- Joined
- Oct 25, 2004
- Messages
- 3,178
A while back I was asking questions here about leverguns. I like the concept and I thought highly of the one that I had (a newer model Winchester 1894 Trapper in .44 Magnum) but it wasn't quite what I was after; while a perfectly adequate caliber for taking whitetails out to 100 yards or so the .44 starts running out of steam quickly past that point. Also, it just plain won't shoot, as much as I hate to say it. :grumpy: I'm still working with it and I'm still experimenting but I'm beginning to think that it never will. There's not much left to try and it's certainly not worth all the trouble that I've gone through with it.
The answers I received, and my own research, had me looking at Marlins in general and the .45-70 in particular. I felt that a Guide Gun would serve do pretty well around here. If I began saving my money and I hurried, I could have it in my hands and the loads already worked up for it by August when bear season opens. No problem, right?
Wrong. I was in a hurry to get ready for this season. So was everyone else.
Sportsman's Warehouse? "Well, we normally stock them but we're out right now. Don't know when we'll have more." (This was repeated every Saturday for over a month and a half.) Walmart? "We can order them but our supplier is out." (Repeated every Saturday for a month and a half.) The local gunshops? Don't make me laugh. If you're looking for overpriced beaters they're good, but other than that...
"I'm not surprised that you're asking for a GG in .45-70," said the guy at the Sportsman's Warehouse that I first talked to. "You're the third one this morning. No one can get them. We had a Marlin rep in here last week; he said that now that Winchester's out of business you either buy a Marlin or buy Italian. Marlin just plain can't keep up." None of which helped me, but it made me feel at least a little bit better that no one else could have one either.
A week later, a GG in 450 Marlin and a full sized 1895 in .444 showed up at Sportsman's. I very nearly gave in. The fact that .444 isn't quite where I wanted to be powerwise and that even Sportsman's didn't carry 450 brass told me all that I needed to know...I had to wait for that .45-70.
In the end, it was that evil empire that we all know and love -- Walmart -- that got me my Marlin. I'd made it a routine to swing by there once a weekend and strongarm the unfortunate person behind the sporting goods counter into calling their distributor for me. I wasn't expecting anything this particular day but I lucked out: they had one, and only one, Guide Gun in stainless. Did I want it?
No, that's not blood under it.
Two weeks later I unpacked it. The differences between it and the little Winnie struck me immediately:
First, it was heavy. Not crew served weapon heavy, but definitely unexpectedly heavy for so little a firearm. That slab sided receiver looked like a bank vault; the bolt was a comparatively skinny little cylinder in the middle of all that with a bunch of empty space around it. Empty space? The Winnie was packed full of stuff like a jet fighter and this thing had gaps?
The wood looked nice, real nice for a production rifle in that price bracket. It didn't have that plasticky look and feel like some furniture does. The sights weren't great but they were definitely better than the Winnie's, with a more precise front blade and less open space on the rear.
The Winnie cycles like oiled glass -- work the lever forward and back and with little to no perceptable changes in resistance, a casing pops out the top and the bolt somehow returns to battery. The Marlin is a different story: I can physically tell what is happening as I work the lever. Each step in the operation has a distinct and evident feel to it. Like a performance car with tight shocks the ride is not for everyone; also like that performance car it gives a sensation of connectedness. I feel like I'm doing all that stuff, not just working a lever and letting the gun do it. It chugs and clanks like a diesel generator and never takes no for an answer. It even seems to feed resized empties from the magazine tube without much complaint; with the Winnie, this is a good way to crush an otherwise good case.
There were unpleasant surprises as well, however. The bore looked very nice from the breech end; from the muzzle I noticed some pretty ugly chatter marks on two of the lands. (Which, somehow, scared me more than seeing them on all four.) The trigger was loose. The flat areas of the exterior looked pretty good but in areas the tooling made it look like a Russian milsurp. The interior of the receiver was brown in areas, remaining discoloration from the heat treat I assume as it was not rust and could not be cleaned off. The bottom of the buttstock has two sling swivels and a plugged hole further down -- was that intentional? While I was replacing the factory buttpad with a Limbsaver I noticed two sets of mounting holes in the rear of the buttstock, one set being off center and misaligned. What the hell?
