shorts

In spite of what is stamped on the barrel they are made for LR and not shorts.

bjm

 

In spite of what is stamped on the barrel they are made for LR and not shorts.

bjm

Sorry, I call BS He said it was a 39, not a 39A. I've never had a problem with shorts or longs in any 1892,1897, 39, and as far as I can remember never a problem in a 39A either.

You're supposed to cycle with authority, not like it's some fragile toy.

 

All the guns in questions have been 39A rifles built between 1959 and 1982.

The jam will usually occur if you are holding the muzzle up about forty five degrees and cycling the action slowly. Very few people use .22 shorts these days (I have fired thousands of them) so the problem is not well knowns and quite irrelevant to those who use .22 long rifle ammunition exclusively.

An old time writer named Henry Stebbins wrote several books where he stated that Marlin lever action .22s were prone to jamming. Colonel Whelen wrote the same thing in a 1918 book on American rifles.

I have studied the schematic designs of these rifles over the years and I notice that the early Marlins built before 1905 did not have either a cartridge cutoff or the cartridge guide now found on the roof of the receiver. Possibly these were added to address jamming issues.

 

My brother is an avid squirrel hunter and often uses the 39A of one flavor or the other. He has reported jamming issues with shorts IF the action is worked too slowly or if the gun is held at an odd angle. Not consistent but frequent enough to aggravate.

Haven't done the research on this with any of my guns - I prefer LR SV ammo - but I suspect that if all things are in spec with the gun's action, you are not likely to have an issue, but if something is slightly out of spec, you may have issues.....as this seems to be a gun-to-gun problem.

But as I said, I've not researched this in any sort of scientific fashion.

 

I have trouble with shorts. A replacement inner mag tube bottoms out around 3/8" short of the cartridge cut off. I shoot long rifle 99% of the time and have no problems.