Pistol caliber carbines (PCCs) are all the rage today. Why not? Yes, you lose ballistics performance but you gain streamlined logistics. Anyway, let’s recall that the original idea behind PCC’s was not to have a carbine that took the same mags as your Glock. No, the original idea was to have a carbine that took the same ammo as your Colt revolver. The genesis of the PCC goes back to the Colt Single Action and the iconic Win. ’73. A fella with a saddlebag full of .44-40 ammo could keep his rifle, pistol, and himself fed. Leverguns: the OG PCC.
I have a lovely Marlin 1894 in .357 and it’s a perfect companion to my GP-100’s. But…I wanted a little more horsepower. Time for a .44 Mag. And then I came across a nice Marlin in .44 Mag but it had one glaring little problem:
This … abberation… has no place on a rifle as otherwise magnificent as this old-style Marlin
A crossbolt safety on a hammered lever-action rifle is an affront to Crom, nature, and pre-litigious society. If you run around in the woods with a cocked hammer on your levergun you are, sir, a fool. It is no less and no more work to cock the hammer when ready to fire than it is to push an ugly, obtrusive crossbolt safety. This is why Marlins (and Winchesters) without the crossbolt safety bring more money than those that have them. So, you have an otherwise excellent, high-quality, Marlin rifle but it has the absurd crossbolt safety. Do you live with it? Slap an itty bitty o-ring on the ‘FIRE’ side of it to prevent accidentally setting it to SAFE? Or….do you….remove it.
Duh and/or hello…..you remove the worthless thing.
Several outfits offer replacement ‘plugs’ to get that stupid safety outta there. I went with this one which was suggested to me by fellow blogger Ryan. (How ya doin’, buddy!) It arrived today. Time for gun surgery.
First, know your enemy:
Know your exploded diagram as you know yourself and in a thousand disassemblies you will never be left with ‘extra’ parts. In this case, that v-groove is what keeps you from pushing the crossbolt completely through and out the other side of the receiver. There is a set screw, spring, and ball bearing that keeps it in place. Let’s get the stock off and find that set screw.
I think I can guess where to start looking. Under whatever crap that yellow stuff is, there lies our starting point. Let’s clean that crap out with a dental pick and get rolling.
Alright…back that thing out and be careful not to lose it. It’s tiny. There’s also a ball and spring in there. Get those too and don’t lose ’em. Once it’s out, push the crossbolt out the ‘SAFE’ side of the receiver (right side). You’ll be left a with a glaringly large hole in the side of your beautiful Marlin.
Take your replacement crossbolt and slide it in. You need to line up the little dent for the detent on the crossbolt with the hole for the set screw. Easiest way? Get crossbolt in place, look down set screwhole with bright flashlight, rotate crossbolt until detent lines up with hole. Firmly hold crossbolt in place and replace set screw tightly. Put stock back on gun and bask in the beauty:
And there you go. Not as pretty as if it had never had the stupid crossbolt safety, but miles better than still having it.
Hey, if you find this imformative or useful howabout kicking back a little something to yours truly?