Marlin 880-SQ stock improvement.

[mitch_mckee]

I posted this 6-10-2004 on rimfire central.

"Hi all. I've been lurking in your forum for some time and decided that I just had to join in. This seems a great resource. I'm a basement gunsmith and I like to get just a tad more accuracy out of my guns than they had when I bought them. I know it's a sickness, but it seems that I've found some fellow sufferers.

Please allow me to describe some work I just finished on my Marlin 880SQ. I bought it used a couple of years ago, low mileage, for $190. It seems from the other posts on the forum that it is a match chamber as it has the two screw front sight and rear dove tail. I purchased and installed the metal sights because I prefer having a scope back up to my field guns.

I noted right off that this rifle was the most accurate .22 I'd ever owned, shooting five shot groups making one ragged hole at 25 yards with cheap, Wally World bulk ammo and a Simmons 3x-9x, mid priced scope I had lying around here at the compound. I decided to make it shoot better (see reference to sickness, above), so here is what I did.

First off, the trigger was a little "gritty" and "jumpy" so I took it apart and, using a well worn, extra fine diamond hone, I smoothed down the trigger/sear contact surfaces until I could see no more pits under a magnifying glass. This made quite a satisfactory improvelemt in trigger pull, though still a little heavy. I plan to replace the spring at some point to lighten it a bit or perhaps even splurge for a Rifle Basix trigger.

This week, I decided that I wanted to float the barrel and bed the action al la center fire rifles. I could find no reference to this being done before but I thought that I would wing it anyway.

I did the usual sanding out of the plastic stock so the barrel cleared from just in front of the barrel screw onward. I then made a "dam" out of Play Dough (yellow) in front of and behind that bedding pillar and filled the area with Brownell's bedding compound flush with the top of the pillar. Usual proceedure.

The rear screw was a bit more of a challenge. It's just a screw that runs up from the trigger guard to the reciever and is unsupported. I noticed that the torquing of the screw had already bitten into the plasic support behind the screw.There really wasn't a whole lot of space to put in a proper bedding pillar so I cut a plastic tube out of an ink pen and, creating another "dam", I filled in around the tube and made a good sized block in front of that plastic support behind the screw hole that fully enclosed the tube.

Now I have both the front and rear screws fully supported, and the barrel floated.

I've been a little unsatisfied with the forward heavy feel of the rifle. I pulled off the butplate and removed a bunch of foam filler and the little steel block in there that was the counter balance. I layered in some Bondo auto body filler and some lead shot, relpacing the steel block, until I added a pound or so to the butt. It's heavier, but it balances far better in my opinion.

I took it out back and shot it a bit from a seated position and got some good groups. I'm looking forward to getting it on some bags and seeing how well it shoots. This was one of the more difficult bedding jobs I've attempted but it seems to have turned out well.

Comments, questions, and constructive criticism are welcome and encouraged."

PS - shoots nice now!

[Big Dog]

Sounds like a fun project! I've done some improvements on wood stocks, but not yet on a synthetic. Somewhat different ballgame, methinks?
Have you tried better grade ammo yet, like CCI Standard or Greentag?

[mitch_mckee]

Originally Posted by Big Dog

Sounds like a fun project! I've done some improvements on wood stocks, but not yet on a synthetic. Somewhat different ballgame, methinks?
Have you tried better grade ammo yet, like CCI Standard or Greentag?

It shoots best with standard velocity ammo. CCI mimimags shoot a bit looser groups but not much. No Stingers on those models because it has a match cut chamber.

It was a fun project.