Well, I waltz in to my local fun shop to shoot the sh*t with the owner, whos a friend. There on the rack is a Marlin 94 chambered for 44 Mag. Well, I've been wanting one of these for some time and decided to trade him out of it - I had a nice Remington M81 that I'd refinished the stock on (on account of it being water damamaged) and he took that in trade.

So, it came home with me - looked like this:



I cleaned it all up and the bore, while very dirty and needed cleaning is pristine. The action shows only minimal wear - it looks like it was only shot a few times - the action is still "new" feeling. I checked the age and its a 1990. Microgroove rifling.

Well, I've got two other Marlin pistol calibers .357 and 45 Colt. The later is a cowboy. Both have relatively slim handguards compared to the perchbelly on this one, so I decided a little work was in order.

I took it apart and cleaned everything thoroughly and applied my orbital sander to the handguard, removing the offensive swell. I had also ordered a new XS sight and a Montana sling from Brownells and those were promptly installed as well:



So, now its ready to go to the range! I hope it shoots good after all of that!

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Most of those Marlin 44's shoot very well. You have helped the looks of that rifle a huge amount. I don't like the "perch belly" fore end on Marlins, and I have removed it on several. Good find and a job well done. Thanks for the pic's.

Thanks. The gunsnet server is presently down- that's where the pic is hosted... hope everything is OK there!

Well, I got out to the range today and here's what I found:

Here's the target for 100 yards - 300 Grain XTPs:



As you can see, I was able to get a 2 3/8", 3 shot group out of it. This is much better than I expected for the heavy bullets and the 1:38" rifling.... and as you can see by the holes in the target, the bullets were stabalized - no yaw apparent. 21 grains of H110, CCI 350 primers and RP brass - 1500 fps book velocity. I adjusted the the sight to the right a smidge after shooting that group and shot a couple more to check windage - dead on and looked like it was making the same size group. I only had 20 rounds to shoot and I shot some at 50 yards before moving the backer to 100.

It shot my Lee 240 SWCGC bullet loads (about 1800 fps) about the same as the 300 XTP's - only at 50 yards.... and a lot higher point of impact - about 8" at 50 yards. Only a little lead "dust" in the bore when I cleaned it later. I'd be showing you that target too but the yahoos that came to shoot next to me were shooting through their 50 yard target and hitting my 100 yard board :roll: They stopped when I informed them that they were getting too much for their money... "huh?, oh sorry man". Makes you wonder...

I also tried some of my 250 grain keith bullet 44 Special loads (8 grains of Unique) which should have been clocking around 1100 fps but they dropped a foot or more from the 300 grain point of impact at 100 yards and I couldn't get a fix on where they were landing and if they were making a group or what... have to try that again next trip at 50 yards....

Bottom line, I'm very pleased. The round circles of the target just sat on top of the front post when sighting - pretty dinky looking at 100 yards with the XS sights... I bet I could improve this some with a scope mounted but this is keeping its XS sights.

Next trip, I'll be testing the 240 Grain XTP's. Interestingly, my Hornady manual notes that the 265 and 300 grain XTP's are for deer and the 240's for "small game" ??? I can't imagine the 240's not completely penetrating a whitetail through the chest from just about any reasonable angle...

OSOK:

I was at the range today with my 1894ss and retried 2 loads. The first was EXACTLY the same as you mentioned. I mean exactly. The result was certainly usable group like yours but I had excellent luck before with a bit lighter loadings.

The second was a retry of a previous sojourn to the range a few months back. That load was a (Hornady pistol section max load) of 300gr XTP 19.0gr 296/Win brass/WLP primer & 3/4 turn in on the Lee factory crimp die. Heavy bullet load development done...

Here is a pix of the result from today:

http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/...ds/?action=view&current=DSC01764.jpg

The rifle is a bone stock 1894ss with a 2.5x Leupold ultralight scope in Leupold QRW rings.

If you like lead plinker bullets that will double on deer and the like try 9-10 of either Unique or Herco (someone gave me a pound to try) in pretty much any old brass topped by either a Laser Cast 240gr RNFP or a Missouri Bullet co 240 RNFP with a moderate crimp. Light recoil, pretty consistent and decent enough power for short range deer. While it wouldn't be my first choice in loads it will get the job done.

Be safe
Patty

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Some fine shooting, Patty.

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240 XTPs out of a carbine are definite deer medicine, no question about it. My brother took my little Rossi out and killed three deer with three shots, no problems at all, and big, heavy deer, too. He tried to steal the rifle from me...............

Now that's pretty neat... Would make an excellent match for my .44 mag revolver...

Very nice job on that 1894 of yours, OSOK. The hand guard looks waaaay better than the factory one and I really like peeps on lever guns. I used to own a blued 1894 .44Mag many years ago and traded it away in a moment of stupidity. But I recently came into possesion of a Marlin 1894SS .44Mag from winning first prize at a raffle we put together at work to raise money for charity...

After cleaning the bore, I went into the back yard and shot a few Remington 240gr factory loads through it just for fun. Wow I'd forgotten how much fun these are to shoot! All I need to do is pick up an XS peep for it and I'll be set. With the checkered stocks on this model, I won't be sanding down the fore arm however so I'll have to live with it but I think I can get used to that.

I got a deer last year with my '1973' vintage Marlin octagon using the 240 gr. XTP. The shot was to close to brag about tho.
My rifle is so near 'mint' that I don't know if I could 'slim
down' the fore-end. I'm even concerned about possibly putting
a receiver sight on, as it is only my 'short range, extra deer'
rifle. I guess I could get an extra fore-end and do a 'shade
tree' number on it.

Carving a whole fore arm is not that hard. Don't see how Marlin can call it a 94 with that fat piece of wood out there. I redid stock and fore arm on mine to make it look like a 94

Just bought/traded for one last week as well.
My own range report from this weekend would concur.

Hornady LEVERevolution 225 GR.
1973 Marlin 1894 44 Rem mag.
Lyman 66LA Peep rear, factory original post and bead front
Slight approaching right wind on the range.
Rainy and misty, 66 F

First shot @ 100 yards (Hunter's Safety kids had the short ranges reserved until noon): 6 inches high 8 inches right.
Brought it in to 3 high and on the centerline. (The lowest arc on the peep wasn't low enough to bring it down). 5 clean round holes inside the 10" ring with Kentucky windage. No keyholing.

After finding my screwdriver and drawing back the stop screw on the peep and getting it down a little further, the 40 yard range opened up, and I got a nice group about the size of a soda can just high and right of center. Minute of Deer will be good enough for thick Wisconsin woods.

Took it back to the 100 yard range. Placement was only about an inch and a half lower than at 40.

With reach and patterns like that...I'm not even going to bother with handloads.