Has anyone recently purchased a 2012 and later Marlin 336 SS or 336 C? I am interested in your opinions on the quality (fit and finish) operation of the action, accuracy and trigger pull compared to the older versions (Pre Remington). There seems to be a lot of mixed opinions on the web when I do a search. I would like to hear from first hand experienced owners.
Thanks.
I've got both - a new ‘ReMarlin’ stainless, and an early 80s pre-safety model.
IMO, both are fine guns. They're mechanically sound and both work as designed. That said, the 'old' gun is a little smoother (maybe partly a result of being worked in more?), the trigger is beautiful, and the fit and finish is superior.
The 'new' stainless gun will need a little polishing work on some of the action to clean it up and smooth it out a bit. The trigger is heavier, the edges on the lever are a little sharp, and the loading gate is pretty stiff. Despite the fact that it's not quite as 'slick', I don't regret buying it at all, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend the new stainless model to a friend. Mine had no evidence of the Internet horror stories like an off-vertical front sight, etc. Besides, I may be in the minority here, but I actually like the fact that the new gun as the safety.
There was a thread I read here or somewhere else (can't remember) that complained about spending "hundreds of dollars" on a gun only to have to open it up and do some of the finer finishing work yourself. We're talking minor sanding and smoothing, not major repairs. That may be true, but let's face it: the big cost in manufacturing has to be the labour involved in polishing and hand-fitting. I have to assume that the majority of the components today are machine made, and they're just hand-assembled. Buy a new ReMarlin 336 and that's exactly what you get. ..and frankly what I think you pay for.
What’s the difference between a Stoeger over/under and a Beretta 686? About $1500 - $2000+. I’d imagine a lot of the price difference goes into fit and finish.
Is the Beretta a nicer gun? No doubt.
Is it a better gun? Likely.
Is it five times the better gun? The answer is subjective, but I’d hazard a guess at ‘not really’.
A new 336SS will work fine right out of the box, but if you don't mine giving it some attention to detail, you can have an even better running machine. There's a YouTube video done by a guy from Australia where he shows all of the little touch-ups he did to get the gun to the point where he was happy with it.
If you don't want to put in the time, then you can go and pay twice the price for a nice factory-polished White Gold BLR.
The new 336s certainly aren't a $1200 Browning, but they aren't a $200 piece of junk either. They're a mid-level lever gun that's priced more or less correctly at about $650.
