Replica 1881 Marlin Rifle

[Jim Watson]

A friend shot CAS with .45 revolver and .44 WCF.
He mismatched them both ways. A .45 in an 1873 CAN be cleared by taking off the sideplate(s) but it isn't easy. Ranger George Lloyd had to have had a very cool head that day in 1881.
A .44 in one's .45 Colt, well, "ptooey."

 

[Tommygunn]

The removable side plates of the 1873 were a great feature for cleaning and lubricating the toggle links area.
And, it did give access to the loading area for the magazine and cartridge elevator so a .45 Colt cartridge could indeed be cleared from the cartridge elevator or the magazine.
However, I think that the Winchester design itself was largely responsible for it being so difficult to clear the .45 Colt in the first place.
Overall, both cartridges are almost exactly the same length, and the rim diameter of the .44-40 is larger, so there would be no problem for the .45 Colt to feed into the magazine easily and also into the cartridge elevator. It should also not jam the elevator and stop it from rising.
It just would not feed into the chamber.
Further complicating matters is that the cartridge elevator is designed so that there is no way to remove a cartridge from it other than by first chambering it and then extracting it. That could not happen.

In most other designs a rear pivoting lifter is used to convey the cartridge into position for chambering. Since these lifters are usually open on top they don't prevent a cartridge from being simply dumped out of the ejection port if you wish.

So, in effect, removing the sideplates on the 1873 Winchester is necessary to clear a type of cartridge jam from the elevator that would be easy to clear from the other rifles with no disassembly at all.

Bolded- Good points there.

I have never operated a Marlin with side ejection. Is it easy to clear miscreant rounds from a side eject rifle as it is from the 1892/94 design Winchester?

 

[Old Stumpy]

Is it easy to clear miscreant rounds from a side eject rifle as it is from the 1892/94 design Winchester?

It is if it's on the lifter and the lifter is in the up position.
If it's a too long or too short round jamming the lifter then you need to push it back into the magazine with a small diameter stick.
It's probably easier to clear rounds in an 1894 Winchester.
That's probably one area where the removable side plates on an 1873 is an advantage.