I might have to change my handle to 30/30 man!
I guess I need to be in this club. My dad bought a Marlin 336 30/30 sometime around 1976 or '77. I remember he took me on my first deer hunt the same year he bought it, and I carried that gun. We were hiking down a steep hill and I stepped on a wet log and slipped and fell and dropped the gun. It had a hammer side extention (that is what I call it anyway) and it got knocked off. I felt real bad about that. I killed my first deer with that gun when I was 17 or 18, and took several more in the years that followed. Years later I found out one of my brothers had ended up with the gun and I traded him out of it. I still have it, and I have taken quite a few deer with it since then. Two years ago I bought a Savage 25-06 and hunted with it. This summer I bought a Ruger .41 magnum and decided I need to get into reloading. I could not afford to get a reloading kit, so I decided to sell a gun.
It was between the Savage and the Marlin, but the decision was not a hard one for me to make at all. The Savage would go. So I sold it a last week and ordered my reloading kit.
Well, being new to this site, I just found this thread today about the Marlin Club. I read around 7 pages and just couldn't take it anymore. I had to get out my Marlin. I went to town earlier today and bought some new scope mounts to replace the see through mounts I have had on the gun for years. I never have used the open sights and I figure getting the scope lower might make it better. So I took those off, and cleaned it up (getting off the dust and putting a little oil on it) and all the while recalling all the fun I've had with that baby. The poor old gun has been through hell. It is scratched and dinged up pretty good. I took the butt stock off and sanded it down to put a new finish on it. I am a pretty good artist, so I am thinking of either carving something on the side of it, or wood burning in a scene. (I am bad about customizing anything I ever get. It is a wonder I haven't done anything to it already!)
It isn't as pretty as that Savage, or some of my other guns, but I feel I have the best combo in the land: My Marlin and Ruger .41. And what I hear about those new Hornady Leverevolution bullets, I can shoot as far as I would ever need to anyway. Though I have made some pretty good shots with that Marlin as it is.
Well, thanks for the memories. And if permitted, I'd be honored to join The Club.
Jeff (The .41 Magnum Man)