32/20 Marlin 1894 Ducks Unlimited

[Hooker53]

FourFingers, you have/had the very one I been chasing over here for the last few months. The Savage model 23. Don't know how they shoot but Kinda like the looks of that old gun. Starmac, I like to pull legs sometimes too. Wink. Lol. If it was a Real smooth bore, I would think it would bring a good price on the market as a one of a kind. Ha.

[starmac]

Belive it or not, there has been some rifles over the years delivered that were real smooth bores. Those that I have heard about were sent back for a new barrel, instead of keeping it as a screwed up, one of a kind. lol.

[Hooker53]

Yep. Ha. I had heard that years ago but didn't want to get into that. Just think if you were the one ghat had one and did not send it back in. I saw one and it was three times the price of the others. Ha.

[NVcurmudgeon]

Four Fingers, I have an 1894 CL in .32/20. It is a delightful little rifle. It was good fortune that I was able to buy it as "new old stock" when it was about nine years old and unfired. I have an old Redfield 2 3/4 scope on it and it will easily shoot into 1.5" @ 50 yd. and double that at 100 yd. I see this rifle as a walking around varmint gun. I load RCBS 98 SWC (plain base that also is used in a couple of old .32 revolvers) to about 1300 fps which is surely adequate within 100 yd. It took a little adjusting to get it feeding correctly with this bullet, but a little radical case trimming has it feeding nicely. This Marlin came with a very short throat.

[Four Fingers of Death]

That is a sweet outfit NV.

[Scharfschuetze]

Just bought this 1894CL 32/20 yesterday at the Puyallup gun show. I can find no evidence that it was ever fired. No carbon in the action or bore and no brass marks on the bolt face. Lubricant in the action was gummy and made the action very stiff until it was cleaned out. The bore looks (other than the rifling) as smooth as a baby's bottom.

I'm looking forward to developing some loads for it. Hopefully it will shoot my 32/20 revolver load well. First step in the project is to install a Lyman 66 aperture rear sight and a blade front sight and bring the sighting system into line with my other lever guns.

[SgtDog0311]

Nice find. Lot of fun casting for and shooting that caliber.

This 10-shot group is at 50yds out of a Marlin 1894 made in 1906 - with a tang sight. Took a while to get the plain base worked out but believe I'm there with an LBT 118gr over some IMR 4227. 2400 has worked well too. Only problem is how fast the cases empty themselves.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Little rifles and handguns do have a way of turning full ammo boxes into boxes of brass cases real easily.