Runnin' and Gunnin'

Since we had full use of the 100 yard range yesterday, and since just sitting back potting at stationary targets gets boring, I suggested to PH that we try a bit of action training. She had her M-1 carbine and I had my Marlin 1894 .357 Magnum lever gun.

The drill here was simple. The range is lined with trees on both sides. It's maybe 30 feet across. With 20 rounds (two mags loaded ten each for her and ten in the rifle and ten extras in my pocket for me) we would start out running to cover behind a tree on one side, fingers well away from the trigger and muzzle always pointed downrange towards the berm, of course. Firing two rounds from that position, we'd run across the range to a tree on the other side and fire two more, zig-zagging down the range to about 25 yards from the target, then moving back the same way, side-to-side, always stopping behind cover to fire two rounds, reloading as necessary. Adding some movement and pretend return fire always works to get the heart pounding and the breathing rate up. Targets were IPSC silhouettes
and any hit on the target counted for score. PH did well enough, although I had to keep reminding her that she was being shot at so it would be in her best interest to, you know...move. (I brought a shot timer, but unfortunately for her, it does not come with a "calendar" setting.)

On my run--first time attempting this with the lever gun, I learned that when you take a simple drill like this and add two more steps (working the action manually and shoving loose rounds in through the loading port on the move), you really complicate things. (Those damned cowboys made it look so easy in the Saturday morning westerns.)

This drill bears repeating, at least until I get it down a little better or transition back to a simple magazine-fed semi-auto. But since the Marlin is currently my backpacking rifle of choice, I think that it behooves me to work on my skills with this one a bit more, at least until I can get it down to the point where I'm not either bringing an uncocked rifle to my shoulder and squeezing the trigger, or working the lever excessively and tossing out live rounds. Fighting the springs in the magazine tube and behind the loading gate will always be a bitch, and while it's not noticeable back on the bench, doing it while running from tree to tree through the tall grass definitely amps the difficulty level up a bit.

But like In told PH, if it's too easy, it's not really training. Training is about pushing yourself. This sort of drill makes for good training.

Classic Lever Guns

This excellent post from Brigid got me thinking lever guns.


So here are my three: Top to bottom, a Winchester Model 94 in .30-30 (pre-1964, of course), a Marlin 1894 in .357 which has been mentioned here all too often before, and a Henry .22 that I've also boasted about.

The Winchester was once that I found in a shop some years back, in such bad shape that the owner was about to break it up for parts. I got it cheap and spent the time and effort to find the appropriate replacement parts and it cleaned up good and returned to action suitably reliably enough that I now consider it one of my backpacking rifles, carrying it afield for enjoyment and self-defense. Now it's been joined in that role by the Marlin, which has the advantage of my also having pistols in .357 Magnum, which allow me to carry a common cartridge for both while benefiting from the size of the pistol and the range and increased power of the rifle. I always backpack camp with a rifle and these days I lean towards the lever guns as they don't scare the wanna-be druid eco-freaks and assorted bunny-huggers that one meets on the trails. They see a black rifle and they get all upset, but a wood-stocked lever gun? Few people have an issue with those, even though they hit just as hard and shoot just as fast as an AR-15.

The Henry's just a fun little plinker that I enjoy playing with. I also used it to teach my nephew The Spud to shoot, and it was worth buying it for that alone. Like the other two rifles, it was defective when I bought it on impulse at a local pawn shop, but a simple phone call to the company got it a trip back to the factory for a complete rebuild at no cost to me, even though it was just a used .22. I'll tout Henry Repeating Arms' customer service every chance I get.

I like my lever guns. They're light, feel good in the hand and at the shoulder, and they balance well. Also, a good shooter can keep topping off the mag tube while firing, often preventing the rifle from ever running empty. They also evoke memories of the old-school movie heroes, men like John Wayne, James Stewart, Richard Widmark, and Randolph Scott. Even real heroes like Audie Murphy and Ronald Reagan toted these rifles across the silver screen at times. Lever guns have an aura of class and history that few other firearms can claim, and that's why even though I have my choice of modern semi-auto rifles, I prefer a lever gun on my hikes afield; they're what real men carry.

