[Windage]

...you can't have just one.

I guess a new-to-me Marlin deserves its own thread.

I bought an older Guide Gun just before Christmas as well as dies for the 45/70... I've had it to the range a few times and now I am hooked bad. One thing has lead to another and I have since added a chronograph and a Nikon Monarch 2-8X scope to the collection.

And then I find out the dealer has a used 1895XLR in 45/70. I tried my best to ignore it for two weeks, but the siren call got to me and it followed me home today. It is going to be fun shooting the two guns side by side and comparing how they work for me. My first impression looking at them side by side is that it is like comparing a classic car with something that is state-of-the-art. I like them both... a lot.

I started out wanting an SBL. But when I found out there was a six month waiting list I bought the older GG. Then I started reading about all the problems with the Remlins. So when this 2007 manufactured...pristine XLR came along...I couldn't resist.

The XLR is a 98-99 per cent gun in my estimation. It needs a good cleaning and some oil but the action is smooth. The trigger is crisp
and surprisingly light for a factory gun at about 2.5 to 3.5 pounds. No sign of any work being done on it and as far as I can tell it never had a scope mounted.

I haven't been a fan of laminate stocks but I like this set. Dark silver with good checkering. I really like the pistol grip and curved lever.

The sights are factory original. It has the JM proof mark and was produced well before the Remington takeover.

Pictures will follow.

 

[Rowdy]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

You sir are correct – “you can’t have just one”

And yours are fine examples ;D
But just wait until you handle your first 1895 CB…One that fits and handles like a good rifle should. 8)

 

[Pard]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Now wait just a cotton pickin minute.

I own only ONE





now...

 

[Coalsmoke]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

I am sorry you missed my earlier post where I referred to them as the potato chips of the firearms world. It wouldn't have done any good though. I just got my 4th levergun.......and I suspect I'm not done.

 

[zerbe]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

I'm on my third lever gun purchase, but the first one for me.

This whole thing started for me in my extended family. It started with my dad buying one of the first ported guide guns.
After looking that over, my brother bought a 336 30-30 for his wife so that he could get his Rem 760 .270 back from her.
Up to this point our family had been mostly bolt or pump action people. (760's of various calibers)
After looking over that 336 and my dad's 1895GG, I opted to buy a pair of 336's for my kids as their first deer rifles.

My latest purchase was the 1895GBL 45-70. You are right, they are fun to shoot and they all have slightly different personalities.

I think though that for my next one, I want to find something that is at least 50-60 years old.

 

[RevDerb]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

There must be something wrong with my browser. I can't view the pics. ???

 

[Windage]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

I am sorry you missed my earlier post where I referred to them as the potato chips of the firearms world. It wouldn't have done any good though. I just got my 4th levergun.......and I suspect I'm not done.

I am sorry I missed it too. But I did see the many Marlinitis posts. So I am not really surprised that the combination of a lever gun and the great 45/70 is a sweet combination - especially to a reloader. I would say I have a fun year of experimentation ahead of me as I work up loads for the two guns and get them tweaked to my satisfaction.

It will probably be a few days before I can get any pictures worth posting.

 

[Jack Stanley]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Now wait a minute .......... I've had a 1895 for probably twenty years now and never had the itch to buy another ???So does this potato chip syndrome encompass only the huge-bore models or are you talking ALL lever guns ?

Jack

 

[Snapping Twig]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

I was trying to buy an SBL for @ a year, couldn't get one in California, so I bought an older 1894 .44 out of the used rack. Damn, but that's a sweet rifle! Accurate, hard hitting, short, light.

Set the hook.

I found then bought a GBL shortly thereafter. I added the XS lever rail system to make it a blued version of the SBL and IMO, it's nicer than an SBL.

Got the mould, bought the dies, now love to put the hurt on the 100 yard gongs with 350 and 420 grain cast loads @ 1600fps.

 

[BlueMntCeltic]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Now wait just a cotton pickin minute.

I own only ONE





now...

Me too! What's up with this? ;D ;D ;D

Now I find out I can have more than one?

