Nice gun. I doubt Ruger will do anything that costs more money or potentially increases its risk. I found a pre CBS Marlin 357 in a pawn shop today for $900 OTD. Still way better than the Henry.

 

What risk? With the transfer bar the gun can't go off without pulling the trigger like the new model Blackhawk that replace the old model Blackhawk. That was a pretty big change by Ruger. Ruger now owns all patents needed for the change making it cost effective and better looking. All they have to do is crack open a Henry and copy what they did.

 

... old fashion half-cock safety is all that is needed ... NO crossbolt safety, rebounding hammers, transfer bars or any of that unnecessary nonsense

 

True that! But we know that won't happen. We have no time machine

 

I'm good with the half cock notch, we got by with that for years. I remember when the crossbolt safety came out on the Marlin, my best friend and hunting buddy got a shiny new 336 with the new safety and the first opportunity he had for a shot I happened to be right beside him. I remember thinking to myself "I wonder if he'll remember the safety" the click sounded almost as loud as the expletive that followed. To his credit he recovered and made the next trigger pull count, I was laughing so hard I missed my target and had to shoot again. We both managed to score that afternoon but I still can't warm up to that safety. I'll pass on both!

 

With Bill Ruger gone, I doubt we'll see any safety-add to the 336, and we won't see anymore mags limited to 10 rounds coming from them, either.

 

That's a great scripture you have there 👍

 

I like the half cock hammer. Adding the cross bolt safety was a pity. There is significant difference between the Marlin tansfer bar and the Winchester's transfer bar, plus Winchester has the lever depression trigger sear on top of that along with the rebounding hammer. My 2000 Model 94 Big Bore has the cross bolt safety on top of that. I'm damned lucky to even get through all the safety proceedures to get the rifle to fire.

 

I have three lever action carbines, a Winchester model 94 Canadian Centennial Commemorative, a Marlin 39 Century Limited, and a recently acquired JM-marked, pre-CBS 1894.

What I am pondering and practicing with is how to drop the hammer on a loaded chamber. Is there a proper, recommended technique to do this? What I currently do is point it in a safe direction, and carefully get the hammer off the sear (?), release the trigger, and lower the hammer to the half cock notch. Comments?

 

I have three lever action carbines, a Winchester model 94 Canadian Centennial Commemorative, a Marlin 39 Century Limited, and a recently acquired JM-marked, pre-CBS 1894.

What I am pondering and practicing with is how to drop the hammer on a loaded chamber. Is there a proper, recommended technique to do this? What I currently do is point it in a safe direction, and carefully get the hammer off the sear (?), release the trigger, and lower the hammer to the half cock notch. Comments?

Lower the hammer then pull to half cock.

 

With the tranfer bar, the trigger has to operate more machinery. Rebounding hammer reeks havock on .22 accuracy. Not sure about centerfire. I'll opt for simple and disable the cross bolt safety.

 

I've seen some nice safety delete options. One even replaces the cross bolt safety with a saddle ring on the left and a screw on the right 👍

 

... several after market manufacturers offer a "safety delete" mechanism for the 336/1895 ... I'm sure most Marlin 1895 Guide Gun owners who use their guns for brown/grizzly bear defense that don't have a "death wish" get rid of the cross bolt safety very first thing after taking the new rifle outta the box ... "click" doesn't work when facing a charging brown bear

 

I own one CBS Marlin, a .44 Magnum Cowboy Limited and as soon as I got it, I ordered the crossbolt delete from Beartooth Mercantile along with a brass magazine follower.

 

Long before the various safer safeties, people walked the woods with Marlin's and Winchester's on 1/2, 1/4, safety notch without rifles firing. As safe as the bolt guns and pump guns with their pushbuttons. I have 3 Marlin's out of 20 plus with crossbolts, the Henry rimfires do not have a transfer bar that I can see, Henry Long Ranger .223 does, but does have a good trigger. Savage 99 just has a trigger blocker like most pumpguns, safety is in the user, not the gun. The transfer bar does not go CLINK!, lever another round! CLINK!! when shooting at game -- a forgotten crossbar safety, OH MY. The 'safety' notch can allow a rifle to be cocked very silently, quiet safeties can be a help when close to game.