Success! Marlin 1894 is operational again.

So I went out to the range today and test-fired my Marlin Model 1894 .357 Magnum lever-action--the one with the design-flaw-caused problem that I've written about here and here.

I'm happy to announce that it passed a 120-round test without a single hiccup, firing magazine tubes of .357 Magnum rounds, .38 Special rounds, and combinations of both loaded together.

I finally feel confident to start carrying it afield on my hiking and backpacking forays along with my Smith and Wesson Model 66.


It's kind of nice to have a rifle/pistol combo that utilizes the same cartridges and I do love these two guns.

And of course, it would hardly be a shooting day without some contact with the range nazi--I mean the range master. He came over as I was finishing up and pointed out the brand new signs posted that say "No Rapid Fire Or Double Taps."

Sigh.

I told him that I practice "sustained fire", not "rapid fire" (whatever that is) and pointed out the fact that all of my shots landed nicely on the targets where they were aimed. I also explained that I do not shoot "double taps". I practice failure-to-stop drills in which I shoot two to the chest and one to the head...a "triple tap", if you will. And since the sign doesn't seem to ban those...

He still says that I need to slow it down. Or else. Some people just suck all of the fun out of the air.

Still, I don't think that I shoot all that fast. I mean, it's not as if I'm Lucas McCain or anything...


(But I'm working on it.)

Jigsaw puzzles can be fun

Or they can be quite vexing, especially if the "puzzle" in question is a Marlin Model 1894 lever-action carbine like the one that I took apart to replace a bad carrier due to a Marlin design flaw. It's even more fun when you reassemble it and find a part on your workbench that you absolutely don't recognize as ever having come out of that rifle.

Whoops. Cue the clown music. Now take it back apart and figure out where that mystery part* goes.

I did finally get it back together after about twenty minutes of fumbling, though, and bonus points: it functions! Now I'll just have to wait for the next range day to test it out.

Once again: Thanks for nothing, Marlin.


* said part was subsequently identified as a "locking bolt", and like the carrier I was replacing, it's another one of those "restricted" parts that Marlin would have refused to sell me had I lost this one and needed to order a new one. That's the main reason that you should buy Henry or Winchester rifles when you're in the market for a lever gun.

Thanks for nothing, Marlin Firearms.

So I've been having problems with my Marlin Model 1894 .357 Magnum lever-action rifle. When working the action, sometimes the carrier allows a second shell to leave the magazine tube partially during operation, binding the action completely with a jam that cannot be corrected in the field. This is apparently known to lever-gun enthusiasts as the dreaded "Marlin jam". This jam and it's fix are described on this helpful page.

Well I called Marlin to get another carrier to replace the one that's obviously worn and damaged from the sharp edge that they at the Marlin factory left on the cam edge of the lever when they built the gun initially. It's clearly a design flaw--their fault.

Not only do they not want to send the replacement parts out at no cost, but they don't want to send them to me at all. It turns out, per the girl who my call was transferred to at Marlin, that gun parts are considered "restricted" and only available to actual federal firearms licensees(FFL)--gun dealers.

I thought that she was mistaken at first. Whole firearms or firearms receivers--the serial-numbered part--are restricted per federal law, but simple non-serial-numbered parts?

Not by law, it turns out, but by Marlin's own policy. The carrier assembly is restricted; customers can't buy one. Hammers are restricted, triggers are restricted...you get the idea. If you own a Marlin rifle, you're not getting repair parts for it, at least not from Marlin. Seriously, what other gun company does asinine stuff like that?

So now I have a rifle that's down and no easy way to get the "fix-it" parts without going through a gun shop. And what makes it worse is that the failure is MARLIN'S FAULT! This is a common defect in their guns according to the lever-gun folks I've been talking to, and Marlin knows it as well as anyone. Yet they won't fix it without charging me substantially nor will they send me the parts so that I can fix it.

