mine
I have one "pre-safety" from the 1980's. For a long time it was my most carried and shot long gun. The Marlin is shorter and lighter than the Henry's, and I prefer the loading gate over the tube system. I've run all manner of loads through the little Marlin, from full bore mags in 158-160gr to 148 gr wadcutters, single loaded, as they would not feed from the magazine. But one at a time, they shot fine, and were very mild.
Shot quite a bit of .38 spl 110 gr +P+ from it as it was issue back in the day and there were always a few rounds about. Also shot full power 125 gr mags when they became issue. The 125 mags were quite destructive when fired from the carbine length barrel. I never ran it as hard/fast as the cowboy crowd, but for hunting and GP shooting it ran just fine with about everything. A 158 SWC lead, downloaded loaded to 1000 fps or so as a GP round, would feed pretty reliably, and shoot well enough to 100 yds despite the Micro-groove tube and their reputation with lead.
Never did kill a deer with the Marlin, but shot quite a few groundhogs when the clover came up and you could walk and stalk the critters, and get shots under 100 pretty regularly.
I'd suggest a peep sight set up, a big improvement over the traditional bead and blade sights. The Marlins scope easily if you need to go that route, as I likely need will go on mine in the near future.