 

Those were the days of dear rifles in the back window of pickups. What happened?

 

... old fashion half-cock safety is all that is needed ... NO crossbolt safety, rebounding hammers, transfer bars or any of that unnecessary nonsense

Agreed. I can live with the cross bolt safety but I don't prefer it, and I HATE rebounding hammers on the 39AS model. I bought a 39TDS a few years ago and it had light primer strikes 20-30% of the time, I sold it less than a month after I bought it.

 

All This talk about safety alternatives is interesting, but Rossi updated the 336 design with a couple of good engineering changes. The R-95 uses a Remington 700/Sako/AR style extractor instead of that 19th Century spring thing. They also have a 1-piece firing pin with a firing pin block that is moved out of the way just as the locking block reaches full engagement. It is a simpler design less prone to failure.

I wish that the Marlin cross bolt safety could be just above the trigger guard like my semiauto shotguns, but it doesn’t bother me. I do like being able to empty the magazine with the safety engaged. I do not like how easy it is to accidentally bump the safety into engagement.

 

Since the rifle has to be manually cocked it is a simple step to disengage an active crossbolt safety at the same time. I favor the half-cock safety but had an experience many years ago that could have ended in an unfortunate accident that would have been prevented with a crossbolt safety. While going thru thick brush with shoulder slung rifle some brush caught on the hammer extension and pulled the hammer back to full cock. Thankfully I took the rifle off my shoulder and discovered the miscue without any misfortune. It could have ended a lot differently if some brush had caught the trigger. A crossbolt safety would have prevented the rifle from firing if the trigger had been engaged. However, the rifle didn't have a crossbolt and nothing happened but this post is a heads-up to those who have or are thinking about removing a crossbolt.

 

Never heard of this transfer bar thing…. But I don’t buy new guns. I’m just not interested in them.
But to answer your question, transfer bar, cross bolt safety, or rebounding hammer….. what I’d prefer is none of it. Give me a lever action with a half cock safety notch the way they were originally designed. And before somebody responds to this and brings up the Winchester squeeze lever safety I don’t like that either. I don’t like a “belt and suspenders “ approach to much of anything.
When I was collecting Marlins I walked away from quite a few because they had CBS. I did finally buy a few but the good thing about that system was you could lock it ten the off position and try to forget about it being there.
Yeah I know some like them for unloading but I’ve done it many, many times and all one has to do is not pull the trigger.

 

CBS on for unloading and off with using 1/2 notch for the rest of the time. That is way I will be using it for my R95.

 

Oh yeah, I saw her husband get popped in the head by Hinckley when he shot President Reagan live on national TV. I gotta blame Hinckley more than Brady. But your point is well taken.

 

Of the Brady Bunch?

Lol, no
I’d rather not drift this thread completely off topic. Look up Brady Bill-1993… you’ll get your answer

 

Yeah. I remember my 10 round P89 Ruger. LOL

 

My problem with transfer bar safeties is trying to get a good trigger pull on them. Not that it is impossible, but they are a lot more complicated. Henry's trigger is even worse being it is complicated and poorly executed. The mim trigger and hammer engagement parts are not machined and the spring that pushes the transfer bar is too heavy at least on one of the guns I have worked on.

Just thoughts from a trigger snob.

 

... I bought a Rossi (Braztech) R92 levergun in 44 mag ... it had the ridiculous little "pig tail" safety on the bolt ... it had other functionality/quality control issues including but not limited to ammo cycling problems ... I sold it and bought a Chiappa Alaskan stainless model 92 in 44 mag that was true to JMB design specs, had NO lawyer safety and fired and functioned perfectly out of the box albeit at the cost of an extra $150 ... fired many rounds thru it with no issues ... quite accurate

 

A lot of you guys make way too much of a fuss about safeties. I own Marlins, Winchesters and Henrys both with and without the various safeties. None of the significantly affect the look or operation of the firearm. It’s up to YOU to be familiar and competent with your firearm. Don’t blame the crossbolt if your rifle goes “click” when that big buck is in your sights. That is 100% on you, not the rifle. I shoot far less than most (these days it’s a couple of rounds out of each rifle pre-season) and yet somehow I manage to remember to push that dreaded crossbolt off and go to just the halfcock when I see a deer worth taking a shot on.

