Jason_W
Member
The TLDR version of all this: Except for the brutally heavy stock trigger, new Marlin 1894s are at least on par in quality with the one I bought back in '04 prior to the Remington buy out.
I purchased a new Marlin 1894 with last years tax refund but due to a couple bumps in the life road was only recently able to afford a range membership and the required accompanying NRA membership.
The factory trigger was nightmarishly heavy (I'm estimating 10 lbs) so before even thinking about firing it, I swapped it out for a WWG happy trails trigger. This offered a drastic improvement in trigger pull. I don't have a gauge, but it feels like it halved the trigger pull and eliminated that loose rattling trigger thing that stock Marlins tend to do when cocked.
I also installed a williams FP receiver sight as I've never been much good with the stock irons on Marlins.
With those minor modifications, I fired my first shots in almost three years. Here's what I noticed:
It feeds and functions just as well as the pre-remington 1894C I used to have. That means that it drags a bit while cycling some cast and semi-jacketed bullets, but is fairly smooth when cycling fully jacketed bullets. 1894s just seem to need to be cycled hard. Nature of the beast, so to speak.
The one annoying thing I found was that the lever tended to pop open slightly during loading preventing the next round from being inserted. I'm not sure if there's a fix for this or if it will iron out as the gun breaks in.
As for accuracy, who really knows. These were the first shots I fired in nearly three years, so there was a good amount of rust I was dealing with. Also, I have a peep sight on the gun which also makes it a little difficult to determine accuracy potential. Additionally, I didn't buy a revolver caliber levergun with the expectation that it be a gnat shooter. Getting mad at a levergun for not being as accurate as a bolt gun is like ordering a pizza and getting angry that it doesn't taste like a cheese burger.
I definitely need to either order a different front sight or go with a new sighting system all together. In order to be relatively on target at 50 yards, I had to have the rear sight raised to an awkward height that interfered with the operation of the hammer. I'm half considering going with the XS rail system that includes both a rail and a ghost ring. I'd then set the ghost ring for light kicking fun ammo, and install a compact red dot sighted for faster ammo.
The 8" targets in the attached picture were shot at 50 yards off the bench. I forgot to bring binoculars so dialing in the sights at 100 yards would have been aggravating to say the least. The ammo shot was 225 grain factory loaded Hornady Leverevolution. 3 of the 20 rounds didn't hit either target during the sight adjustment process.
I purchased a new Marlin 1894 with last years tax refund but due to a couple bumps in the life road was only recently able to afford a range membership and the required accompanying NRA membership.
The factory trigger was nightmarishly heavy (I'm estimating 10 lbs) so before even thinking about firing it, I swapped it out for a WWG happy trails trigger. This offered a drastic improvement in trigger pull. I don't have a gauge, but it feels like it halved the trigger pull and eliminated that loose rattling trigger thing that stock Marlins tend to do when cocked.
I also installed a williams FP receiver sight as I've never been much good with the stock irons on Marlins.
With those minor modifications, I fired my first shots in almost three years. Here's what I noticed:
It feeds and functions just as well as the pre-remington 1894C I used to have. That means that it drags a bit while cycling some cast and semi-jacketed bullets, but is fairly smooth when cycling fully jacketed bullets. 1894s just seem to need to be cycled hard. Nature of the beast, so to speak.
The one annoying thing I found was that the lever tended to pop open slightly during loading preventing the next round from being inserted. I'm not sure if there's a fix for this or if it will iron out as the gun breaks in.
As for accuracy, who really knows. These were the first shots I fired in nearly three years, so there was a good amount of rust I was dealing with. Also, I have a peep sight on the gun which also makes it a little difficult to determine accuracy potential. Additionally, I didn't buy a revolver caliber levergun with the expectation that it be a gnat shooter. Getting mad at a levergun for not being as accurate as a bolt gun is like ordering a pizza and getting angry that it doesn't taste like a cheese burger.
I definitely need to either order a different front sight or go with a new sighting system all together. In order to be relatively on target at 50 yards, I had to have the rear sight raised to an awkward height that interfered with the operation of the hammer. I'm half considering going with the XS rail system that includes both a rail and a ghost ring. I'd then set the ghost ring for light kicking fun ammo, and install a compact red dot sighted for faster ammo.
The 8" targets in the attached picture were shot at 50 yards off the bench. I forgot to bring binoculars so dialing in the sights at 100 yards would have been aggravating to say the least. The ammo shot was 225 grain factory loaded Hornady Leverevolution. 3 of the 20 rounds didn't hit either target during the sight adjustment process.
