numbers , well I would hand a trigger back to Charlie and he would say Beautiful , simply Beautiful and away he would go , come back in a few hours and say can you lighten it some more ?

I inquired as to why ? I just watched you break a 99 in the singles with the gun , it seems to work quite well for you .

I need it a bit lighter I put a scale on it and its 4 lbs now this is a number thrown out because I did hundreds of triggers for Charlie Kettle over the years and the numbers are arbitrary .

The trigger was perfect just hours before and now that a gauge was put on it
and the numbers were not what one had told him they should be , this was the reason why the one target was missed it had to be , Charlie Kettle could not have been to fault .

Then when he went away each time he would shake ones hand and try to crush it and think it was funny .

This went on for years and I finally told Ray about it one day , Ray told me to wear my cowboy boots and kick him as hard in the shin as I could when he done that to me the next time , guess what it worked like a charm , Charlie never crushed my hand again , he shook hands like one is supposed to from that day forward .

I write this to show that one needs a trigger that is smooth , breaks crisp and has no creep , we can live with a bit of weight on the trigger with a bird or competition gun but not any of the other drawbacks .

Now lets get to fixing triggers with all this said .

I will tell how to make the trigger a trigger instead of it being a lanyard yank :

This action is a marvel in simplicity to say the least , that being said it does have some disadvantages .

The main disadvantage is the trigger has very little mechanical advantage , with that being said we have to overcome this misgiving by making all parts as slick as butter to overcome the lack of brute force to help us lazy folks pull the trigger .

Step # 1

Punch out the front trigger pin , this makes things alot easier , one does not have to do this but you will find some guns it is necessary and others it is not , very simple to do and will save some colorful metafores from being uttered .

One needs to only cock the strikers and push the sear block out the right side of the gun ( except on the first production year guns the block comes out the left side " good luck it is a bear " ) with pressure on the thumbs on either side of the sear block ( push from the left side of the action barrels facing forward , the block comes out the right side ) .

You will get the compleat Sear block assy it looks like this .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0123Marlin90tutorial0077.jpg

Take this assy and place it into your leg or on a table , board ect ect take a flatbladed screw driver and depress the sears to disengage the strikers ( you need to catch the strikers , I use my thumb nail and point it into my belly ) BE SURE YOU MARK YOU PCS AND WRITE ON THEM TOP , BOTTOM ECT .

Next take the sear block and use a small punch ( brass will not work dont even try , it has to be steel ) punch out the pins holding the sears pic as follows .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0001.jpg

Place small straight bladed screw driver under sear springs and remove if you want to prior to punching out the pins or remove with fingers after pin removal , it looks like this after the parts are removed .
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0002.jpg

Lets start with the Sear Box .

this is a photo of the sear box , ALL SQUARE CORNERS are to have a radius , THIS MEANS ALL CORNERS ARE TO BE ROUNDED , use a small needle file for this , when this is done then go to an India stone for the final touches on all the corners , yes it means outside corners as well , this will help facilitate the ease of reassembly of the whole gun .

The inside corners inside the Sear Box needs to be rounded and stoned as well as the sides and top of the box .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0015.jpg

Next is a photo of the Strikers , you will need to knock down all square corners and radius those as well with a file then take an India Stone and lay it flat or some 400 grit + sandpaper on a flat stone or file and work the machine marks out of the square flats of the strikers , then you can polish or stone those slick with a Hard Arkansas Stone or jump up to 1200 grit paper or above . REMEMBER ALL SQUARE CORNERS ARE TO BE ROUNDED EXCEPT THE ( SEARS ) STAY AWAY FROM THOSE FOR NOW .

Work the firing pin " The rounded part in front " work it down smooth as well .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0003.jpg

Next is the triggers themselves

All corners are to be rounded and the sides stoned smooth .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0022.jpg

The photo here shows the top part of the trigger that comes into contact with the sears , this needs to be stoned with an India Stone to remove all marks keeping the stone square and flat on the surface , THEN STONED WITH A HARD ARKANSAS STONE TO A VERY HIGH POLISHED SURFACE this is one of the bearing surfaces so it needs lots of detail given to it . ( in the photo where my thumb nail is pointing ).

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0023.jpg

Here is a Sear you will VERY CAREFULLY WITH MUCH PATIENCE stone the sear surfaces free from marks with an India Stone KEEPING THE STONE VERY FLAT ON THE SURFACES WITH MUCH PATIENCE , you will be doing 2 surfaces all the time keeping the stone FLAT ON THE FACE after this is done then you will stone with a Hard Arkansas Stone untill you can see yourself in the surface all the mean time keeping the Stone flat on the surface of the sear .

When done the sear should be very sharp cornered and polished to a mirror finish .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0011.jpg

This photo shows the 2 surfaces that each Sear has and how the stone is to be administered to the faces FLAT , FLAT , FLAT . The surface showing to the right and the one the stone is laying against are the ones that are to be polished .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0010.jpg

After and only after you have a square sear surface that is stoned with the hard arkansas stone then do what is shown in the photo to the sear square corner , you are going to break this corner WITH THE HARD ARKANSAS STONE ONLY , with a rocking motion about 5-10 passes will do and no more .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0012.jpg

Now in the photo see the rounded contact surfaces that mate up to the triggers these need to be stoned free of marks and polished with the hard arkansas stone to a mirror finish , all contact points have to have a mirror finish for the best trigger possible .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0021.jpg

This is a photo of what the sear surfaces should look like after the India Stone is done with them , poor photo I know but note the sharp edge on the sear and the lack of machine marks on the surfaces .

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa361/aaprecision/2011_0323Marlin90trigger0004.jpg

Now lets recap as to what we have done and need to do , then I will go on .

#1 Disassembled the Sear Block , filed and or stoned and placed a radius on ALL CORNERS INSIDE AND OUT .
#2 Stoned the inside of the Sear Block very smooth
#3 Stoned the flat surfaces on the Strikers untill all machine marks are removed .
#4 Filed and or Stoned a radius on the square corners of the Strikers .
#5 Stone the round portion of the strikers that comprise the firing pin portion of the striker ( DO NOT MESS WITH THE END OF THE FIRING PIN ) this is to be left alone .
#6 Stone the cocking blocks on the striker all free of machine marks and radius all sharp corners .
#7 Stone the Sears on 2 sides using A FLAT STONE ON THE FLAT SURFACES ONLY to remove ALL MARKS WITH INDIA STONE THEN POLISH TO A VERY SMOOTH FINISH WITH THE HARD ARKANSAS STONE .
#8 ONLY AFTER doing step seven then USING THE HARD ARKANSAS STONE place a very small radius on the crisp edge of the sears using a FLAT AND SMOOTH ROLLING MOTION no more than 10 times ( just enough to smooth out the knife edge is all were doing and give us that very nice crisp break were looking for .
#9 Stone the triggers themselves all free from sharp edges by putting a radius on them , stone the flats of the trigger to knock down all the high spots and smooth them up .
#10 Stone the contact points on top of the trigger free from marks and then stone them to a mirror where the contact points are with the hard arkansas stone .

hey Nick - sounds like you are still quite busy but coming up for air every now & then . Hope things are still copacetic with the red- head . 6' is scary though - you KNOW how fast a 5'6'' one can make a JACKASS outa ya though - BE CAREFUL !