Does this rifle exist?

[Jason]

After experience shooting the CLA matches with the rifle that I happened to have, I'm thinking about getting one that is actually good for what I'm trying to use it for. The rifle that I currently have is a Marlin 336 saddle ring carbine in 30-30 Win, with a skinny little 20-inch barrel and straight grip. This straight-stocked rifle with the short sight radius barrel that gets really hot by the end of rams, while probably great for its intended use in a saddle scabbard, has highlighted the need for certain characteristics in its replacement. Here are the ones that come to mind, in rough order from most to least priority. The last few are obviously more "nice to have" but not really important.

• Suitable cartridge for CLAS: I would prefer 30-30 as I already have the dies/brass/bullets, but might consider something like 357 Mag that I can also use for pistol cartridge matches once I decide if it could be reliable on rams.
• Longer barrel: It needs to be least 24" but longer is better, for both longer sight radius and slower wobble.
• Pistol grip stock: I very much prefer pistol grip stocks, as it gives me more control in pulling the rifle into my shoulder with my trigger hand.
• Solid top for scope mounting: I do load testing with a 20X target scope, benchrest gear, and a chronograph, so I need to be able to mount the scope solidly so drilled and tapped would be nice, too.
• Octagon/heavy barrel: This is both for weight hanging out front to slow the wobble and to slow the heating of the barrel that distorts sight picture.
• Full-length magazine: The more weight I have hanging out front the better.
• Reputation for reliability and accuracy: I don't mind spending time/money making it better, but don't want to spend a lot of time making it work at all.
• No barrel band: I have no need for such a bane of accuracy and proof of a bad design that needs to hang on the barrel to keep from falling apart.
• Drilled and tapped for receiver sight: I generally dislike things close to my eye on centerfire rifles and have an extra Redfield 75 to use, so leaning away from using a tang sight. I'm buying it to shoot, not collect or stare at, so I have no problem with drilling and tapping whatever I buy.
• Eligible for C&R FFL: This is not really all that important, but would save me a fair amount of money and hassle in shipping in this state that enforces sales tax charge on price and shipping by FFLs.

So... for all you out there who have way more experience in this game than I do, does the rifle that I'm looking for exist? If so, what is it? If not, what's out there that comes close to this? I have the need for a new toy and the turkey and ram legs of a grand slam.

Edit: I refined the priority order a bit. I'd say that the first four are pretty much required.

[Bob259]

Win 94 with the long octagon barrel, you can pick them up for aroung $600 or so if you watch, have seen them as low as $450 new. It's a straight stock, I like the pistol grip also and they do make one, not sure of the model number right now.

[boats]

Not absolute but as a general rule "A" in a Marlin means full rifle. My 30/30 36A has Pistol grip stock, Half magazine, 24 inch barrel, no barrel band. It weighs more than Carbines by about a 1/2 pound all on the front end. They are drilled and taped for Receiver sights. 36's and early 336A's have nice triggers too. Newer 336A’s may be tapped for scopes. 36A’s are not.
Full Rifle Marlins have excellent accuracy potential. Lot of other rifle options, long Marlins are the ones to have.

Best have 3 rifles for the 3 classes

Boats

[Jason]

Bob,

Those Winchester 94s don't have solid tops to mount scopes, do they? Also, I have seen them with straight stocks but I don't think I've come across one with a pistol grip stock. The pistol grip is definitely required and the solid top, or at least the ability to easily and solidly mount a scope is pretty close to required. I had them roughly in priority order before. I'll go back up and edit the original post now that I've thought about it more to be more specific.

Boats,

How heavy is the barrel on those old Marlin 36A and 336A rifles? That might fit the bill, especially since there's a decent likelihood of them being C&R eligible.

[jnyork]

I have two 336a's, a 30-30 and a .32 Special, both made in 1950. 24" barrels, half magazine and a little heavy out front, just right for me, pistol grip stock. I think they will be about as close as you will get to your ideal. You can get a really nice one for around 350-400 if you keep your eyes open.

