Ruger/Marlin

I hope ruger will bring back the model 39 with a 20 inch barrel. (Was that version called the mountie? Not sure.)

Other than that, I now prefer the henry lever actions to the marlin lever actions.

I would be surprised if the models 60/795 or the marlin rimfire bolt actions came back. They would be directly competing with ruger's 10/22 and the american rimfire.
 
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My understanding is that the Marlin Model 39A was costly to manufacture so I would be happy but surprised to see that made again.
 
I bought a 39 Mountie in the 70s. After a little trigger surface smoothing, excellent. The blue jobs on the old Marlins are spectacular.
 
Maybe we can get some new caliber guns in a lever action platform? I like my Rugers and Marlins and hope they do well together. I could go for a Marlin 32 cal rifle, I cant afford the older run of 32H&R guns and haven't ever seen a Henry 327 in the wild.
 
I had a 39A Mountie (straight stock, short barrel) when in my early 20s. Liked it a lot, but sold it and don't remember why. Bought a 39A Deluxe Rifle (Full-length barrel and pistol grip stock) in the 90s and it was nice-looking, but had some annoying faults, like:

1. Receiver top that wasn't square with the sides of the receiver. Not too noticeable until after mounting a receiver sight;
2. Extractor didn't like being the least bit dirty;
3. Iron sights that were mounted closer to 11:30 than 12:00;
4. Receiver holes didn't line up well. Rear one was way off, so had to make a slot for the scope base to line up.

The worst thing was that it failed to extract/eject well, which I fixed with a new extractor and tuning. The rifle shot well, but not as well as my first one, a Mountie that was a first-class example of great workmanship; bought in 1962.
 
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Ruger’s specialty is cast parts. I don’t see them doing anything but outsourcing lever guns as Henry seems to have the American made market and Rossi has a solid economical foreign made offering. As always, vintage Marlin rules the roost in my opinion.

Owning Marlin simply to kill competition for the 10/22 makes sense and in places where a removable magazine is not allowed, the Marlin is tube fed.

I think this is just Ruger getting big and acquiring corporate assetts.

The interesting race, in my opinion, will be if little Ithaca can take a bit of market share for those wanting a top tier pump shotgun from Mossberg (who only offers a practical field grade 500) now that Wingmasters will no longer be available.
 
I had a 39A Mountie in the 1960s and loved it! So did my girlfriend who was an excellent shot back then. She hasn't shot a gun for several years, but when the kids were young, she won the only time shooting in a turkey shoot with my .22-250...a perfect pinwheel at 100 yards that won a bet for me.
 
Picher said:
I had a 39A Mountie in the 1960s and loved it! So did my girlfriend who was an excellent shot back then. She hasn't shot a gun for several years, but when the kids were young, she won the only time shooting in a turkey shoot with my .22-250...a perfect pinwheel at 100 yards that won a bet for me.
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That’s great !


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What if they don't make any Marlins and just retool the facilities to make Ruger products. My wife has an excellent Marlin 1889 38 WCF, by the way. Cherish your old iron.
 
That seems unlikely, as their North Carolina plant was previously a yarn-dyeing facility.
It would be a shame to buy all of that tooling and intellectual property just to throw it in the dumpster.

My prediction is that Ruger will mostly focus on Marlin's lever actions while neglecting Marlin's rimfire line unless they relaunch it as a budget line.

I still think it's strange that Ruger bought that part of Remington instead of the shotgun side. If they wanted to go lever-action style, it seems like they could have saved a lot of trouble and money by recycling their 96 series into something with western-style lines and maybe a tube mag.

And Ruger still doesn't have a shotgun line. How wild would an 870 with an aluminum receiver be?
 
Other than a statement from Ruger that they were going to make Marlin lever guns "the way they should be made", I've heard nothing else, so far.

I think "reactivating" Marlin, and "doing it right" (apparently a dig at how Remington was doing it) I think that would give them a much wide and less expensive lever gun line than redesigning their lever gun for a "more western look".

I do wonder if "doing it right" ALSO means doing away with the pushbutton safety?... I would, but then, I'm not running things at Ruger.
 
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