Then I remembered the earlier comments about Marlin struggling to meet the demand. I seriously considered sending it back at this point but honestly, I didn't want to have to wait another month or two for a replacement and cosmetic defects aside, it just might shoot. Why not give it a shot?
I installed a Leupold 1-4x 20mm on top with a Leupold steel one piece base and rings. Don't argue with me about this -- I have experience with this stuff and it's what I prefer now. With the magnification on 1x I have an improvised Scout setup. Set to 4x, I can see things that I normally can't. I like this. This discussion is over.
As I ran a box of factory garbage ($1 per round garbage, at that) through it to verify my redneck boresighting job and make the last few adjustments to the scope, I realized that the recoil wasn't anything to worry about -- M38's have a harsher kick to them. The other thing that I realized was that with side ejection, I wasn't getting hit in the head with hot brass; nor did I catch any in the crook of my elbow. This was good. The other thing that caught my attention was that the holes on that 50 yard target were real close -- like, touching close. This, too, was good; the barrel wasn't broken in, the ammo was basic factory stuff, and I was learning a new trigger and turning in cloverleafs.
By the end of the box I had it centered and 2" high at 100 yards, which I figured ought to be pretty close to whatever I'd eventually zero it at. With the factory stuff out of the way it was time to run my handloads and, if necessary, adjust zero even further to compensate for their expected (lack of) performance.
Specifics: Lee 500-grain .459" round nose mold, refined WW alloy with some extra lead and tin added, unsized, lubed with one coat of Alox. Winchester brass, Winchester LR primers, 55 grains of WC860 (pull down military .50 BMG powder, roughly approximating AA8700), bullet seated against the lands. (Which also happens to be against the powder -- funny how that works out.) No crimp.
Chrono results for 5 shots @ 70 degrees F, give or take: 989, 988, 978, 990, 993 for an average of about 988. Max spread was 15 fps, perfectly acceptable for my first try with powder that runs $4 a pound. This relatively quiet, moderately recoiling load is pleasant to shoot, does not annoy other shooters around me, and yields a bit over 1000 lb-ft of energy and (more importantly) rates a Taylor Knockout Value of 32.
I held for an 8" plate at 180, aimed a bit over it, and fired. I observed a hit on the berm above it. I adjusted, used the lower transition from thin to thick line on the duplex reticle as the aiming point, and fired again. CLAAAAANG! That was that. I missed no further shots until I went to offhand. At its present zero, the upper reticle transition is on out to 50 yards, the crosshairs work for 50-150, and the lower transition hits out to 200. The reticle just happens to match the trajectory of my ammunition with that. It didn't seem to notice when I changed to 405-grain jacketed factory rounds either; the trajectories were evidently similar enough. I could by rights stop my experimentation right here and be in good shape but I have work to do with hard cast 405's and 300's, as the 500 grain loads neither feed from the magazine tube nor can be extracted from the chamber without some work on account of their length, making them a load-on-shoot-one proposition only. We'll see tomorrow if the 405 cast bullets behave as well.
It was interesting to observe that while I must be very picky in selecting which bullets are good and which go back into the pot for .44, it doesn't matter nearly as much with this .45-70. As long as it was a good pour and the bullet is fully formed it seems to shoot; a bit of tearing at the base or dings on the edges of the lube grooves made no observable difference in performance. Dunno why. Leading was zero, which really isn't a surprise; I could probably use straight lead and not get any metallic fouling. The WC860 is well known for incomplete burns and locked actions from accumulated powder kernels in anything smaller than the .50 BMG; while there was some unburned powder with this load it didn't cause any real problems. A few of the rounds chambered hard from kernels in the chamber but the Winchester brass was thick and strong enough not to be damaged by me forcing them in. Those empty spaces that I mentioned earlier now came in handy, allowing the gun to shed the worst of it with no help from me other than cycling it to load more ammunition. Despite this, I'd like to see a complete burn sometime with this stuff so the next batch has been crimped firmly with a Lee Factory Crimp die. That ought to raise the pressure a bit.