[boats]

Jason I will weigh mine tomorrow Think the rifle weighs 8 lbs. I shoot it off thumb and forefingers, Thumb on the lever were it turns from Trigger guard to lever. Forefingers on the very rear of the forearm right where it joins the receiver. Held this way its very muzzle heavy

I used to have a Model 1895 Marlin 45/70 Cowboy, rifle weighed less than this 36A though. New Octagon barrel Marlins are nice but the 45/70 just kicks too hard for long match good results. 38/55's in Cowboy configuration are nice but very expensive used double or triple 36 or 336 A's. Some Marlin Cowboys shoot good others don't. 38/55 specs are all over the place and you have to play around with bullets and cases to get one to shoot well. Guy in our club has one in 38/55 that’s dialed in and has very good results. He also owns my old 45/70 cowboy but rarely shoots it in favor of the 38/55. Side by side they are identical. Smaller hole 38 weighs more and with less recoil makes a world of difference.

Equipment list from Raton this year pretty much tells the story

EQUIPMENT SURVEY LISTING - COWBOY - LEVER ACTION RIFLE
GUN MANUFACTURER
MARLIN 64
WINCHESTER 37
UBERTI 4
ROSSI 3
PUMA 1
CALIBER
30-30 59
357 13
38-55 13
32 SPECIAL 5
45-70 4
25-35 3
44 MAG 3
35 REM 2
44-40 2
45 COLT 2
308 1
32 WIN 1
32-40

Boats

[cslcAl]

Jason, After reading your list one rifle that I can think of is a Winchester Theodore Roosevelt commemorative. The only drawback for you is the lack of top scope mounting. Just a tip, I do all my load testing with a six o clock hold on a SR 1 target at 50 yds. Even with peep or open sights I have shot some remarkable groups this way. I am currently using a Winchester Lone Star. It is similar to the TR but has a half octagon half round barrel with a half magazine. I do also like the pistol grip. Al Foust

[Dee]

Are you saying that any purchases you make online or out of state that are shipped to you via your FFL gets taxed by the state at the amount you paid for the rifle and the shipping charges too? If so, Ouch! I just go by my FFL's house to do the paperwork and give him a $20 for the service when I pick up transfers.

Dee

[dustinflint]

Jason,

The Marlin 336XLR meets all of your first four requirements. It's made for accuracy - a great rifle for this game and readily available. The 336A with the 24 inch barrel and half-magazine is basically the same rifle as the 336XLR but the XLR is stainless with laminate stocks and the 336A in blue steel with regular wood stocks. My dad has two 336A's and they are excellent for this game.

Just to let you know, I have a rifle that meets all of your requirements and it is sweet but I dont shoot it any better than the XLR or the 336A's.

Dustin

[boats]

One of the Marlin 45/70's on the Raton Equipment list belongs to a very good shooter from a neighboring club who also shoots our matches. His Marlin is the 336 XTR 1/2 Magazine SS Laminate stock. I watch him shoot couple times a month. Rifle performs flawlessly; if it was a 30/30 I am pretty sure his scores would be higher. As it is he's always a contender even with the 45

CLA more than the other silhouette disciplines it’s the Indian not the Arrow. But you do need a good arrow.

Boats

[PhxShooter]

Jason,

IMHO the rifle that comes the closest to what you want is the Marlin 336CB. 24" octagon bbl, full length mag tube, 30-30, BUT a straight stock. They are great to do trigger jobs on. Mine are all under 1lb and they hold that nicely. These are hard to come by and expensive $1,000+ but they do appear once in a while on GunBroker.com or GunsAmerica.com. Marlin did make the 336CB with the pistol grip but I've only seen ONE factory manufactured rifle in that configuration.

You could buy the 336CB and switch the butt stock, lever and trigger guard plate with a pistol grip 336 and make a pistol grip 336CB. It would of course require some fitting but would be legal for competition since they were manufactured in that configuration. LOT of work and money but......

The 336XLR (pre-Remington) is a great gun but for me the round barrel isn't heavy enough even though it's 24".

Just a thought.

[GabbyJs]

I have a Marlin Cowboy 336 in .30-30. It's a nice gun except for one feature. It has a bore that will not shoot .308 diameter bullets. I must use .310 diameter bullets to get any accuracy at all. As a result, I can only get about 1900 fps using gas checks, and still maintain accuracy for the rams. Our rams at our club are quite stubborn, and I have left 5 or more standing at times. Keep that in mind if you are going to spend about a $1000 for one.

[Jason]

IMHO the rifle that comes the closest to what you want is the Marlin 336CB. 24" octagon bbl, full length mag tube, 30-30, BUT a straight stock. They are great to do trigger jobs on. Mine are all under 1lb and they hold that nicely. These are hard to come by and expensive $1,000+ but they do appear once in a while on GunBroker.com or GunsAmerica.com. Marlin did make the 336CB with the pistol grip but I've only seen ONE factory manufactured rifle in that configuration.