Now what's my Marlin Therapist going to say....? ;D

 

[tater1961]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

I only got a GG. I'm gettin really close to openin up a bag of 71' 444S.

 

[brianscott12]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

You sir are correct – “you can’t have just one”

And yours are fine examples ;D
But just wait until you handle your first 1895 CB…One that fits and handles like a good rifle should. 8)

My sentiments exactly. The best handling 45/70 I own.

 

[swany]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Windage, Model 1895 Cowboy, 26 inch octagon bbl, full tube magazine, straight stock. You pull it up fully loaded and sight in on most any object and that's when you notice, this is the coolest gun on the planet and the sights are wavering at all and your shooting offhand.

Pretty much this is the description of Marlinitus. Hogs & Griz to ya. "The Marlin Bug"

 

[gon2shoot]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Ya got it right there Swany, The CB is a sweet gun.
But maybe the tater chip reference was 45-70 in general :-\ it seems I have several.

 

[Sideswipe]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Thanks a lot Swany! It's been almost two years since I bought my 3d Marlin. I have been struggling w/my desire to buy a 1895 Cowboy for a long time & its really getting worse. It didn't help when another Cowboy owner told me on a forum a friend of his just made a one shot kill on a moose w/one. Oh Me!

 

[Windage]

Re: You didn't tell me it is like eating potato chips...

Well it looks like I am going to have to look at a Cowboy model after all that raving. Perhaps another chip is going to get 'et.

In the meantime here are the promised pictures. I have just scoped both guns because of my older eyes... they are a work in progress as I want to upgrade the scope base on the XLR and get a blued slot blank for the GG. Other than that they are coming together pretty well. Both will be sighted in this Sunday.

 

[RevDerb]

Nice pics of beautiful Marlins. Thanks for sharing them.

 

[BEACON]

I started out in the 70's wanting a lever action (my brother had a 336c in .30-30, and my father had a few .30-30's, so I wanted a lever gun too). K-Mart had the 1894 on sale for $110, and I liked the short, handy straight-grip style of it, and I figured the .44 Mag would be a thumper, so I got it. Then in '87 I inherited my brother's .30-30. Then, after wanting a Ruger Vaquero in .45 L.C. and not being able to find one, and reading about how scarce Guide Guns were on the od Marlin forum, I found one at the local gun shop and bought it for me for my birthday. I had always wanted a .45-70, and now I had one! Then I kept reading about 444's, but I didn't have one, so when the 444P came out and I found a new one at a pawn shop going out of business and it was marked down, I took that one home. Then Marlin, in their infinite wisdom, decided to produce the 1895CB, and when I first saw a pic of that in the Marlin catalog, it was love at first sight, so I hunted all over the area and found one, which I promptly ran up and bought after work.

And that's where I am right now. All the recent problems with the new Marlin's has cooled my ardor for buying a new one, but I still wouldn't be above getting a standard 1895 or 444, or a 338 Marlin if they ever get the bugs worked out. There is just something fun about shooting a Marlin lever action that you don't get when shooting most other guns. Maybe it's because those are the kinds of rifles our grandfathers shot, or because it brings us closer to the John Wayne movies of our youth, or because they represent the penultimate 'woods rifle', that rifle carried in the dark, thick forest, the 'Big Woods', where the ultimate ancestral hunting experience is found, that endears them so to us. Whatever it is, once you have one, there is almost a primal urge to get another, and then another...sometimes I think we are just Marlin-toting cavemen, or perhaps grown up little boys, with a great big smile on our faces as we clutch our beloved Marlin, happy and content, knowing that all is right in the world, in our world ayway.

 

[Rowdy]

Windage – nice pair. ;D ;D

But dude, you chip bowl looks to be almost empty – here let me add another to it…

The 1895 CB

 

[Jack Stanley]

Hmmmmm ............. I got this nice hunk o' petrified wood with lots o' figure to it an' Ah thinks ah'll make me a new stock fer mah lever rahfle !! ;D Hit'll look good thar on da cave wall !

Jack