Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Anyone know when Marlin is going to start making 1894 lever guns in 44mag again?

The used gun prices for this rifle are getting silly.

They said the first quarter of this year. And it was supposed to be the 1894 SBL.
Don't expect it to lower prices though.
The Ruger 1895s are selling for $3000

Dunno, but I read a review of the new 1895 yesterday that said they started with that because it was a top (maybe the top) seller for the previous maker. They will show up, but personally I want them to get them right, not rush them out the door. All the stuff I’ve read seems to indicate they’re taking care to do just that, which is smart. The Remlin line never quite got over the bad press and user experience with the early, seriously flawed examples.

Might be time to sell mine. !977 one.

I’m looking forward to a stainless SBL in 357 mag!

Well, if they make it again with a .431 barrel for a .429 round they can keep them all. The one I bought a few years ago was the worst shooting rifle I ever owned. Somebody there had their head up their a55 when they decided on that barrel.

Interesting. That is the first I have heard about the barrel being a poor design choice...but I have not had a lot of experience shooting them. Were all the 44mag 1894s fitted with that barrel? Even the microgroove ones? Or was that a ballard rifling choice Remlin made later after they switched off the microgroove ones? Or before Remlin maybe?

I have a stainless 1894 JM Marlin for sale.......

Never. Ruger might make something along them lines and call it a Marlin .

I could be interested in an 1894 in the right chambering if it were blued/walnut but they can keep that stainless/laminated threaded barrel crap as far as I'm concerned.

Ruger could put curb feelers on the sumbitch and it’d beat the dog turds Marlin was putting out towards the end….

I'll have to agree with that. I'm in a bit of a pickle over that very issue, having a bunch of .429 bullets and wanting to reload for a Marlin rifle.

I sold my JM stamped 44 mag Marlin 1894 (ballard rifling) for its poor accuracy ( 0.4315" groove diameter). It really isn't Marlin's fault-but rather SAAMI's. There are two SAAMI specs for 44 mag firearms: PISTOLS have a SAAMI spec of 0.429" groove diameter. RIFLES have a 0.431" groove diameter.

To me this is absolutely stupid, PARTICULARLY since the 44 mag is a relatively new chambering from the 1950's- not to mention "just because" this round would likely be used in both rifle and pistols. SAAMI needs to rectify this, and standardize to ONE groove diameter: 0.429".

Just hope Ruger makes their 44 mag version with a 0.429" groove diameter.

Twist rate will be another big issue.
1 in 38 was the dumbest thing ever.
Make them a 1 in 20

If Marlin agreed to follow SAAMI specs knowing the barrels would be too large making them inaccurate, it is their fault. That’s just stupidity and is probably costing them a lot of money. I’ve never looked for specs on the other 44 mag rifles, like the Rem 788 or Ruger whatever it was but wonder if they used the same specs for their barrels.

I tried a lot of different bullet and powder combinations, cast and jacketed and couldn’t get anything to shoot consistently better than 3 inches at 50 yards. Oh, and I have a .432 sizer die and was powder coating the bullets to make them as large as I could but apparently couldn’t make them big enough And this was with open sights, two different scopes and playing with different bag positions off my shooting bench. My S&W 29 would easily outshoot the Marlin and I’m not a good pistol shot. This was not a micro groove barrel but it had the shallowest rifling I’ve ever seen.

On the flip side, it is the reason I now own a CVA Cascade in 450 Bushmaster so there was good that came out of the Marlin.

I’m glad it’s gone…

My distributor says it's going to be 336 next, 39 then possibly 94.
Gonna stomp henry.
The quality of the new one is amazing. Sub MOA with federal fusion.

Wait...this is the first optimistic news I have heard about this. It makes sense they start with the 336...and it occurs to me that back in the late 1970s or early 1980s they did chamber that model in 44mag for a short time (I wonder what the barrel diameter on that one was?). I will have to do some of that "online research" everyone seems to do.

Still like the look of the 1894, though. I always preferred that to the Winchester lever guns as well, and it was the first deer rifle I ever used. Something about the Henry makes me think it isn't as robust as Marlin, but that is almost certainly only my imagination, and I have never really shot Henrys more than a few times. But Marlin is sure going to have to recapture some of the market share that Henry has taken from them...which is what made me think to start this thread in the first place, since I figure the competition will drive the silly prices for lever guns down to earth.

In looking at various forums, it appears that there is more demand for a 1894 than a 336. .357 seems to be sought after more than the others.

.357's have always been in short supply. Never could understand why they didn't make more of those.

This!