Newbie seeks advice on rifle and calibre choice

I am a newbie to cowboy lever action but I have been shooting small bore rimfire hunter class and having great fun. Unfortunately there isn’t much quality second hand in lever rifles here in Australia but we do have the usual range of Marlins, Puma, Rossi’s, Chiappa and even Uberti’s when buying brand new. For the pistol class category it seems that a 32/20 is most popular in used guns but the 357 is the preferred in the new guns. I wanted something to have fun with without too much recoil or cost.

The difficulty is in choosing rifles. I assume that a longer barrel is best in terms of accuracy and velocity or am I misinformed? I notice in a 357 type cartridge you can get a blued Marlin with 20” barrel but the stainless are only 18.5” in length. There are however Rossi’s and the like with 20” stainless barrel, some brands even go longer. How do the cheaper rifles compare in accuracy, quality and longevity compared to the marlins? And does the longer barrel make that much difference. I would really prefer to go for a stainless lever gun because of where I live and my usual tardiness in cleaning rifles.

Final question, I wanted to ask about sights, do any of these rifles have particularly better sights or are you allowed to change or modify these within the rules?

Any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Craig

aliascraig wrote:...........The difficulty is in choosing rifles. I assume that a longer barrel is best in terms of accuracy and velocity or am I misinformed? I notice in a 357 type cartridge you can get a blued Marlin with 20” barrel but the stainless are only 18.5” in length. There are however Rossi’s and the like with 20” stainless barrel, some brands even go longer. How do the cheaper rifles compare in accuracy, quality and longevity compared to the marlins? And does the longer barrel make that much difference. I would really prefer to go for a stainless lever gun because of where I live and my usual tardiness in cleaning rifles.

Final question, I wanted to ask about sights, do any of these rifles have particularly better sights or are you allowed to change or modify these within the rules?

Any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Craig

Welcome Craig. The longer barrels give you a better sight picture, 24" is my preference, but with the old eyes I sometimes wish they were longer yet ;)
Here most people use Layman 17A front globe sights with a post and for the rear a Williams or Layman with the target kobs for easy adjustment. The .357 is a great choice for the pistol cartridge, straight wall easy to load and components are easy to get, the 32/20 (which I also have) is great also, but I have had to wait for bullets and cases as they seem to be on Back Order alot.

Ask some of the folks at the range there as there are a lot of people using lead bullets there Vs copper jacketed. That will ease your cleaning.
Again, Welcome and enjoy!!

Bob,

Thanks for that. I will see what I can find but it seems all of the respectable manufacturers seem to limit it to 20" barrels. It looks like I will need to dig a little further to see what I can get in the used market or try my luck with some of the inferior brands.

Regards,
Craig

G'Day
I tend to agree with Bob about the .357. Even though I don't own one they are the best P/C option in the new guns. I use a 32/20 mostly but also have 3 other P/C legal rifles. Rossi make a 24" model and I've had a shot with one and they are pretty good. Anyway it's good to see another shooter in our fold and we hope to see you at a CLAS shoot soon. Don't forget the Nationals in Melbourne on 27 april.
Juddy

I've got a Rossi in 357 with a 24 inch barrell that I use for PC. Accurate and a nice slick action. I started with using factory ammo (MagTech blueline) and it shot very well. Nice looking gun also with the heat treatment on the metal parts.
ppkny

Guys.

Thanks for the information.

I will look further to see what I can get in 24". I would have preferred to get a marlin but in 24" that seems impossible. Looks like I may need to opt for another make or find one of the rare 24" Marlins.

Many thanks in return.

Regards,

Craig.

aliascraig wrote:Guys.
or find one of the rare 24" Marlins.

In Australia....good luck . They do exist but you'll only find one in a chance encounter, if you do, grab it and send it to me . I tried and then realised pretty soon that if I wanted to start shooting before the next decade, in pistol cal there are only a few 24" options.

1. A 24" Rossi (I have one in 357, yet to shoot something good out of it but hopefully this weekend)
2. A Winchester 92 in 25-20 or 32-20. You can find them with 24" octagonal or round barrels. Many of the barrels have up to a hundred years on them so the condition varies from, for all intents, f%6ked, to surprisingly good to excellent. Watch out for the rebarrels because technically I think you may strike problems if you want to play within the rules. Barrel lining is legal but then you start to sink $$ into it so might as well just get a rossi. But the charm isn't there.
3. Hope that the gods are smiling on you and you find a nice Marlin. Honestly, they are out there you just have to find them. I missed a 32-20 the other day. Sad times
4. Get a 20" rifle. Nothing wrong with these either. A few options here.
Get something to shoot in the short term and then, down the track if anything better comes up decide then if you want to upgrade. Chances are you'll probably keep shooting what you have.

But get into it, it's a good fun match.

Thanks again. I have been looking and I guess that I will look until I get sick and tired and get something else in the mean time. But thanks all for your advice.

Kind Regards,

Craig.

Ok then I have had a bit of look around and it looks like I will have to wait too long until something comes up in the secondhand market around here.