This stands in stark contrast to the wonderful customer service that I got from their competitor, Henry Repeating Arms Co., when I had a problem with a used Henry that I'd bought from a pawn shop. Henry took care of that problem like few other businesses would have and I sing their praises and recommend their products to this day.

Marlin...not so much. In fact, Marlin just went up on my "Do not buy from" list, right alongside Colt Firearms.

Shame on you, Marlin. And screw you, too. I will get that part, but I will not get another Marlin product.

A fine range day

OK, it was seriously cold out there, but that just meant that I had the range to myself.

This time, I went out with my old reliable Smith and Wesson Model 66 .357 revolver and my newest acquisition--a Marlin 1894 rifle chambered for the same caliber.
Now many years ago, I had a .357 Magnum rifle and pistol combo comprised of that same revolver and a Rossi lever-action rifle that I'd bought from a friend. I spent a fantastic summer roaming the mountains of Colorado with that pair, and it was great to be able to just plink around with light .38 Special loads from either one, or fire some serious .357 Magnum heat downrange if the situation called for it. And standardizing the rifle and pistol meant that I only had to pack two types of ammo--light loads and heavy loads--and while they were completely interchangeable between the two firearms, the longer barrel of the rifle really brought out maximum performance from the cartridges, boosting the muzzle velocity and effective range significantly. The pistol was concealable and convenient in it's holster or next to my bedroll at night (often actually inside my sleeping bag) and the rifle gave me enhanced power and accuracy at longer ranges.

Sadly, I sold that rifle years ago after having a falling-out with the friend that I'd bought it from. And of course that was around the time when these rifles became popular with the Cowboy Action shooters and prices shot up on the few that you could still find on the market. Then the ambulance-chasing tort lawyers convinced the firearms industry that even lever guns should have safety catches so the gun companies all started making these rifles with ugly--and unnecessary--safeties that did little more than destroy the clean lines of these slim and graceful guns. (Seriously, the rifles have external hammers that can be lowered until just prior to firing. That's all the safety that a competent shooter needs on a firearm like this.) I vowed that I would never buy a lever gun with a safety and I meant it. I'd always meant to get a replacement .357 Magnum rifle (without a safety) but could never find an affordable one at a time when I had the money in hand until just recently. A neighbor had a few guns that he was looking to sell, and damned if one of them wasn't a .357 magnum rifle.

So I snapped it up at a more-than-fair price and took it home. I cleaned it and oiled it and waited for a day like this when I could take it out and put it through it's paces. And it definitely did not disappoint. I zeroed it at 25 yards then moved it out and set it up with a 100 yard zero and after a bit of adjustment to the rear sight with a hammer to drift it to where it should have been from where it was, it's dead nuts accurate and will put ten .357 rounds on target as quick as I can work the lever.

And just for grins, after shooting my standard self-defense practice course on the 25 yard range with the revolver, I tried it on the 100 yard range along with the rifle and was quite pleased to find out that I could keep almost every round within a six-inch circle at that distance. It wasn't quite as accurate as the rifle at that range, but I'm confident that I can put consistent torso hits on person-sized targets at that distance, and that's not something I'd try to do with the typical 9mm or .45 pistol.

Of course the .357 Magnum was made to deliver more performance at longer ranges than the typical pistol caliber; that's what it's for. And that's why if I had to choose between all of my pistols and could only take one with me for the rest of my life, it'd probably be this Model 66, just because it's so versatile and because it's built solidly enough that it will probably outlast me.

So once again, I'm set up with a reliable and effective rifle/pistol combo that I can go back into the high country with. Perhaps this summer will see another backpacking trip and for reasons I've previously explained, these two guns will accompany me, just like the old days. AR-15's are great, but when it's time to hike the mountains, nothing beats a good lever-action rifle/revolver combo.