New Marlins from Ruger

[bonesurf]

Nothing wrong w a vaquero. It just isn’t a colt. But from a functionality standpoint solid SAA style pistol. Cant compare to an old SAA cause different calibers and no idea what an “old” SAA (I mean like gen 1) was like new. Or newish. Can compare to gen 3 357 colt SAA and the big difference is that I’m more willing to have the vaquero “worked on” ala an uberti or something cause well. Price point.

JMO. I have a new SBL in 45-70. It’s NICE. LIKE REALLY nice. I never have had the REM/Marlin version tho I do have a remlin CSBL (357) and I’ve had some other more classic remlin in 357. None of the SBL or CSBL line were ever fashioned as “classic” guns. Hence the grey stock. I suspect the ruglins are only gonna get hate from people overly fondly remembering a yesteryear fanciful Marlin from 70 years ago or something.

[ACfixer]

My RuMar Trapper is set up for hunting...

Ruglin I says.

I'm really wondering how the 336 and 94's are going to look. I really wish Ruger well in this endeavor and hope they are wildly successful. I prefer Winchesters for nostalgia as well, but there were enough 336's around when I was a kid to definitely leave an impression, enough so that I bought one. I love the look of a pistol grip 336 with a scope. We had a neighbor with a twp tone Ford Ranger pickup and a 336 like that in his back window, had them Elvis sideburns and a German Shepherd. I thought he was about the coolest guy alive.



I love lever guns!

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK Most of the older 1894 .44's with round barrels were carbines and had barrel bands up to the CB guns that came from Marlin.

I only found one gun on GB and it is a 1973 .44 "Octagon" Short Rifle which is a nice gun. It is also D&T'd for a Receiver like mine was. It is up to $880, but the guy has got a "buy it now" for $2696. Which I think he is dreamin' on.

My 1894 CB 24" Rifle 2005 is a JM gun, probably assembled by Remington from Marlin Parts. It required lots of work to get it to run right and smooth.

Even with the 1:38 twist barrel it has always been an accurate gun, and with my Handloads it will shoot around 1.5" at 100 yards with a Lyman Receiver Sight and XS White Line Front Sight.



Barrel groove dia is .431 on the nose and I called Marlin at the time and they said that was right on. After I looked up the SAAMI Spec for .44 Magnum Rifle Barrels and found they are .431+/-.002 instead of the .429+/-.002 of pistols I figured out why it wouldn't shoot jacketed bullets well. My cast Boolits drop a .434 and are sized to.432. They are .429244GC Thompson SWC's and are 245 gr as HP's or 260 gr as solids. 23 gr of H110 complete the load and they are running @1600 FPS> The gun needs the Recoil Pad I put on it, as it gets old after 40 or so shots. I really like this gun!

The wood was about as bland as could be imagined and I literally scraped the Goo that Marlin called "Marshield" off it and gave it about 10 coats of Tru-Oil.
That revealed a bunch of character that was otherwise hidden by the Goo.



Randy

[Ki6vsm]

Nothing wrong w a vaquero. It just isn?t a colt. But from a functionality standpoint solid SAA style pistol. Cant compare to an old SAA cause different calibers and no idea what an ?old? SAA (I mean like gen 1) was like new. Or newish. Can compare to gen 3 357 colt SAA and the big difference is that I?m more willing to have the vaquero ?worked on? ala an uberti or something cause well. Price point.

That's good to know, that Ruger can take on an existing design and not muck it up. LOL As it happens, I do own a Gen 1 Colt SSA. .45 Colt. Was my dad's. I have no idea how he came about owning though. Made circa 1908. It's a LONG way from it's pretty original condition, though it is basically solid. And it's a shooter. Has the most consistent trigger break of any gun I've ever measured. I wonder how they did that.

[bergmen]

The modern Ruger single action revolvers (from about 1974 on I think) are drastically different than the Colt SAA in the action design. Colt has the traditional "4 click" hammer draw and the Rugers have the transfer bar ignition. No half cock, the cylinder is released by opening the gate. Some like it, some don't.

