[Glamdring]

I have decided the marlin 357 lever gun is the perfect trunk gun for me. I'm going to stick to 38 snubs and 4" 357's for CCW. Having common ammo makes sense to me.

Also being able to buy one caliber for three or four guns means I can buy in larger quanities and get a better price.

Also for hunting (or holding off the undead) I can step up to a 45-70 lever gun with bullets in the 400 grain wt range and have similar trajectory to the cheaper, and easier to shoot, 357/158.

With either rifle effective range should be at least 150 yards. The bullets should still be doing close to 1200 fps at that range and with 100 yard zero about 5 or 6 inches low.

[erikm]

One somewhat related question about these kinds of guns. Are there legally available rifles that take can use pistol magazines? For instance, a rifle firing .45 ACP from a M1911 magazine.

Cheers,
ErikM :evil:

[Glamdring]

Marlin had the Camp Carbine that would take 1911 mags, not sure if it still in production.

And Kel Tec's Sub 2000 rifles in 9mm and 40 take pistol mags.

[foghornl]

The Ruger PC9 & PC4 auto-loader carbines are 9MM & .40 S&W respectively, and use the mags from the P-series pistols.

[willyjixx]

i dont know about the 1911 combo eric but Rugers carbine rifle uses its pistol mags in it. Keltec has a sub 2000 rifle that has different variations to take different magazines (i know they make em for glock, berreta)

marlin has a .45 carbine too might wanna check them?

glamdring i am envious! that is a great combo! id love to get a .357 lever gun but cant find one around for a good price or when i have money

[Combat-wombat]

Beretta Cx4 Storm (http://berettausa.com/product/spotlight/spotlight_cx4_main.htm)
There was a discussion about this gun earlier and I think it accepts Beretta M92 mags.

Can you still get the Heckler and Koch USC (http://www.hecklerkoch-usa.com/pages/civilian/uscframeset.html) in the U.S.? I like those.

[Geech]

You could petition HiPoint to make their .45 carbine use 1911 mags.

[Dorrin79]

unfortunately the Marlin Camp Carbine is no longer in production. those that have them speak highly of them.

Nice pick on the Marlin level .357. They are neat guns, by all accounts.

[DigMe]

I'm a fan of the Marlin lever action rifles. My dad has a 3030 that I use sometimes. It makes a good little ranch gun, although these days it mostly gets replaced by the Ruger Ranch Rifle.

brad cook

[bogie]

The Winchester is available with a 16" barrel.

With full-house 125 grain loads, recoil is VERY moderate.

[Smoke]

There are carbine conversions to mount on your 1911 frame. Wilson COmbat peddles one of them. Wilson Combat (http://www.wilsoncombat.com/store.cgi?&shop=city&cart=33454662x59454&session=3eef5e5be83e7a46&L=eng&P=465)

Never shot one, never even saw one "in-the-flesh".



http://www.wilsoncombat.com/images/shops/city/products/465.jpg

[JShirley]

Erik,

One can get a MechTech carbine "upper" that will fit onto your 1911 receiver. If you want a dedicated sidearm as well as a combo carbine, buy two identical 1911's, then use one grip for the MT.

John

[rhedley]

The only one I have ever seen is the Marlin Camp Carbine in 9mm, it used a 5900 or 6900 series S&W mag. I have one and it is great, I will never sell it.

[Arcli9ht]

Woah, wait a minute, back to the first post.

You can put .38's into a .357 lever gun?

I knew you could do that for pistols, but it never occured to me to do that in a lever rifle.

I think you just added ANOTHER 300 bucks to my gun wish list. ARGH

/Arcli9ht

[iamkris]

Arcilig9t

Yes you can put 38s in a 357 lever gun, although in a few instances with Marlin and Rossi guns the shorter cartridge may not feed reliably. Cowboy shooters have faced that problem a bunch so now there are several good lever gun smiths that can fix that.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Does anyone know where to find a 1911 frame cheap that I could use as a dedicated lower for the CCU conversion?

[Dave Markowitz]

You can put .38's into a .357 lever gun?

Yes, with the caveat that doing so may build up a nasty ring of fouling in short order. This happened with my EMF/Rossi a couple weekends ago. It might not be so bad if you use jacketed .38 loads, but the lead loads I used gummed it up pretty bad. It caused the rifle to stop extracting the longer .357s after shooting less than 20 .38s.

Shooting the .38s in the 20" barrel was like firing a .22. I plan to cook up some lightly-loaded .357s for the same effect but without the fouling problem.

[Glamdring]

How does the price of bulk 38 ammo compare to bulk 223 or 7.62x39?

***

Can I ask why this thread was moved to rifle? I thought at least some people might think trunk gun should be shotgun, that is why I put it in General.

My second choice for trunk gun is a 12 gauge with rifled barrel. I decided the 357 carbine was better because of the cost of practice ammo.

[mummac]

Can you put .38s in all .357 lever guns? I thought only certain makes will do that? Can you use .38s in a Winchester 94?

[Combat-wombat]

You can get those carbine conversion units for Glocks, too, I think.