You could buy the 336CB and switch the butt stock, lever and trigger guard plate with a pistol grip 336 and make a pistol grip 336CB. It would of course require some fitting but would be legal for competition since they were manufactured in that configuration. LOT of work and money but......

My own interpretation of the rule is that the stock has to stay as the original configuration of that rifle as it originally came from the factory, not the configuration of other rifles of the same model may have come. I don't really have a problem with someone else using your interpretation, but I wouldn't do it myself. That said, I've never seen one of the 336CB rifles with a pistol grip stock and wasn't aware that they ever came that way. I have fairly limited experience when it comes to centerfire cowboy rifles, though, which is why I started this thread.

[PhxShooter]

Jason,

The exact wording of the rule for the CLA Rifle is:

"Any lever action rifle .25 caliber or larger with a tubular magazine of original manufacture or a replica thereof........" The rifle as I described would, IMO certainly qualify as a replica. Again though, it would require a lot of expense and work. Not something I was willing to try just to get a pistol grip. Before Remington bought out Marlin, you could send your 20" round bbl Marlin 336 back to Marlin and they would convert it into a 24" CB for under $200.00 + they sent you back all the original parts. A friend of mine got the last one they did. When Remington took over, that stopped. It all comes down to how much money are you willing to spend to get what you want/need?

I agree that the 336CB does not shoot CAST bullets well without gas checks even though it has Ballard rifling. It does, however, shoot jacketed bullets very well and I've shot my way into Master class with mine.

In answer to your original question "Does this rifle exist?" I'm pretty sure the answer is "No" but the 336CB is about as close as you're going to come.

Good luck in your search.

[Jason]

I think I may be pretty well suited by one of the older 336A rifles. The extra 4" of barrel which seems to be slightly heavier than the saddle ring carbine version I used yesterday, pistol grip, and ability to add a recoil pad to get a longer length of pull should do nicely. Shooting the little carbine yesterday made me think that I really only needed a bit more weight out front and a little more sight radius. The newer 336XLR rifles look pretty nice, but they are a lot more expensive than the 336A rifles even if a bit more available. The fact that the 336XLRs come with a recoil pad is actually bad for me, as I need a longer length of pull than most. The 336CB models seem to be slightly hit-or-miss when it comes to accuracy, which is concerning for a $1000+ rifle.

My little carbine also obviously got scared of being replaced, as yesterday it shot a 36/40 in the morning match and a 33/40 in the afternoon match. Both should have been 38s, as I was using a load for CPT that was too wimpy to take down the pigs and turkeys reliably. I actually spun/rang two turkeys in the first match and four turkeys and one pig in the second match. I was pretty crushed when I hit all 10 turkeys (verified by witnesses) and only 6 of them fell. I still need turkeys and rams for my grand slam, too. From last month's testing, it seemed like those 110gr FMJ bullets over a full case of Trail Boss would take the pigs and turkeys fine, and they didn't get anywhere close to heating up that little barrel. I didn't have a lot of options, though. I guess that's what I get for waiting until the last minute and loading ammo the night before the match, though, since I had to make do with whatever bullets and powder I had on hand.

I really expected to be bitten by the ram load I chose, as I had never tried it before sight-in before the match. I was very pleasantly surprised by it, though. It was a 150gr Rem Core-Lokt bullet over 36 grains of CFE223 that I just pulled out of the Hodgdon online load data, using 36.0 since they listed 36.8 as max. I got 9/10 rams in each match and the misses were problems with the shooter, not the load. Those that I hit fell hard, too, even the ones that hit low in the body. Those ugly old Remington bullets that I bought 10+ years ago and never got around to using are evidently some tough old things. The guys watching me shoot couldn't believe that I was using 150s. I was thinking of going with 170s but never got around to buying them. I may just get some more of these. I don't really know if the ones that I can buy today would be the same as those old ones.

Oh well... Yesterday was the last centerfire cowboy rifle match of the year, so I have a few months to figure out my plan for next year. At this point, I think the only three things left to figure out are CPT load, ram load, and rear sight. If you know of anyone looking, I have a 336RC carbine that might be finding a new home if I don't decide to keep it just in case my daughter wants to step up and shoot centerfire cowboy matches.