Mowgli, a few suggestions.
1. Get a .22 LR lever-action as well. This will enable you to practice with the same action (get a Marlin, if possible, then you've got a twin to your Guide Gun!), and will also be a heck of a lot of fun.
2. Get an action job done on the Guide Gun. I send my lever-actions to Clark Custom Guns in northern Louisiana (
http://www.clarkcustomguns.com/): they do an excellent action job, and really smooth things out for a reasonable price. There are other good riflesmiths out there, with varying expertise and costs.
3. If you plan on shooting with iron sights, don't use the Marlin factory units - they're very poor. Get a good set of ghost-ring sights (Express Sights [
http://www.expresssights.com/], Jim Brockman [
http://www.brockmansrifles.com/], Wild West Guns in Alaska [
http://www.wildwestguns.com/]), or perhaps a Williams peep sight, available from Brownells (
http://www.brownells.com/homePage.asp).
4. If you want to scope the Guide Gun, consider a Scout scope mount instead of the conventional scope-over-receiver arrangement. Express Sights make an excellent Scout scope mount that fits between the receiver and the rear sight cut-out, and this will mount the Leupold 2.5x or Burris 2.75x Scout scope easily. This makes the rifle a very fast-reacting piece, ideal for brush hunting or swinging onto a moving target: and with the relatively short range provided by the .45-70, the lower magnification of the scope is just fine for almost any purpose.
Have fun!
