bikemutt
Member
I've posted up about this Marlin 1894 before but now she's done; cooked to my perfection I thought it would be a good idea to share a couple pictures with the good folks here at THR.
I paid dearly for this Trapper model, I believe only made in 2006 as a Davidson's special run. The first problem I ran into was the action; she just would not reliably feed. My gunsmith traced this back to the lever which was good news since I planned to replace it with a Wild West big loop.
Well, the big loop on this gun was a bit on the wide side, and it was a matte finish that didn't match the receiver finish in a complementary way. So, he worked the lever carefully down until the match was about perfect.
Then we found the lever detent was on the Superman side, only he, or perhaps Green Lantern could open it. This one proved difficult to think about but easy to solve; we nipped the detent spring a tiny bit each time until the lever action was perfect. Really just a bit above perfect to allow for break in.
I was done with the gunsmith, but not my old eyes. Iron sights are wonderful for those who can use them, I need a scope, I'll leave it at that. Being partial to Nikon, I found a nice stainless-colored scope and mated it with a DNZ mount, a combination which I found visually pleasing in more ways than one.
So here we have the rifle in it's final (for now) form that pleases me to no end. With little practice so far I can hold less than a 2" group at 50 yards with .357 magnum factory ammo. Strangely, it loves aluminum-cased Blaser, go figure.
To use an old 60's term, "I really dig this rifle", it's a pure joy to shoot, and I hope, worth sharing.
I paid dearly for this Trapper model, I believe only made in 2006 as a Davidson's special run. The first problem I ran into was the action; she just would not reliably feed. My gunsmith traced this back to the lever which was good news since I planned to replace it with a Wild West big loop.
Well, the big loop on this gun was a bit on the wide side, and it was a matte finish that didn't match the receiver finish in a complementary way. So, he worked the lever carefully down until the match was about perfect.
Then we found the lever detent was on the Superman side, only he, or perhaps Green Lantern could open it. This one proved difficult to think about but easy to solve; we nipped the detent spring a tiny bit each time until the lever action was perfect. Really just a bit above perfect to allow for break in.
I was done with the gunsmith, but not my old eyes. Iron sights are wonderful for those who can use them, I need a scope, I'll leave it at that. Being partial to Nikon, I found a nice stainless-colored scope and mated it with a DNZ mount, a combination which I found visually pleasing in more ways than one.
So here we have the rifle in it's final (for now) form that pleases me to no end. With little practice so far I can hold less than a 2" group at 50 yards with .357 magnum factory ammo. Strangely, it loves aluminum-cased Blaser, go figure.
To use an old 60's term, "I really dig this rifle", it's a pure joy to shoot, and I hope, worth sharing.