357 rifle's

[Pacific5th]

My next purchase will be a 357 rifle. Although the Ruger 77/357 is nice I am leaning more towards a lever action. I have been looking around the net and it looks like Henry Big Boy steel, Marlin 1894 and possibly Rossi 92 make my list. What can you guys tell me about those three, pro's and con's.
Thanks,
Kevin

[Roland the Headless]

I have always wanted a .357 marlin lever action. it has micro groove barrel. that rifle shoots like pointing your finger

[Doug Helton]

I have both and both are accurate , the lever gun is not a convenient to load and unload as is the ruger magazine is and it's easy to get a good trigger in the ruger though the marlin "trigger flop" is fixable . I find the newer marlin safety a PITA and have removed mine while the ruger is a side swing that's handy . I like them both for different reasons , if I could only have one it would probably be the ruger for the reasons mentioned

[ron]

I have always wanted a .357 marlin lever action. it has micro groove barrel. that rifle shoots like pointing your finger

The older marlins are about the best you can get in a lever action .357. By older I mean the JM stamped guns made before The Cerebus corporation took over Remington and Marlin and fired all their skilled workers, quality control inspectors and customer service personnel. I am not exaggerating. I had to deal with both corporate and Remington customer service and repair shop and it was a living nightmare. The JM will be stamped on the barrel near the receiver.

I shot a late (mid to late 1990's) marlin stainless 1894FG (pistol grip) 41 magnum that belonged to one of the members here and I was shooting at a steel concrete form stake that was 2 inches wide at 100 yards and was actually able to hit that 2 inch target a couple of times at that distance with my poor vision. And I have an older Marlin 444 mag with a 22 inch barrel, pre-safety, that shoots beautifully with 270 and 300 grain Speer hot-cores, and a 300 grain bullet at 2100 FPS duplicates ballistics of the 405 Winchester, and I have chronographed mine at 2050 to 2075 which is very close. So my advice is to look for a Marlin but do not buy one of the newer ones that is not stamped JM.

Henry, on the other hand is a great company and is family owned and they are Gun people not corporate pencil-pushers. I wrote to Anthony Imperato, the president of Henry Arms a couple of years ago and urged him to come out with a 41 Magnum carbine and he wrote me back and said he had received many such requests from 41 magnum nuts like myself. then about a year later he emailed me again and said the 41 mag rifle was in production.

I wonder if he took the time to email everyone who wrote him about the 41 mag. I imagine he did, and I think that says a lot about the company and the man who owns it.

Also, the Rossi's are not bad guns and they cost less than a JM Marlin or a new Henry if you need to do any gunsmithing on one of them. They are basically a copy of a Winchester 1992 which is an XLNT design. Winchester is currently offering a version of the 1892 in 357 made by Miruku in Japan for a little over $1000 but for that price I'd rather get an older Browning BL92 that sells for the same price and doesn't have the added safety.

http://i65.tinypic.com/16i9snd.jpg

[ron]

I have both and both are accurate , the lever gun is not a convenient to load and unload as is the ruger magazine is and it's easy to get a good trigger in the ruger though the marlin "trigger flop" is fixable . I find the newer marlin safety a PITA and have removed mine while the ruger is a side swing that's handy . I like them both for different reasons , if I could only have one it would probably be the ruger for the reasons mentioned

Doug, Here is the BEST way to fix the marlin safety (See Link) so that it will never cause you any problems and it also makes the gun look a lot less stupid and in fact it makes the gun look downright cool and can even serve a purpose.

Also for loading convenience, I actually like the Henry that loads from the mag tube.

https://beartoothmercantile-2.myshopify ... ety-delete

[Doug Helton]

Ron you can buy a kit , which is what I did , that completely removes the safety and it just looks like a screw in the receiver when finished . I am not a saddle ring guy but if you are that looks pretty good as well . The push thru safety does work pretty good if you have a scope on your marlin , I just can't remember to push it off

[ron]

Ron you can buy a kit , which is what I did , that completely removes the safety and it just looks like a screw in the receiver when finished . I am not a saddle ring guy but if you are that looks pretty good as well . The push thru safety does work pretty good if you have a scope on your marlin , I just can't remember to push it off

Anyone can forget to push the safety off, and what CAN go wrong WLL go wrong, and at the worst possible moment, such as being charged by an angry wounded grizzly or Alaskan brown bear. That's when a "safety" can make a gun a lot LESS safe and can actually get you killed in a very painful and horrifying manner. The politicians and the lawyers who mandated these things never thought of that because they don't know Jack Sh!t about guns, or about the real world.