I only have one revolver with a "4-click" hammer draw and it is my Freedom Arms Model 83 Premier. All of my other SAs are modern Rugers.

Dan

[bonesurf]

I mean people perseverate over things like the 4 clicks and the transfer bar but jeez. When you are actually shooting the thing what do those things matter??? The spirit of it I suppose. My gen 1 is a 32-20 so hard to compare since basically it’s a pop gun. But a lot of fun.

Getting back on topic. I look forward to the ruglin CSBL

[splithoof]

As to the transfer bar, it’s huge. It means you can safely carry six rounds in the weapon, as opposed to five. Also, the Ruger only vaguely resembles the classic lines of the Colt SAA (of which I own as well), but its advantage is as a shooter. You can fire many, many more full power rounds through one before you see any issues such as cylinder timing, throat wear, etc.
As to the new RuMar line, just about anything will be an improvement over the previous Marlins.

[bonesurf]

As to the transfer bar, it?s huge. It means you can safely carry six rounds in the weapon, as opposed to five. Also, the Ruger only vaguely resembles the classic lines of the Colt SAA (of which I own as well), but its advantage is as a shooter. You can fire many, many more full power rounds through one before you see any issues such as cylinder timing, throat wear, etc.

Well dunno the transfer bar is a big deal for the vast majority of owners. Most are not in real life slinging the guns around. For CAS it could be but maybe I?m wrong but dont most CAS do 5 in the cylinder just cause the historical lack of transfer bar safety? Maybe i got that wrong. Ultimately i feel like this boils down to individual preference things.

[splithoof]

Well dunno the transfer bar is a big deal for the vast majority of owners. Most are not in real life slinging the guns around. For CAS it could be but maybe I?m wrong but dont most CAS do 5 in the cylinder just cause the historical lack of transfer bar safety? Maybe i got that wrong. Ultimately i feel like this boils down to individual preference things.

I do not know much about CAS, as most of my use of powerful sidearms was done in field conditions when out on the ranch. If CAS does it that way, that?s interesting.

[200Apples]

Well dunno the transfer bar is a big deal for the vast majority of owners. Most are not in real life slinging the guns around. For CAS it could be but maybe I?m wrong but dont most CAS do 5 in the cylinder just cause the historical lack of transfer bar safety? Maybe i got that wrong. Ultimately i feel like this boils down to individual preference things.

I am one of those who appreciate the older four-click hammer setups (load one, skip one, load four, finish the hammer cock then lower it on the empty chamber) in sixguns, but for those who hunt with or carry afield a stoutly-loaded sixgun for wilderness defense, the ability to carry six without drop worry is a very good thing.

I own sixguns of both persuasions. If I'm at target practice, I'll still load my transfer-bar guns with five cause it appeals to my OCD with my handloads.




But Good Loawrd if I'm going to go loaded for bear then it's six in the cylinder of my Ruger flattop Blackhawk, along with my 18.5" Marlin 1895GS stoked with 400 grain Speer Deep Curl slugs to the tune of 1500 fps.

[200Apples]

There are far heavier .45-70 hunting loads, yes, but for what I do and for close range defense the load mentioned in the preceding post is plenty.

[newbutold]

Glad Ruger is keeping Marlin alive.

[Ki6vsm]

OK Most of the older 1894 .44's with round barrels were carbines and had barrel bands up to the CB guns that came from Marlin.

Even with the 1:38 twist barrel it has always been an accurate gun, and with my Handloads it will shoot around 1.5" at 100 yards with a Lyman Receiver Sight and XS White Line Front Sight.

Barrel groove dia is .431 on the nose and I called Marlin at the time and they said that was right on. After I looked up the SAAMI Spec for .44 Magnum Rifle Barrels and found they are .431+/-.002 instead of the .429+/-.002 of pistols I figured out why it wouldn't shoot jacketed bullets well. My cast Boolits drop a .434 and are sized to.432. They are .429244GC Thompson SWC's and are 245 gr as HP's or 260 gr as solids. 23 gr of H110 complete the load and they are running @1600 FPS> The gun needs the Recoil Pad I put on it, as it gets old after 40 or so shots. I really like this gun!