Speaking of pressure, this load was based on a Stage I (for original Springfields) load and is pretty much in black powder territory pressure-wise. I had black streaks on the exterior of the brass all the way to the rim, telling me that it was only barely sealing the action. Any less pressure and I might actually have problems because of it. I ought to get a lot of loadings out of these cases and a lot of life out of the gun if I keep it around here but you know me...once I get to know my milsurp powders better, I may have to try some hot ones just to say that I did.
Pictured left to right: .45-70-500, .45-70-405, 7.62x51mm, 5.56x45mm, .44 Magnum with 310-grain LNFP from Lee mold.
After I was done, I saw a sight that any cast bullet shooter loves: a perfect star-shaped pattern of sooty bullet lube around the crown of the muzzle. Oh, yeah. Cleanup was a snap. Unlike the Winnie, removing the lever pivot screw allows removal of both the lever...err, bolt carrier, and the bolt itself, leaving the receiver wide open for further work and allowing the barrel to be cleaned from the breech. A scrubdown with Ed's Red dissolved the carbon and WC860 grains in the action and bore. Some more dirt came out when I lubed it with Ballistol but what the hell...I'm no longer an armorer and it's clean enough. Metal needs to be seasoned, right?
I'm going to wring it out a bit more tomorrow; I have more loads to test and I figure that if I set up the chrono just right, I can ring the plates and gather data at the same time. I'm looking forward to it. I should probably punch some paper as well, even if I consider the activity to be a bit pointless in this case. People will inevitably wonder about the groups on paper. It's shooting at least 4 MoA on the plates apparently, so why spoil this with a paper group? I dunno, but I may anyway.
It's nice to see that there are still American manufacturers who can turn out a good product at a reasonable price. I'm guessing that Marlin's factory isn't union.
Final verdict: if Mikhail Kalashnikov had gotten into lever actions instead of semiautos, he would've come up with something like this. (50 years later, at that.) Nice design. :thumbup:
The answers I received, and my own research, had me looking at Marlins in general and the .45-70 in particular. I felt that a Guide Gun would serve do pretty well around here. If I began saving my money and I hurried, I could have it in my hands and the loads already worked up for it by August when bear season opens. No problem, right?
Wrong. I was in a hurry to get ready for this season. So was everyone else.
Sportsman's Warehouse? "Well, we normally stock them but we're out right now. Don't know when we'll have more." (This was repeated every Saturday for over a month and a half.) Walmart? "We can order them but our supplier is out." (Repeated every Saturday for a month and a half.) The local gunshops? Don't make me laugh. If you're looking for overpriced beaters they're good, but other than that...
"I'm not surprised that you're asking for a GG in .45-70," said the guy at the Sportsman's Warehouse that I first talked to. "You're the third one this morning. No one can get them. We had a Marlin rep in here last week; he said that now that Winchester's out of business you either buy a Marlin or buy Italian. Marlin just plain can't keep up." None of which helped me, but it made me feel at least a little bit better that no one else could have one either.
A week later, a GG in 450 Marlin and a full sized 1895 in .444 showed up at Sportsman's. I very nearly gave in. The fact that .444 isn't quite where I wanted to be powerwise and that even Sportsman's didn't carry 450 brass told me all that I needed to know...I had to wait for that .45-70.
In the end, it was that evil empire that we all know and love -- Walmart -- that got me my Marlin. I'd made it a routine to swing by there once a weekend and strongarm the unfortunate person behind the sporting goods counter into calling their distributor for me. I wasn't expecting anything this particular day but I lucked out: they had one, and only one, Guide Gun in stainless. Did I want it?
No, that's not blood under it.