 

... AGREE ... mostly ... in northern Canada where I live most bolt action rifles and pump shotguns used in bear defense applications have safeties that are not easy to remove and to remove them would result in a gun with NO safety at all ... an undesirable situation for most reasonable people ... the only real choice is with legacy design leverguns with half-cock safeties in the original design where additional safeties have been added later by the manufacturer in an attempt to circumvent civil liability for accidents ... unless I am going to use a levergun like a Marlin 1895G Guide Gun for bear defense I will leave the CBS on the gun ... if the Guide Gun is being used for brown or polar bear defense I remove the CBS with the "safety delete" kit ... the "click" from a gun used to hunt non-dangerous game is a PITA but not a prelude to being torn apart ... and when you are carrying a gun for bear defense you are going to have a round in the chamber

 

The most important and effective safety is between the shooter's ears.

 

This has been discussed ad nausium here many times.
The CBS on Marlins is to me, being from Texas, not unlike the Dallas Cowboys….
People either love it or they hate it.
Some are indifferent, but they’re pretty silent on the matter.
If you don’t like it, lock it down. There’s a set screw.

 

This has been discussed ad nausium here many times.
The CBS on Marlins is to me, being from Texas, not unlike the Dallas Cowboys….
People either love it or they hate it.
Some are indifferent, but they’re pretty silent on the matter.
If you don’t like it, lock it down. There’s a set screw.

... an adult polar bear can weigh well over 1000 pounds and is one of the stealthiest animals on the face of the earth ... they are the same color as the snow covered ice they live on and are "on top of you" before you know it ... you definitely don't need "one more thing to do" is the tiny window of opportunity you have after spotting the bear ... they make their living sneaking up on and killing seals with hearing several times more acute than a humans ... they are pure predators ... no roots berries or nuts for them ... they live on meat preferably fresh recently alive meat and a human being on their ice is just another easy to kill snack ... when it comes to my bear defense 1895GS I'm NOT INDIFFERENT ... the 1st thing I did after unboxing & checking the new gun out was remove the CBS

 

Some years back I replaced the CBS with a saddlering. Works for me.

 

For what it's worth, the model 94 Winchester Big Bore has a CBS, plus a trigger sear that blocks the trigger. Unless the lever is compressed to release the sear the rifle will not be in full battery. But, there is no half cock hammer like the Marlins and Henry's have. My guess is the Rossi R95 has the half cock as well. Instead the 94 has the rebounding hammer. So, there are three safety features baked into the M94. How many is enough? The new Ruger/Marlins and even older RemLins (1895's) can be unloaded by depressing the loading gate allowing shells to pop backwards out of the loading port. You don't have to work each round through the chamber to unload your magazine. This appears to be safer than working rounds through the action where a CBS may be comforting when unloading the rifle.

 

the old pre-64 94s had the half cock safety and nothing else ... had 2 of them (30 WCF & 32 SPL) and passed them down the family tree when my eyes retired ... the Miroku "Winchester" 94s have the whole 9 yards in regards to redundant lawyer safety encumbrances ... rebounding hammers, tang safety, you name it ... all stuff JMB never had in the original design ... and it's sad because the Miroku guns are superbly built with great workmanship & fit/finish ... wouldn't touch one of those abominations with a 10 ft pole

 

Because nobody else has said it, being left handed and like many, I shoot a Marlin and Winchester lever actions so I don’t have to deal with right handed nonsense. CBS move in the wrong direction. Sure some cross bolts safeties can be turned around but if I’ve taken it apart to turn it around, I’m just gonna delete the stupid thing completely. If we’re to have safety features, to protect us from ourselves, make it a tang safety.

Not sure how transfer bars can “wreak havoc on accuracy”. Exposed hammers on long guns are not double action. The transfer bar is already there from thumb cocking. Most don’t consider leverguns as uber target rifles anyways.

Rebounding hammers and cross bolts safeties are actually dangerous. Have you seen the horrifyingly ugly crater for the cross bolt safety on a big bore 94 that can’t be reversed for safe operation? And what complete moron would make a hammer rebound to the half cock position without making it half cock?! rebounding hammers and CBS are so dangerous, the helped kill Winchester.