Recently picked up a 1893 that had been through a fire to restore as a project and boy is it gonna be a lot of work.  Overall its in pretty good shape, hardly any rust or deep pitting.  
The fire left a layer of carbon on everything.  Only really bad area is the bore which is ok because its gonna get rebored and rechambered to 38-55 anyway.  It appears that it was very lightly used when it went through the fire as there is hardly any wear on it.  Not even any wear on the machine marks in the receiver from the bolt.  Kind of curious as to the history of it because the serial number on the bottom receiver plate is filed off and then the gun went through a fire.  Serial number from the upper tang is 1765XX.  More to come as I make progress.

How it arrived:


Have started to get it down to bare metal:

Is this a take-down version? Also, what are you using to get down to bare steel?

Looking forward to updates

Yep it is a takedown version.  Im using files and sandpaper over a file to get down to bare metal.

How badly was it in the fire?  High temperatures can change the properties of the steel.  Or was it mostly smoke and water damage?

So far it doesnt appear to be too bad.  I contacted JES Rifle Reboring and spoke with Jesse and he did not reccomend having the barrel straitened and rebored due to the fact that it had been in the fire  Guess Ill be buying a "new" 1893 takedown barrel.

This is what I thought of when I was reading your post.  I'm glad someone who knows helped you out.  Good luck on your build - post up some pics.

Did the wood burn off or just char ? If it got hot enough to burn off I would say the temp is gone and it not shootable.

Not sure on the wood but I would say it did burn off.  Not quite understanding how getting hot in the fire is any different than the high temps it goes through when it gets color case hardened?  I can see on the barrel where it never goes through a heating a cooling process but on the receiver and other parts?

The receiver was hardened and tempered when it was made, as were all the parts of the gun.  Hardening makes the parts more durable, some might say stronger, to some degree that is correct.  The tempering process slightly softens the hardened part, the purpose of this is to make the part less brittle, here again some will say stronger, and again that is somewhat correct.  A gun that has been through a fire (to the point that the wood was burned and charred), to be blunt, has has the hell tempered out of it, the metal is probably too soft and weak to be safe.  Color case hardening is a very, very controlled process, a house fire is not.    

I would get ahold of someone who specializes in firearms and heat treating to see if they can possibly do some type of non-destructive testing and see if the receiver and other parts are useable or if they can be re-heat treated.  They may be able to cut the barrel, since your not going to use it, and look at the grain structure and tell what kind of fire it went through.  I think that would be a long shot though.

I do hope this rifle can be fixed, I love my Marlins and it makes me sad to see something like the one you have ruined by a fire.

I understand what your saying, I have taken a lot of heat treating and metallurgical classes, but correct me if I'm wrong.  When you case harden you are going to go way above all or most of the critical temps of the steel, up to around 1400 F.  This will undo any previous heat treating that the metal has had done to it.  Then the part is quenched making it very hard and brittle and sets in the colors for CCH.  After that the part is tempered to make it less brittle and leave the very hard CCH on the surface. So unless the actual composition of the metal was changed in the fire, the CCH process should induce the proper hardening and tempering?

Thanks for the insight and please dont take this as me trying to argue with you.  Im just trying to explain it as I see it and wrap my head around everything.  I understand the gun could have been irreparably damaged in the fire I just dont believe it has been, with the exception of the barrel.  I always do my best to listen to someone who knows more than me and want to learn a thing or two as well.  Id sure hate to see this old gun not shoot again.

By all means I think your on the right path.  I just did not want anyone to come along and see this thread and think it would be ok to take something like what you have here and be able to clean it up, buy a new stock, rub some cold blue on the metal, put it together and have something that would be safe to shoot.

I look forward to seeing you make progress with this.  Are you going to have the receiver and bits color case hardened?  I love the look of flame blued screws on a color case hardened receiver or single action frame.

Im tracking now.  Everything will be CCH except the barrel, mag tube, loading gate, trigger and screws.  Im leaning towards a slow rust blue for them.  The gun wont be correct to how it left the factory but it will sure be a lot better than it was after the fire once I get it done.

I was going to bid on that rifle when I saw it. But when I read that the springs were destroyed I decided against it. I've always been told by gunsmiths that if it got hot enough for long enough to destroy the springs then the gun is destroyed.

I'm not sure about that. Springs are the most sensitive to high temperatures, because they are so small.  I think it's best interpreted that "if the springs survived, the gun survived".  But the converse isn't necessarily true - seeing 800F for just a second will ruin a small leaf spring, but won't do a thing to a barrel or some other thick piece of metal.

I'm not telling the OP to fo or not, only debating that particular rule of thumb.

Update:  I had a local smith bead blast everything.  All of the parts look pretty good still, minor pitting but nothing too serious.  Had to buy a new bolt, the firing pin is stuck inside the old one real good and I havent been able to get it out as of yet and I am afraid of damaging the bolt.  The barrel is shot but I have an original one in 25-36 M on the way.  Have the action cleaned up and "working".  Still need to fit the ejector and the extractor.  Have a lot of sanding and polishing still to do and will need to fit the new barrel and wood before everything goes our for CCH and blueing.  Lot of work left but Im definatly making some progress.  Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.

Give this place a try for Extractors & Ejectors

Thanks for the heads up.  Already have new ones from Numrich but will keep them in mind in the future.

any updates on this thread? The action was looking great.

X2! @Pavelow16478

Stop using Photobucket.

Well 8 years ago she this thread was posted it was pretty much the go to

Yeah they ate a lot of my pic's.