[Jesse308]

Seeing how my sons birthday is coming up, he's decided he wants a Marlin 1894C to add to his growing collecting of firearms. :D This rifle will mainly be used for plinking and will the barrel band cause any problems/damage after long shooting sessions? Also is there any other problems I should be aware of? Thanks

[pmbiker]

Specifically what kind of problems/damage are you anticipating? The barrel band doesn't really do anything but hold the gun together. And FWIW, most people flog the crap out of these rifles with no appreciable wear, other than a smoother trigger:D .
Get one, your son will love it.

Phil

[ddc]

Jesse,

The Big5 Sporting Goods stores often have 1894C/.357 on sale for $299.99. As far as I know the only difference between the Big5 version and the "real" one are that the Big5 doesn't have walnut stocks but substitutes some kind of hardwood. As far as I know the barrel and receiver and all the rest are identical. For $299 that's a pretty good deal.

Don.

[Brian Williams]

These are terrific guns and I would recommend one for any one. I got mine new for $270 out the door. They make the 357 into a formidible cartridge. Do a search for Marlin 1894 and you will find a lot of info like so
http://thehighroad.org/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=345638&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending


Get one and give it to your son, but you are going to want to get one for yourself. Look for the Marlin Jam and it's fix. Look at Marlintalk.com where there are a bunch of other 1894 junkies.

[Jesse308]

Thanks guys for your help. I was just worried about the barrel really heating up with the barrel band and the stock possibly cracking, from my understanding this will not likely happen. As you can tell I'm new to lever action rifles but as Perfessr said, I will probably be picking one up for myself also.

[Brian Williams]

I have run about 50 rounds of my handload plinkers thru mine at a fairly rapid fire rate and the barrel was not to hot to touch. My handload plinkers consist of 158grLSWC over 6grs of Win231 and a Federal primer.

These guns are a real hoot to shoot