Two weeks later I unpacked it. The differences between it and the little Winnie struck me immediately:
First, it was heavy. Not crew served weapon heavy, but definitely unexpectedly heavy for so little a firearm. That slab sided receiver looked like a bank vault; the bolt was a comparatively skinny little cylinder in the middle of all that with a bunch of empty space around it. Empty space? The Winnie was packed full of stuff like a jet fighter and this thing had gaps?
The wood looked nice, real nice for a production rifle in that price bracket. It didn't have that plasticky look and feel like some furniture does. The sights weren't great but they were definitely better than the Winnie's, with a more precise front blade and less open space on the rear.
The Winnie cycles like oiled glass -- work the lever forward and back and with little to no perceptable changes in resistance, a casing pops out the top and the bolt somehow returns to battery. The Marlin is a different story: I can physically tell what is happening as I work the lever. Each step in the operation has a distinct and evident feel to it. Like a performance car with tight shocks the ride is not for everyone; also like that performance car it gives a sensation of connectedness. I feel like I'm doing all that stuff, not just working a lever and letting the gun do it. It chugs and clanks like a diesel generator and never takes no for an answer. It even seems to feed resized empties from the magazine tube without much complaint; with the Winnie, this is a good way to crush an otherwise good case.
There were unpleasant surprises as well, however. The bore looked very nice from the breech end; from the muzzle I noticed some pretty ugly chatter marks on two of the lands. (Which, somehow, scared me more than seeing them on all four.) The trigger was loose. The flat areas of the exterior looked pretty good but in areas the tooling made it look like a Russian milsurp. The interior of the receiver was brown in areas, remaining discoloration from the heat treat I assume as it was not rust and could not be cleaned off. The bottom of the buttstock has two sling swivels and a plugged hole further down -- was that intentional? While I was replacing the factory buttpad with a Limbsaver I noticed two sets of mounting holes in the rear of the buttstock, one set being off center and misaligned. What the hell?
Then I remembered the earlier comments about Marlin struggling to meet the demand. I seriously considered sending it back at this point but honestly, I didn't want to have to wait another month or two for a replacement and cosmetic defects aside, it just might shoot. Why not give it a shot?
I installed a Leupold 1-4x 20mm on top with a Leupold steel one piece base and rings. Don't argue with me about this -- I have experience with this stuff and it's what I prefer now. With the magnification on 1x I have an improvised Scout setup. Set to 4x, I can see things that I normally can't. I like this. This discussion is over.
As I ran a box of factory garbage ($1 per round garbage, at that) through it to verify my redneck boresighting job and make the last few adjustments to the scope, I realized that the recoil wasn't anything to worry about -- M38's have a harsher kick to them. The other thing that I realized was that with side ejection, I wasn't getting hit in the head with hot brass; nor did I catch any in the crook of my elbow. This was good. The other thing that caught my attention was that the holes on that 50 yard target were real close -- like, touching close. This, too, was good; the barrel wasn't broken in, the ammo was basic factory stuff, and I was learning a new trigger and turning in cloverleafs.
By the end of the box I had it centered and 2" high at 100 yards, which I figured ought to be pretty close to whatever I'd eventually zero it at. With the factory stuff out of the way it was time to run my handloads and, if necessary, adjust zero even further to compensate for their expected (lack of) performance.
Specifics: Lee 500-grain .459" round nose mold, refined WW alloy with some extra lead and tin added, unsized, lubed with one coat of Alox. Winchester brass, Winchester LR primers, 55 grains of WC860 (pull down military .50 BMG powder, roughly approximating AA8700), bullet seated against the lands. (Which also happens to be against the powder -- funny how that works out.) No crimp.
Chrono results for 5 shots @ 70 degrees F, give or take: 989, 988, 978, 990, 993 for an average of about 988. Max spread was 15 fps, perfectly acceptable for my first try with powder that runs $4 a pound. This relatively quiet, moderately recoiling load is pleasant to shoot, does not annoy other shooters around me, and yields a bit over 1000 lb-ft of energy and (more importantly) rates a Taylor Knockout Value of 32.
