George Hill
Member
A couple of fellows bought a couple of Marlin 308MX rifles. Not the XLR long stainless units, but the shorter blued versions in the new cartridge .308 Marlin Express. Both rifles were scoped up with Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9X scopes. Not a bad package... not the scopes I would have picked out, but not bad.
The guys brought in the rifles and a stack of targets. Each target had a 4 to 5 inch random splattering of holes. The groups were shot at 100 yards and they complained that the guns wouldn't shoot. I took Mike with me (a co-worker) and we went to the Buckskin Hills Range and got to work. Here are some observations.
First, I freaking love the .308MX. The cartridge is inherently accurate thanks to the marvelous efficiency in the case. The guns are not even that loud... they have a “Whomp” to it, but not the sharp bang of most regular .308 rifles... it's a little different... more like a .30-30. You can actually shoot these without ear plugs... this means you can take these guns out and really hunt with them and not worry about blowing your ear drums out. Recoil was damn near the same as my .30-30. But when you look at the numbers, .308MX does at 400 yards what .30-30 does at 100 yards, so we are talking a major improvement in punch, without any perceived increase in noise or recoil! Fantastic!
The rifle is essentially your good old Marlin 336CS but with a spiffy new chambering. Now it shoots good, feels good... but how about the accuracy? Impressive to say the least. At 25 yards both guns were printing clover leaf shot groups. Not the big random scattering and nothing showed any sign of a problem. We skipped 50 and pushed out to 100 yards, what the old guys were saying they were shooting at. Guess what? These rifles shot the very same groups at 100 yards as they shot at 25. We were punching holes inside of holes.
Now this pissed me off... because these dang guns are shooting out of the box just like my .30-30 does with over 200 bucks worth of gunsmithing! And these guns have completely crappy triggers. They are gritty and heavy and suck just much like a factory Bushmaster or Hi Point Carbine. No, scratch that... I've felt better triggers on Hi Point Carbines.
I wouldn't mind having one of these at all, but I'd get the trigger worked on, replace the firing pin and put a target crown on it, and of course get rid of the Bushnell and sit it up with something righteous.... then we could really see what these new Marlins could do.
The 308MX gets an 8 out of 10.
I would like to see what the longer, stainless XLR does, and I'd like to shoot these guns over a Chrono, and compare them with some other rifles, like my .30-30.
The guys brought in the rifles and a stack of targets. Each target had a 4 to 5 inch random splattering of holes. The groups were shot at 100 yards and they complained that the guns wouldn't shoot. I took Mike with me (a co-worker) and we went to the Buckskin Hills Range and got to work. Here are some observations.
First, I freaking love the .308MX. The cartridge is inherently accurate thanks to the marvelous efficiency in the case. The guns are not even that loud... they have a “Whomp” to it, but not the sharp bang of most regular .308 rifles... it's a little different... more like a .30-30. You can actually shoot these without ear plugs... this means you can take these guns out and really hunt with them and not worry about blowing your ear drums out. Recoil was damn near the same as my .30-30. But when you look at the numbers, .308MX does at 400 yards what .30-30 does at 100 yards, so we are talking a major improvement in punch, without any perceived increase in noise or recoil! Fantastic!
The rifle is essentially your good old Marlin 336CS but with a spiffy new chambering. Now it shoots good, feels good... but how about the accuracy? Impressive to say the least. At 25 yards both guns were printing clover leaf shot groups. Not the big random scattering and nothing showed any sign of a problem. We skipped 50 and pushed out to 100 yards, what the old guys were saying they were shooting at. Guess what? These rifles shot the very same groups at 100 yards as they shot at 25. We were punching holes inside of holes.
Now this pissed me off... because these dang guns are shooting out of the box just like my .30-30 does with over 200 bucks worth of gunsmithing! And these guns have completely crappy triggers. They are gritty and heavy and suck just much like a factory Bushmaster or Hi Point Carbine. No, scratch that... I've felt better triggers on Hi Point Carbines.
I wouldn't mind having one of these at all, but I'd get the trigger worked on, replace the firing pin and put a target crown on it, and of course get rid of the Bushnell and sit it up with something righteous.... then we could really see what these new Marlins could do.
The 308MX gets an 8 out of 10.
I would like to see what the longer, stainless XLR does, and I'd like to shoot these guns over a Chrono, and compare them with some other rifles, like my .30-30.
