7 Round Mags

[Donny1]

Can someone tell me why Bolt Action rifles come with 7 round mags instead of 10?

I have been looking at buying a new bolt action rimfire and noticed they all have 7 round mags. I was at big five today and I looked at the Marlin. I took the mag out of the Marlin 795 and it went right in to the Bolt Action. Looks the same and fits well. So if I buy the Bolt Action can I use my 795 10 round mags with it? Debating the .22lr or the .22WRM but even the Magnum is 7 rounds, why have 7 when you can have 10?

[cmth]

I'd wager you could get a more straightforward answer by asking Marlin directly. My guess is that Marlin prefers to ship a lower-profile magazine with their rifles, so they decided 7 rounds was a good compromise. If you want more capacity, you can buy the 10 rounders. Due to the necessity of a single stack design for rimmed cartridges, even 7 rounds of .22 makes for a fairly tall magazine. Probably the reason why Ruger went with a compact rotary mag for their 10/22. As far as the magazines interchanging between models, I believe Marlin is now using the same basic design for all of their magazine fed .22 LR rifles, but I do not have experience with every model, so I can't say for sure.