Ruger /Marlin

[Prophet River]

As many have now heard Ruger has acquired Marlin firearms. We are unsure how this will affect availability in the short to mid term. (and long term as far as models and pricing)
https://ruger.com/corporate/marlin.html

[Thunderhog]

Our Marlin firearms may have just went up in value. Hopefully Ruger will make a nice Marlin rifle even better!......

[VICIOUS]

RUGER, king of the casters.

[mbogo3]

Ballard rifling in all levers and a 1-20 twist in the .44 mag

[midnightvisions]

Lets hope the employees don't sabotage the tooling as when Cerberus took over Marlin.

[nowarningshot]

So Remlins will be thought of in the same light as push feed post 64 Model 70's?

Ruger casting 1895 guide guns, giving it the "American " treatment. More likely, its going to be much like the #1. What stood out for me was the ridiculous low auction price. Thirty million, wow, thats a dozen houses in Vancouver.

Its hard to see how Ruger could take over, and do a worse job than Remington did after they acquired Marlin.

[358 BLR]

This is absolutely fantastic news. I think Ruger understands the value of good quality craftsmanship and they understand
the need for quality working man's firearms. I was fortunate enough to acquire a fine example of a 1978 336 carbine and
none of the Remlin products that I have handled even comes close.

[nitro-express]

Ballard rifling in all levers and a 1-20 twist in the .44 mag

I also feel strongly about that. I bought an 1894 in 44 Mag/Spl and was able to get 1 load to shoot decently after 3 months of testing. I sold the 1894, the 44 Mag Rifle specs are out to lunch. IMHO the rifling, bore/groove and twist should be the same as for the pistol.

The 44 Mag rifle spec is 0.431" minimum groove, 0.424" minimum bore with a 1:38 twist.

And just in case you want to blame Remington, it was JM that came up with the SAAMI spec for the 44 rifle. Utter garbage, IMNSHO.

Make it the same as the pistol spec; 0.429" minimum groove, 0.417" minimum bore with a 1:20 twist.

Anyone can do the math, in a rifle the grooves are only 0.0035" deep, a bit more than half as deep as the 0.006" deep grooves in a rifle.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Marlin dicked with the specs for the 45 Colt as well, slowing the twist to suit patched round balls, the 1894 is not a muzzle loader.

The only chambering that Marlin did not mess up was the 357 Mag.

A bit off the topic but my other pet peeve are the 0.429" bullets that LEE molds cast for the 44. SAAMI calls for a 0.432" max bullet diameter on the ammunition and the throats in the cylinders are 0.4325" minimum, in who's world would a 0.429" cast bullet work, certainly not in mine, I tried.

Just to put this all into perspective I recently bought a Uberti 1873 rifle in 45 Colt, and a Ruger Vaquero in 45 Colt as well. Load development took a day or 2 for the rifle. The handgun shoots the rifle load so that load development was over before it began. My mold is a LEE that casts 0.452" and I size to 0.451" as the grooves in the Uberti run a bit small at 0.451". My bullet alloy is clip on wheel weights with a bit of tin, nothing special. The Vaquero has throat and groove specs that allow it to run clean with my rifle ammo. Throats are tight at a bit under 0.451" and the groove diameter is around 0.451". With my load it shoots to the sights and is way better than cowboy accurate.

That is how it should be.

Every caliber has it's idiosyncrasies, but the 44 Mag got real messed up. But the worst is the 1:38 Marlin twist.

[caramel]

Well there is hope, after experiencing the worst rifle ( Sendero ) ever, i have been boycoting all product Marlington but now Ruger pichthitting could bring back the famous model 96.

My 96-44 is the best lever i own.
Now that we know, i am dreaming of a 96-444. Yep.

[DurpMkII]

hopefully this translates to an improved quality of Marlin firearms.

as for myself, I would love to see some new Ruger lever-arms, overbuilt to handle insane hand-loads.