I held for an 8" plate at 180, aimed a bit over it, and fired. I observed a hit on the berm above it. I adjusted, used the lower transition from thin to thick line on the duplex reticle as the aiming point, and fired again. CLAAAAANG! That was that. I missed no further shots until I went to offhand. At its present zero, the upper reticle transition is on out to 50 yards, the crosshairs work for 50-150, and the lower transition hits out to 200. The reticle just happens to match the trajectory of my ammunition with that. It didn't seem to notice when I changed to 405-grain jacketed factory rounds either; the trajectories were evidently similar enough. I could by rights stop my experimentation right here and be in good shape but I have work to do with hard cast 405's and 300's, as the 500 grain loads neither feed from the magazine tube nor can be extracted from the chamber without some work on account of their length, making them a load-on-shoot-one proposition only. We'll see tomorrow if the 405 cast bullets behave as well.
It was interesting to observe that while I must be very picky in selecting which bullets are good and which go back into the pot for .44, it doesn't matter nearly as much with this .45-70. As long as it was a good pour and the bullet is fully formed it seems to shoot; a bit of tearing at the base or dings on the edges of the lube grooves made no observable difference in performance. Dunno why. Leading was zero, which really isn't a surprise; I could probably use straight lead and not get any metallic fouling. The WC860 is well known for incomplete burns and locked actions from accumulated powder kernels in anything smaller than the .50 BMG; while there was some unburned powder with this load it didn't cause any real problems. A few of the rounds chambered hard from kernels in the chamber but the Winchester brass was thick and strong enough not to be damaged by me forcing them in. Those empty spaces that I mentioned earlier now came in handy, allowing the gun to shed the worst of it with no help from me other than cycling it to load more ammunition. Despite this, I'd like to see a complete burn sometime with this stuff so the next batch has been crimped firmly with a Lee Factory Crimp die. That ought to raise the pressure a bit.
Speaking of pressure, this load was based on a Stage I (for original Springfields) load and is pretty much in black powder territory pressure-wise. I had black streaks on the exterior of the brass all the way to the rim, telling me that it was only barely sealing the action. Any less pressure and I might actually have problems because of it. I ought to get a lot of loadings out of these cases and a lot of life out of the gun if I keep it around here but you know me...once I get to know my milsurp powders better, I may have to try some hot ones just to say that I did.
Pictured left to right: .45-70-500, .45-70-405, 7.62x51mm, 5.56x45mm, .44 Magnum with 310-grain LNFP from Lee mold.
After I was done, I saw a sight that any cast bullet shooter loves: a perfect star-shaped pattern of sooty bullet lube around the crown of the muzzle. Oh, yeah. Cleanup was a snap. Unlike the Winnie, removing the lever pivot screw allows removal of both the lever...err, bolt carrier, and the bolt itself, leaving the receiver wide open for further work and allowing the barrel to be cleaned from the breech. A scrubdown with Ed's Red dissolved the carbon and WC860 grains in the action and bore. Some more dirt came out when I lubed it with Ballistol but what the hell...I'm no longer an armorer and it's clean enough. Metal needs to be seasoned, right?
I'm going to wring it out a bit more tomorrow; I have more loads to test and I figure that if I set up the chrono just right, I can ring the plates and gather data at the same time. I'm looking forward to it. I should probably punch some paper as well, even if I consider the activity to be a bit pointless in this case. People will inevitably wonder about the groups on paper. It's shooting at least 4 MoA on the plates apparently, so why spoil this with a paper group? I dunno, but I may anyway.
It's nice to see that there are still American manufacturers who can turn out a good product at a reasonable price. I'm guessing that Marlin's factory isn't union.
Final verdict: if Mikhail Kalashnikov had gotten into lever actions instead of semiautos, he would've come up with something like this. (50 years later, at that.) Nice design. :thumbup:
Here's the one I'm drooling over: 
I dunno a new type sling set up?
