Its ticket time in a few months and I'm thinking I'll add a slot for a gallery rifle (as well as a .223 and a .22 LR). Mostly it will be used for casual plinking indoors at 25 yards but I may get the bug and take it outdoors for some 'action shooting' such as at the Phoenix. Not sure whether I prefer a Winchester type or a Marlin but my first quandary is what caliber. First instinct is .357 but there is some suggestion that the guns were not designed to shoot this small caliber and struggle for reliability.
Love my Marlin as well but nowhere near as much as I love my Henry, absolute chalk and cheese in terms of build quality, action and trigger. Yes, Marlins can have lovely triggers but usually only if you pay to have it worked on or replaced.
As for calibre I prefer the .44mag, has more than enough power to be used outdoors and can easily be downloaded for indoor gallery or plinking. Another advantage is it can also be fed .44 special with the added bonus of being able to get more rounds in the magazine tube
There's room for all Gods creatures, next to the mash and gravy :)
I loved my .357 Marlin, no problems with .357 but was not good on .38 which I think is common and may be the source of the rumours you have heard.
Having said that I stupidly sold mine last year as I was using my 10/22 for Gallery Rifle comps. Looking on GT I see that they are now fetching £650 SH, and I have seen some models at over £1000 new.
Personally I do not believe that these rifles are worth that kind of money, I would rather spend £600 on a tricked 10/22 and enjoy the cheaper ammunition and the stress free shooting of not having to find your cases and re load,
Really like my Marlin - but I also find it is much better with .357 magnum than .38 special in terms of accuracy. Reliability seems fine with both but BUT if you get one then watch out for a small screw on the left of the receiver I think, which comes loose and I have already lost one of them and had to replace it....
Don't know about now but when I was looking to buy last May there was nothing coming out of the Marlin factory as they'd been bought out and production had neen moved to a new factory, build quality was really bad and production was down to a trickle at best while they addressed this. At the time the 1894 was selling here for around the £650 for a straight out of the box version which were like hens teeth to find.
In the end I gave up waiting and bought a used one from one of my local RFDs, wasn't happy with the trigger and took it back to be worked on, still not a great trigger by any means and it's not worth me spending almost £100 for a replacement
While we were in the US I picked up a Henry Big Boy and it was superb, emailed my RFD for a price and found it was only £80 more than he'd quoted me for a Marlin 1894, got him to order one and 3 months later (thanks to Viking Arms telling porkies) it eventually turned up. Yes it's heavier than the Marlin but that absorbs recoil nicely, much prefer the tube loading magazine to having to push rounds in and side and it can be emptied if needed without cycling the action.
There's room for all Gods creatures, next to the mash and gravy :)
Marlin in .44 if you reload, in .357 if you don't. Both calibered rifles will say "mag/spl", but, the spl loads have to have a COL equivilent to a magnum COL to operate smoothly and reliably because of the timing of the action and the way it is set up. That would mean loading spl cartridges long. There is very little in the way of "cowboy action" .44 mag factory ammo about and you really don't want to be shooting the round counts of some of the GR counts will full house magnum loads! .44 mag cases loaded wil spl data gives a soft shooting, accurate cartridge with a bullet big enough to give an advantage of sometimes just cutting a line.....
Trouble is at the moment, Marlins are expensive. Firstly, Edgar Brothers took over the import and immediately stuck 3 to 400 quid on a new price! This has consequently had a knock on of the second hand prices. Some are asking second hand, what they paid for the rifle new. Supply and demand I guess...
As mentioned above, Marlin were bought out, by Remington. The production of the rifles was moved from New Haven to Ilon. After Remington used all of the parts they originally bought in the deal, they found they couldn't make the required parts well enough. This has resulted in some absolutely horrendous stories of the quality of the rifles turned out! This earned the new rifles the nick name of "Remlin" and seriously damaged the reputation of the brand. Remington then suspended production. I think, they are due to resume soon after several months of working on the issues.
When looking for a second hand one, look at the factory name first!
In 1978 I was told by my grand dad that the secret to rifle accuracy is, a quality bullet, fired down a quality barrel..... How has that changed?
Guns dont kill people. Dads with pretty Daughters do...!
