Marlin 1894

[Art]

I had toyed with buying one of these for years. I was at Academy a couple of weeks ago and they had one new in the box for $648.00, Well l went back on Friday and pulled the trigger. I have read a lot of articles bashing these rifles, especially the ones made since Remington took over the company so apparently, at least 4 or 5 years ago a good many people were getting rifles that ranged from shoddy to disfunctional.

Mine looks very well put together, the bluing looks deep and the metal finish is very nice. The stock fit is very good but the walnut looks barely finished, I may fix that with some boiled linseed oil later. The magazine spring is very stout and it takes some real force to load the rifle. I also sometimes had a problem finding the magazine tube when loading and having a cartridge hang up a bit because I didn't quite angle it in correctly was mildly annoying. I like that they put a bright red cap on the follower end of the spring. It's quite easy to tell if you left one in the magazine. The sights are a bead front and semi buckhorn rear. This is, IMHO one of the most abominable sights devised by the mind of man. It has the lawyer safety which I thought I would hate but I actually like a lot. It allows you to completely load the rifle (9 Magnums in the magazine and one up the pipe, 10+1 for .38 Special.) while the rifle is "safe." After the last round is loaded the hammer can be lowered to half cock with the safety on, I can then carry the rifle with the lawyer safety off and the half cock engaged, the way it should be.

About the shooting. The rifle is mild both in recoil and noise with the very hot Remington 125 gr SJHP ammunition. The action functions very smoothly for an out of the box lever gun. The trigger breaks cleanly at what I guess is 4 1/2 to 5 pounds. After verifying the sights were on for elevation at 50 yards I moved it out to 100 yards. The good news, the rifle is very accurate, especially for a pistol caliber carbine I put 5 shots into 4 inches at 100 yards with the awful sights and it gets better - the four inches were with a "flier." Taking out the flier it put four shots into 2 1/2 inches . Now the bad news. I noticed the front sight was drifted slightly to the right. Well it wasn't drifted enough the group at 100 yards was off a full 8" right . I planed on buying an aperture sight for it anyway but that's definitely on the table now. I have to preserve my limited stock of .357 ammo but later I'll let you know how it does with the new sights.

[barretcreek]

Longhunt.com has parts and stuff for 1894 Marlins. I sent them my New Vaquero for a massage and am very satisfied with it, but that was a lot less than their 1894 tune up. I'll add a site on cast bullet selection for Marlins.

http://www.lasc.us/ArticlesFryxell.htm Scroll down to the Marlin stuff. It's informative and I have benefited from the knowledge with my early .44. Wish I'd never let go of the .357 I had. Also, 196? Gun Digest has an article on accurrizing lever guns.

Have fun with it.

[Gun Smoke]

The only bad thing I've heard about the Marlin 1894 in .357 is that the 38 specials, being shorter, do not cycle as well.

[Art]

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate the input.

[Billy Beeza]

I have a Cowboy Limited model in .357 magnum. It's a JM model, got it as a door prize several years ago. Have used it for cowboy action and lever action silhouette shooting. Used .38 Specials exclusively with zero hang-ups. Beautiful rifle.