So to buy a new PC gun it looks like I have a few options;
1. a New Chiappa 1892 357 in 20" barrel
2. a New Puma 92, apparently made by Chiappa, 1892 in 24" octagonal
3. A new Marlin 1894 357mag in 18 1/2 or cowboy in 20" barrel

Is it really that much better to switch to a 24" barrel over the 20" barrel? I have shot a 20" but never a 24" and am not sure if this will help much or does this help with the better picture sight? Are we allowed to fit rear tang sights to the 1894 copies and are they made for all of the after-market brands? When I checked out the marbles website they only seem to mention the classics and not the Chiappas or Puma rifles.

Are the Pumas as bad as some people say? I don't know if the new Pumas made by Chiappa are any different to the original Chiappa rifles? I have not held a Puma or 24" let alone shot one, need to order and pay for one before getting it. I have used a Chiappa and Marlin and both seem slick and nice. They seem to have good feedback.

Just needed to ask all of these questions since I wanted to buy and try and setup a gun as I am not that close to my local metallic silhouette range.

Many thanks in return.

Craig.

Craig,

Since no one has answered your question, I'll add my experiences and opinion. I've only been shooting PC for one season, so take my words in that light. I tried to find a 24" Marlin, but gave up. So I bought an 1894C, figuring it would allow me to compete until something better came along. Since then I've come to the realization that I probably won't be able to afford a longer barreled rifle, even if I did find one. I'm not interested in the Uberti or other Italian-made rifles, they might be fine, I'm just not interested. So for the foreseeable future I will continue to shoot my carbine. But I don't think it's a big compromise, at least not at my current skill level. Soon I will be adding a Marble's tang sight which will add at least 8 inches to the sight radius—that should help some, how much I don't know. The one thing you can't improve on the 1894C is its lack of weight at the barrel end. But I think a person can adapt to whatever they are shooting. My 1894C shoots very well, if I'm having a good day it can make all the shots touch at 40 meters. I would recommend the 1894C as a fine rifle for the game. I would try to find an older one rather than the new ones made by Remington though.

Tancred

You're asking alot of the right questions. As to barrel length, I don't think 20" is a serious handicap. The benefit from increased sight radius is miniscule. The 24s balance a bit better I think and the front sight is farther away which is helpful for some people. Your biggest concern will be finding an acceptably accurate load that's easy on you and the targets. I wouldn't worry about barrel length until you become competitive in AAA or Master.

buying a new rifle can be a gamble and I've had my share of problems. I own both a 24" Marlin 1894 and a Chiappa/ Win.1892 in .357. The Marlin is pretty good but does not feed smoothly. Because It works well enough for silhouette, I never seriously tried to fix it. This gun prefers jacketed bullets over Unique or similar powder. The Chiappa '92 is a different animal. It does better with cast and seems to like IMR4227 or 2400. The Chiappa also had a minor feed issue which was easy to fix. The bigger problem was that the extractor failed right away so I elected to fabricate my own replacement. Incidentally, The Chiappa is apparently made to non-metric spec., so the Marbles tang sight for the original Win. '92 fits and the second screw hole is already there. Mine did't go high enough for 100m with my mild loads so I put a 1/8" spacer under it.

I've been using both receiver and tang sights and so far haven't decided if one is superior. I prefer to choose the one that's easiest to put on the rifle. Stock style might matter significantly. The Marlins are pretty user friendly but the old crescent butts can be a problem. At least for me they are. You should get a rifle that you can handle first before buying.

I hope some of this helps.

I have to dissagree with Bwake when he says, " As to barrel length, I don't think 20" is a serious handicap. The benefit from increased sight radius is miniscule. . Having shot both long and short barrels in 357 caliber it makes a big difference especially at the Rams where with a short barrel a small move in the sight picture makes a huge difference at point of impact. Go for the longer barrel.
ppkny

Thanks for questioning that Pete. I think I should back up what I said.

Consider a 20" bbl rifle with a receiver sight giving a sight radius of about 24". Also consider aiming with a .010" sight misalignment. .010" is about the thickness of a business card. Given that we're looking at concentric circles and that the eye is very good at detecting misalignments, most folks should be able to notice that much error in their sight picture. Now, the ratio of the rear sight height to the sight radius is going to be equal to the ratio of the shot displacement on target to the distance to the target. It helps to think of proportionally-sized triangles here.

Using the distance of 100yd. (in inches), using the .010" sight error and calling the target impact error "x", you can set up these two ratios as a simple algebraic equation and solve for "x". For the 20" bbl, I get an impact shift of 1.5". Doing the same thing for a 24" bbl, I get an impact shift of 1.29". Going further, you can add a tang sight for another 3" of sight radius. The math then works out to a shift of 1.16".

We're talking precision improvements of a fraction of an inch. This all seems to jibe with my personal shooting experience. Is this going to matter much on a 16 inch long target at 109 yards? I don't think so.

- Brian Wakefield

Bwake, Thanks for explaining the math behind your suggestions. I stand corrected, but why are most shooters looking for the longer barrels, maybe just personel choice.
ppkny

Pete to answer your question with my equasion. Longer barrel= Balance.

Al