Randy

I guess by your definitions then, there were no .41, .44, or .45 cal 1894 Carbines technically speaking, only Short Rifles being made by about Y2K. 'Cause they all had end caps. Only the .38 cal rifles fit the definition of Carbine. And not all the .38s were Carbines either, since the .38 16.5" "Trapper" model had an end cap. Interesting.

On the SAAMI specs, I'd looked at them a number of years back and also noticed that the Rifle spec prescribes a fatter bore (than the handgun spec). It also prescribes 12-groove rifling. Now it's just a guess, but that has me thinking that SAAMI wrote their "Rifle spec" around the already existing Marlin barrel and its Micro-Groove rifling rather than Marlin conforming to SAAMI. From what I can learn, Marlin introduced their .44 Mag 1894 in 1969? And the only date I can find associated with the SAAMI .44 Mag Rifle spec is 5/20/1980. That's when SAAMI added the spec for the .44 Rem Mag Rifle test barrel. So it sure seems like SAAMI's spec came long after Marlin started making their .44 cal rifles.

Again, that's just an assumption and I might be wrong. But if true, then why Marlin went with the fatter bore to begin with is an unanswered question. Has me wondering though, do Uberti, Miroku, and Henry follow the SAAMI rifle spec for their .44s? And more relevant to this discussion, is Ruger adhering to the SAAMI rifle spec (though skipping the 12-groove rifling thing I assume). I'll like seeing the result when someone eventually slugs their new .44 Marlin barrel. Or we can just ask Ruger I guess.

FWIW, most people with .44 Marlins get very good accuracy/precision with Hornady XTP bullets, which are .430" dia JHPs. Especially when driven to high velocities using H110 or similar. I've found this true with my rifle as well.

I mean people perseverate over things like the 4 clicks and the transfer bar but jeez. When you are actually shooting the thing what do those things matter??? The spirit of it I suppose. My gen 1 is a 32-20 so hard to compare since basically it?s a pop gun. But a lot of fun.

Getting back on topic. I look forward to the ruglin CSBL

I agree about the topic. I'd only mentioned the SSA vs Vaquero comparison as a general speculation about how Ruger will handle their new products and to say, if they did a good job with the Vaquero, hopefully then the new Marlins will also be winners.

[ACfixer]

Glad Ruger is keeping Marlin alive.

Amen to that.

[W.R.Buchanan]

What I was told about the bore size was that it was to reduce drag on the bullets so pressure couldn't spike past what the action was able to handle.

The 1894 action is supposed to be able to deal with 45-46,000 psi. Actually Proofed higher.

Revolvers have the cylinder gap to bleed off some pressure. Rifles are closed breech and everything has to go out the front. Standard Pressures for Factory Loaded .44 Magnum is @ 35,000 psi. I've seen guys shooting loads far in excess of that from Pistols. 27 gr of H110 is not for the faint of heart!

As far as the Carbine vs Short Rifle I believe that this distinction came from the earlier days of manufacture when you could order just about any configuration you wanted from the big makers like Winchester and Marlin. There were limitations but generally speaking you could order any barrel length from about 14" to 32" There obviously had to be a different name for ones with Barrel Bands versus Fore End Caps. Hence "Carbine" Probably from Winchester as I have never seen a M94 Short Rifle, all of them are Carbines with a Barrel Band. My Grandfather's M94 with a side mounted scope bought in the mid 40's was a Carbine. He shot a deer every year with it and made a box of shells last 10 years by only taking one "sight verification shot" and one shot to take said Deer. He got his last one at age 92!

There are obviously guns with barrels longer than 22" with both End Caps and Barrel Bands, and they are all called "Rifles." I almost bought an 1895 in .45-70 back in the day. It had a 24" Barrel, Half Magazine and a Barrel Band. My current 1895 CB 26 has a End Cap. My 1958 336 .30-30 has a 20" Barrel, Half Magazine and an End Cap on the Fore End so it's a "Short Rifle."

I think they made every configuration they could come up at one time or another just to avoid customer boredom with the product line.! I haven't seen any Half Octagon Barrels yet, but I'm sure they are probably out there.



Randy