A significant part of my shooting growing up was done on lever guns. Most of my training as a kid was on a 9422, and I killed more rabbits, coons, foxes, bobcats, and yotes than I can count between it and the Model 94 trapper that I picked up later on in .357. This photo was taken 20 years ago on one of my last hunting/camping trips on my grandparent’s place before I left for college. Hard to believe looking back that it’s been so long or life was ever so simple:
Recently I’ve been back on a pistol caliber Marlin kick. I inherited my late uncle’s .41 Marlin which I’ve been loading for, and also picked up one of the new 10mm guns a few weeks ago. I think I’ve already figured out how to mod the feeding system to take the much more powerful 10mm Mag loads that I shoot in my long barreled S&W 610. More to report there at some point when the reamer finds its way deeper into the chamber. Right now it’s shooting my hot 10mm 180gr handloads at over 1500fps.
Over the years I’ve gathered up 92s, 86s, 71s, and Win 1895 rifles, along with some of their very nice browning reproductions (not a fan of the newer tang safety Wins, but the earlier Brownings are wonderful rifles).
My all time favorite might still be my 1915-production 1895 Takedown in .30 US (.30-40). I hunted it the North Carolina swamp country with it before I moved out west, but never got one of the 220gr round noses into anything warm.
