A Wind River Marlin rifle…

You remember my post on being a bad influence?  You know, I get a new rifle, get all pumped up about it, and then my buddies buy the same thing?  And you remember that at least couple of the gun blogs we’ve done have been “A Tale of Two (fill in the blank)” gun stories, with the other guns owned by good buddy Greg, or Paul, or one or another of my shooting buddies?

Well, it turns out I’m not the only bad influence in town.  There was a movie not too long ago (Wind River) where the main character carried a stainless steel, scoped, .45 70 Marlin lever gun, and he reloaded his own ammo to boot.  Good buddy Greg saw that movie and decided his life wouldn’t be complete unless he had a similar rig.  Here’s the trailer for Wind River to give you a bit of background if you haven’t seen the movie…

You might have noticed the Harvey Weinstein credit at the start of the movie (now there’s a guy who’s fortunes have certainly reversed).  I saw Weinstein speak (in person) at a Bud Ekins and Steve McQueen motorcycle tribute event about 10 years ago, but I digress…that’s a story for another blog and another time.  Back to the main attraction for this blog.

Anyway, Greg pulled the trigger on what I’m calling the Wind River Marlin, and we took his new rifle to the range this weekend.  Greg’s new 1895 is awesome from both accuracy and power perspectives.   Highly-polished stainless steel, laminated stock, big loop, long-eye-relief scope, Picatinny rail mount, 16-inch barrel, and more.  It’s very impressive…

Here’s a very short video of Greg firing the Wind River special…watch it bounce around when it recoils.  The lens caps dance around a bit, too!

And here’s what it looked like on the target at 50 yards…that’s outstanding accuracy and great shooting.

The concept of a scoped lever action rifle, and particularly one with a long-eye-relief scope, kind of fits in with the Jeff Cooper Scout Rifle idea.   I like it because I’ve always wondered what kind of accuracy these big bore lever guns are truly capable of, and Greg’s new stainless steel 1895 confirms that the Marlin lever guns can be tack drivers with the right load and a skilled rifleman.   Some might argue that a lever gun should use iron sights (the traditionalist approach), or that a scope looks out of place on a lever action rifle.  Greg’s rifle dispels both notions.  The Wind River rifle looks great, and it has the accuracy t0 match its looks.

Another school of thought holds that the modern Marlins are not as good as the older ones.   These folks generally push the notion that when Marlin was an independent company (before Remington acquired Marlin a few years ago) the quality was better.  That’s hogwash, again as shown by Greg’s stainless steel Marlin 1895 and Paul’s blued-steel version of the same rifle.  The current production Marlins are every bit as good as the older ones.

I, too, had a new Marlin on the range today (mine was of the .30- 30 flavor, but it was different rifle than the 336 Octagon covered here) .  But that’s another story for a another blog, which is coming up in the next few days.  Stay tuned!

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